The Interior Designer in Kenya today is viewed less as someone who will fix curtains and tell what colours to paint walls to more of a professional consultant. Current trends seem to support growth for Interior Designers in Kenya.
In my practice as an interior designer, I have been exposed to a wide range of designs and I have noted that one can actually focus their attentions to certain aspects of interiors like Kitchen Design, Bathroom Design, Furniture Design, Fabric Design – for upholstery and soft furnishings – and a lot more.
When I walk into a room, I always appreciate what is in the space if only to understand what the people who own these spaces are like or what was the idea behind what has been put together.
As I experience different spaces, one of my pet spaces is the bathroom, be it a hotel, house or public restroom.
I have used a number of bathrooms in various places and one that I have noted as a well done piece of interior architecture is the common bathroom at the Skyteam Lounge at Terminal 4 Heathrow Airport.
The designer of this bathroom pushed the limits by working well with glass partitions to come up with a breathtaking lighting effect. This is miles away from the usual MDF partitioned or block walled bathrooms.
When it comes to putting bathrooms together, there is a lot of thought that goes into the layout and materials. It is not just placing the bathtub, toilet and wash hand basin in the drawing. It takes a three dimensional thought process of how the tiles will be laid, should there be a border or highlight tile, where the fixtures and fittings will be placed, the type of lighting to be used.
My pet peeve in bathrooms is when the floor tile does not line up with the wall tile, this happens when the floor tile is not the same size; at least on two of the sides as the wall tile or vise versa. My solution would always be to lay the floor tile or the wall tile in a diagonal when they are not the same size.
Sometimes, the simpler the tile and more concentration on the usable features of a washroom seem to make the bathrooms or washrooms sing. Choice of fixtures and fittings are also very critical, for example, I would look at the general shape.
Are we going with rounded fittings or a square look and feel? With proper coordination of the bathroom fixtures in terms of location and fitting, the better your bathroom would look.
Have a fun filled time exploring bathrooms.
The author is an interior designer
