House series #12: The Bathroom

      In my old house, to take a shower I walked out the back door to the deck, then down the stairs to my outdoor, weather-exposed shower. There, in view of Humpy Mountain, in snow, ice, sun, morning mist, fog, and wind, under apple blossoms in the spring and in candlelight on dark winter mornings, I took my shower. Wind was the only weather that bothered me. 

            When it came time to design the bathroom for my new house, I told Ela, “I’ve been showering outside for forty years. Don’t put me in a little enclosed space for my bathroom.”

            He didn't. The bathroom he designed is one of the most beautiful rooms in the house. The shower head is on the wall, European style, instead of over a tub or in a stall, and it is plumbed to the outside wall where another shower head gives me an outdoor shower. 

I have showered indoors only three times in the six years I’ve been in the house: once to try it out, twice because of the wind.

            But bathing indoors is as much a treat as showering outdoors. The bathtub sits under two large windows. I can see, from my bath or from the toilet, foxes crossing through the woods and deer tiptoeing into my zen garden. If I am going to have visitors, as, for instance, on my seventieth birthday party, I put up curtains. Otherwise, there is no immodesty in bathing in the woods.

            Decorating the bathroom was the second of my artistic contributions to the house. (The first was the wood-burned quotations on the risers). Once I had decided to use a water motif, I started collecting things: two tiny handmade glass fish from a crafts fair, tiles the colors of water, handmade ceramic tiles from the Habitat for Humanities Re-store with sea shells and starfish and trout. One friend gave me four tiles that fit together to make a picture of water irises. Another friend gave me two dozen little glass fish left over from constructing her own creative bathroom. I went to the Goodwill looking for something with fish on it and was ecstatic to find, instead, stained-glass swimmers. I wasn’t sure how I would use all this, but I had a theme, so I bought a water saw for cutting the tiles and went to work.

            My original idea was to make an elaborate mosaic of a pond with water grasses and fish and maybe an otter, but after I made, tore apart, and remade a water lily for the counter by the sink, I simplified by about a hundred degrees. The shell tiles would go at the bottom of all the walls. From there, I would set tiles cut in wavy shapes, dark blue to lighter colors. The subtly decorated white tiles would go above the windows, like clouds. The little glass fish would swim in two schools deep in the “sea.” The swimmers would swim at the top of the water all in a row all along the tub and the wall.

            I was learning as I worked, so I had to tear out some parts and redo them. My two-year-old granddaughter glued some glass fish on the wall. To add to the decorative arts in the bathroom, my son made me a towel rack and a toilet paper holder. A pair of shutters from my childhood home enhances the mirror and medicine cabinet.

            I love my bathroom. Showering outdoors is pure pleasure as is, equally, bathing indoors.