Cincinnati Enquirer

Have you committed a sin in your bathroom? A design sin, that is . . .

Bathrooms are botched more than any other room in the house. Whether it is from an unwillingness to spend the time and money to do it right, or having inept or inexperienced people doing the work, many folks unknowingly commit deadly bathroom design sins.

Follow the tips of Fine Homebuilding’s annual Kitchens & Baths issue and avoid the following seven bathroom design sins:

Inadequate waterproofing. Bathrooms are wet rooms first, design showcases second. Every aspect of the planning and construction of bathrooms should take water exposure into account. If the waterproofing bill isn’t at least 5-10 percent of the job cost, someone is cutting corners or doesn’t know what they’re doing.

Slippery floors. Shine is fine for faucets, but it’s bad for bathroom floors. Glossy tile and polished stone make for slippery, unsafe floors. These materials cause lots of falls, and they’re maintenance headaches, too, revealing every scratch and wearing unevenly.

No natural light. Our ancestors were so grateful to have indoor plumbing, they didn’t need ambience. But nowadays, people expect a lot more from a bathroom. The tiny, damp, and dingy interior bathroom with a little round light fixture in the ceiling is old-school. Admittedly, lack of natural light is a sin in any room, but bathrooms feel particularly creepy without natural light.

Boring tile. Plain-Jane tile represents a lost opportunity for personal expression, or simply for visual interest. Taking the trouble to design with various colors or sizes costs almost nothing extra. Anything is better than a blanket of 4×4 white tile.

Bad math. Math is important in bathrooms because space is usually at a premium; every inch matters. Errors in math lead to glaring tile-layout problems, shower stalls and toilet alcoves that don’t meet code minimums, faucet handles banging into backsplashes, oversize pedestal sinks that interfere with door clearance and gaps between toilet tank and wall.

Bathrooms in the kitchen. People will stick powder rooms anywhere. One place is particularly egregious, though: A bathroom should not open directly into a kitchen. Try to prevent a bathroom door from opening into a kitchen, or to avoid placing a toilet so that it’s visible from the kitchen.

Toilets facing the door. You know how those little push-button door locks sometimes don’t catch? For that reason alone, don’t place a toilet facing the bathroom door. In a small bathroom, the toilet should be perpendicular to the doorway and visually screened.