Luxurious Baths Give Your Bathroom A Makeover With A Few Basic Ideas From Martha Stewart

The house I grew up in had one bathroom for eight people. With someone else always waiting in line, there was never enough time for a long, relaxing bath. The bathroom was the most utilitarian room in the house there was nothing luxurious about it.

Ever since then, making the bathroom a place for pampering has been a priority for me. Natural light, large windows, beautiful fixtures and a spacious bath and shower are the essentials.

Here are some ideas for making your bathrooms among the most attractive, comfortable rooms in the house.

The basics

Before renovating a bathroom, think about how you want to use it. For example, when I designed my master bathroom, I wanted a big, old-fashioned, claw-foot tub for indulgent soaks and a roomy glass stall for quick showers.

If two people need to primp at once, double sinks seem not so much a nicety as a necessity. Safety is always a consideration, so you can have a tub with a wide ledge or step to make it easy to get in and out of.

White is my favorite color for almost any bathroom. It is crisp and clean, airy and inviting. I generally start out with white walls. I also like wood, white-tile or marble floors and a white sink and tub. I look for fixtures with elegant but utilitarian design, such as a pedestal sink with wide edges to set toiletries on.

Wonderful fittings are also important. I love knobs and faucets with an old-fashioned look - and installing new fittings happens to be one of the easiest ways to update your bathroom. It’s worth spending a little more on good-quality fixtures and fittings, which will last for years and won’t go out of style. They make a perfect backdrop against which a few exquisite decorating details stand out.

The details

Great accessories - the soap dish, a container for cotton balls, monogrammed linen hand towels - give a bathroom its personality. This is also how you can add color to the room.

Just because something wasn’t meant for the bathroom doesn’t mean it can’t be used there. Try replacing a standard medicine cabinet with something more special, such as an ornate gilded mirror. Or hang towels from vintage coat hooks.

Here are just a few of the things I’ve use to decorate my bathrooms:

An assortment of pretty blue Depression glassware to hold cotton balls and swabs.

A 1930s farmhouse pastry table with white painted legs and a zinc top, which serves as my dressing table.

An old ebonized mirror meant for the foyer; the pegs, used originally for hanging hats, now hold hand towels.

A vintage metal doctor’s cabinet, refinished in white enamel, in which I keep towels.

A cast-iron plant stand, which holds sponges and attractive bottles of liquid soap.

Little luxuries

Treat yourself to your favorite soaps and bath potions. Make sure you always have enough thick, fluffy towels to wrap up in; once they start looking a little tattered, retire them to cleaning duty.

And, whenever possible, have a small arrangement of fresh flowers in the bathroom - you’ll be amazed by what they do for your mood.

Custom-made shower curtain

The shower curtain makes a strong statement, so it should be one you love. Make it yourself, and it will be.

The color-block curtain in the accompanying photo, made of panels of linen, brightens up any bathroom.

Metal grommets are sturdy, good-looking reinforcements for the holes for shower-curtain rings; grommets, and the tools to install them, are available at hardware and sewing stores.

The free-standing tub in the photo requires two curtains, but most need just one. Below you’ll find the dimensions for one curtain for this tub; you’ll need to adjust them to fit your tub. In general, a shower curtain should be 1 times wider and about 4 inches longer than the space you want to cover. Since you need to use a plastic liner with a cloth curtain, you can use that as your template.

1. This curtain was made from three panels of fabric. The top panel, of orange linen, is 48 by 74 inches; the middle panel, in pink, is 18 by 74 inches; the bottom panel, in brown, is 23 by 74 inches.

Cut out the pieces of fabric in the appropriate sizes for your tub.

2. Join the bottom two panels in a French seam: Pin them with wrong sides together and sew with a 1/4-inch seam; flip the fabric back over the seam so the right sides are together; sew a 5/8-inch seam that encloses the first seam. Add top panel in the same way.

3. Fold, press and stitch 1-inch hems on each side. Fold, press and stitch a 3-inch hem at the bottom, and a 1-1/2-inch hem at the top.

4. Use a pencil to mark the spots where you want the grommets to be. Put them in according to the package instructions.

MEMO: Questions should be addressed to Martha Stewart, care of The New York Times Syndication Sales Corp., 122 E. 42nd St., New York, N.Y. 10168. Questions may also be sent to Stewart by electronic mail. Her address is: mstewart@marthastewart.com.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Martha Stewart New York Times Syndicate