I've wanted this for seven years.
I told you guys before how I want my clawfoot tub to have flames on it (fast, not cauldron) and a steering wheel instead of hot and cold faucets and a throttle for volume control. I'm thinking a deep red, with classic yellow/orange flames on the outside and silver ghost flames on the inside. Or maybe a deep blue background. I'm not thinking eagle or wolf head fade to flames. Well, I just called the powdercoat place for a quote. He was surprisingly chill about it. Flames on my tub? No problem. At this point, I think I am more likely to do this than not.
The prospect of having my tub gone for two to four weeks raises a bunch of questions. Obviously, that's when I should replace the toilet, which needs it. And... I might as well replace the neutral linoleum. Neutral just doesn't carry its weight at my house. My sister's valuable suggestion was that I should make the new linoleum look like a road - all deep grey with an intermittant line of yellow dividers. Shit. I wonder if I could score some Botts' Dots. The CalTrans building is only a block away. Surely for something so important, they would help a fellow state employee.
My sister also raised the point that I should take this opportunity to get rid of the shower curtain. I agreed it is getting skanky and I should replace it. She said "No, no." She is over shower curtains and shower doors entirely; she thinks the answer is a force field of some kind. I can almost picture a pressure system, that blows all shower water back into the tub from all directions, but I can't think of another curtainless/doorless option. Suggestions?
Anyway, I'm a little surprised that I am contemplating ripping out my bathroom just to get flames on my tub. But, FLAMES on my TUB!! It would be so worth it. I would be happy every single day that I took a shower in my fast, fast clawfoot tub. And my nephews would love it. It would postpone the "why don't you have a tv" conversation for several years. And if my guests came over and were bored, they could take a shower in a FLAMES TUB. Or we could just sit and look at it and sigh from pure happiness.
The prospect of having my tub gone for two to four weeks raises a bunch of questions. Obviously, that's when I should replace the toilet, which needs it. And... I might as well replace the neutral linoleum. Neutral just doesn't carry its weight at my house. My sister's valuable suggestion was that I should make the new linoleum look like a road - all deep grey with an intermittant line of yellow dividers. Shit. I wonder if I could score some Botts' Dots. The CalTrans building is only a block away. Surely for something so important, they would help a fellow state employee.
My sister also raised the point that I should take this opportunity to get rid of the shower curtain. I agreed it is getting skanky and I should replace it. She said "No, no." She is over shower curtains and shower doors entirely; she thinks the answer is a force field of some kind. I can almost picture a pressure system, that blows all shower water back into the tub from all directions, but I can't think of another curtainless/doorless option. Suggestions?
Anyway, I'm a little surprised that I am contemplating ripping out my bathroom just to get flames on my tub. But, FLAMES on my TUB!! It would be so worth it. I would be happy every single day that I took a shower in my fast, fast clawfoot tub. And my nephews would love it. It would postpone the "why don't you have a tv" conversation for several years. And if my guests came over and were bored, they could take a shower in a FLAMES TUB. Or we could just sit and look at it and sigh from pure happiness.
posted by Megan at 12:04 PM
30 Comments:
No shower curtain is really tempting. Opaque shower curtains are one of my irrational fears; I won't buy them and avoid them at other people's houses.
I like a bathroom that is entirely tiled and has no dividers for the shower, just a drain (more like a lockerroom shower). I also like a shower with an overhead showerhead, so the water isn't angled. But I can't arrange either of those things for my bathtub. So I need you to design the water repelling forcefield that lets me go without a shower curtain.
Refrigerated food cases have air curtains, that keep the cold air inside from mixing with the warm air outside by blowing a vertical sheet of air defining the plane of the case, if I recall correctly. I don't know if it would work to keep shower water in the tub.
Too breezy for the bathroom, I think. Maybe the only way to forget the shower curtain is to literally forget it, take down the hanging assembly, and it just isn't there at all. Then, instead of a regular shower head, you put in one of those hand-held things so you can control -- nah, wait, never mind. That's not going to work either, because it will probably get water all over the place by accident.
If you got a clear shower curtain with some kind of theme-sensitive design, like smoke clouds at one end corresponding to the exhaust pipe on the tub?
As for the powdercoating, you should definitely do a mockup with paint first to make sure you get the design just right. At the very least, send me a picture of the tub and I can photoshop something for you.
Your nephews seem precocious so I don't think it would forestall anything. More likely it would just give rise to, "If you had a TV you'd have some friends to take baths with" type observations.
Having a wet room -- something like http://www.diywetroom.com/ -- is kind of at odds with having a bathtub at all. Or you could turn the bathroom into a wet room and relocate the clawfoot tub to the living room. (A friend of mine had an apartment in Portland that had a bath tub in the middle of the room for reasons no one could ever figure out.)
Why can't you have an overhead shower?
I'm so jealous of your clawfoot tub, flamed or otherwise. I don't see one in my future. All the houses out here are new and have tubs built into them. Some of the tubs are very nice, with whirlpools and such, but none are freestanding with clawed feet. And it would be so, so impractical and offensive to resale to rip the bathroom up to install a clawfoot tub. So this little pipe dream will have to go the way of my geodesic dome fantasy.
I see a shower squeegee in my future.
Oooh! Dubin, would you do a mock-up OF MY TUB?
I have to pick flames, and I'm not sure which. Classic, I think. Not tribal. I don't know how stylized they should be.
It looks like any other clawfoot.
Justus:
I don't think I could have a wetroom (I haven't clicked your link, but I will in a sec) would work in my bathroom, but if I had one, I wouldn't have a tub.
Then I could move my beautiful, perfect FLAMES TUB into the living room and put plants in it. Which would hide the interior ghost flames, but I would know they were there.
Justus:
Sorta like that, but not modern looking. Hexagonal tiling up to chest level and then the horizontal tile line that all the deco bathrooms have. Then no divider between the shower and the rest of the room.
I guess I could have an overhead showerhead. Clearly my new tub/shower needs more thought.
I hope you are not overlooking the creative possibilities of your toilet replacement.
I know it looks like any other clawfoot. But if you took a photo of it at an appealing angle, I could photoshop the stuff on it so you could see what it would look like IN YOUR BATHROOM!!!
Water is diamagnetic. So all you need is a really strong magnetic field pointing into or out of your shower area.
Really strong.
HAH! My sister sent me a disapproving email because I didn't mention a magnetic force field. But since we're all water and stuff, wouldn't we have to shower all pulled against the really strong magnet?
Sounds like a great idea, but I like the flames for a Kitchen-Aid mixer, too.
People I know without shower curtains have some sort of wall they step around to get into the shower. That won't work as well for your tub, because you *need* to see the flames. However, I don't understand why a wet room (which I never heard of before today) is not conformable with a tub. Isn't it just a waterproof room that happens to have a tub in it?
I hope, however that your house has more than one bathroom. I never saw the point until I did some work that that took a couple of days to fix.
A4
Ok, conceptually I like the idea of flooring using Botts' Dots, but you've got to figure that would be uncomfortable after a while. I for one would be stubbing my toes all the time.
You could always paint the floor with that thick, probably lead-based stuff with embedded glass beads they use for lane striping in some states. If nothing else you could use it to remove foot callouses, even if the aesthetic would be blah.
So THAT'S what those weird bumps in the middle of California highways are called!
I did think of stubbed toes, but the effect! And to get real Botts' Dots! Maybe I could score the blue reflective ones that mark fire hydrants. To MATCH A BLUE TUB! I could just die.
Opaque shower curtains are one of my irrational fears; I won't buy them and avoid them at other people's houses.
Perhaps a non-opaque shower curtain? While it's not as cool as a force field, it doesn't require new physics or a huge electromagnet.
Wait, I get it now, you've currently got a non-opaque shower curtain, right?
Maybe you could set up a showerhead in your backyard.
I myself am fine with my clear shower curtain. It is my sister who is looking for a water containing force field.
Funny that you should mention a backyard shower. I LOVE an outdoor shower. It is on the list of things that turned out to be a thousand percent better than I expected and now covet. There is no privacy in any part of my yard, but if I move to a place with a private yard, an outdoor shower would be a luxury I would stay grateful for.
Here you go, a shower for your yard.
Shower curtains are good though. They trap the warm air, so you can stay warm in the shower. Without some kind of divider you'll be all cold anytime you're not directly under the water.
I had a great one in college, it had fish swimming around on it, with cute little kitty cats in snorkeling gear chasing them.
Justin
No - a plumbed shower with hot and cold water. Although, it would be good to use a cistern for that, because rainwater is so amazingly soft. And in the summer here, you don't want hot water.
It took me about a year of puzzling to figure out what the blue reflective markers on the street signal.
I used to see loose Botts' dots on the side of the road fairly often. If you didn't mind beat up ones, you could start a collection.
"But since we're all water and stuff, wouldn't we have to shower all pulled against the really strong magnet?"
This would be good for older people who tend to fall in the bathtub. I'm thinking the magnetism could be toggled with the Clapper when the shower is over.
Not sure exactly what sort of device would do this, but could you have something that utilizes pressure differentials to keep the water in the tub? Some method of keeping the pressure outside of the tub higher than the pressure inside the tub? I don't think it would have to an uncomfortable pressure difference to keep small drops of water contained. Certainly more comfortable than having all the iron in your blood sucked out via large electromagnet.
--mith
The perfect flooring choice for your bathroom is that epoxy paint you see so often in high end garages....the gray stuff with little flecks in it...
In fact, why not a garage themed bathroom? You've got the hot rod bathtub with flames aleady and you WILL post pics when it's done...to finish off, you could make the sink basin and cabinets out of a rolling tool chest type of thing and get a checkered flag shower curtain.
But how are you gonna work in your awesome speakers?
And would this be too NASCARy for you?
Then I could move my beautiful, perfect FLAMES TUB into the living room and put plants in it.
A co-op I lived in in college had a clawfoot tub full of cushions in the living room. A surprisingly comfortable piece of lounging furniture.
Jon,
Ali and I were talking last night. If the floor is a street with lanes and my tub is very fast, a STOP sign and the street signs for my intersection will have to magically appear somehow. It is extremely fortunate that I have no good taste to hold me back.
You know, my bathroom is not that big. I bet Botts' Dots would be pretty out of scale.
Actually, the diamagnetic materials are repelled by the magnetic field. You'll recall the levitating frog?
Worst case scenario, you're stably trapped in the center of the tub. No more falling over. Of course, fewer recreational opportunities, but all of life is a compromise.
You could get a safety shower and feel like you're in the lab...
What I really want is one with multiple heads (front and back plus top)... sooo luxurious.
The claw foot bathtub with flames in the living room is truly inspiring. If you are actually taking a shower in it then flames on it seems not quite right like bad feng shui or something. Maybe lightning bolts would be more harmonious.
On the other hand nobody has ever suggested I should be an interior decorator, and some have made remarks that would suggest otherwise.
Bertram
Megan
Love the idea of crossroads and a stop sign - or at worst some construction cones - those would be great....instead of Botts dots tho - how about some buttons or something similar to scale? The raised texture would be absolutely key....
Alternatively - make the road scale to tub size - instead of having many lanes, just have half a lane - a "do not pass" double yellow w/ the full sized dots right thru the middle of the bathroom and then a stop sign on the wall of the bath - 'cuz you wouldn't want to have a stop sign in your bedroom - that might be too intimidating...
But you still haven't told us about the flames - are we talking more modern style thin, green type or classic yellow and red? Is the tub going to be black or stay white? What about inside? Flames on the inside would make the morning shower endlessly sigh worthy and you might not want to ever come back out
perhaps the force field could actually be a sheet of water that pours down. putting your hand in it would cause it to splash, but water cascading down might be enough to stop water drops from splashing out from a shower head
Post a Comment
<< Home