BRIGHTER BATHROOMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1019, 9 July 1930, Page 6

BRIGHTER BATHROOMS

LESSON TAUGHT BY ANCIENT ROMANS Colour schemes in these days are always with us—schemes for the dining room, the breakfast room, and the bedroom, but why is it, since we spend possibly an hour out of each 24 within it, that we pay so little attention to our bathrooms? So ugly, so comfortless, they often are, even in otherwise comfortable and artistically planned homes, that we run quickly in, for the morning tub or shower, and as quickly out again, thinking about our surroundings meanwhile as little as we can. And this is quite a wrong attitude for a bathroom to foster. It should be essentially a place which is mentally and physically pleasing and restful — not, merely a room set aside for the purpose of hurried ablutions. Particularly when taken at night, a hot bath, with quiet, soothing surroundings added to the soothing effect of the batli itself, is an invaluable aid to the poor sleeper. When indulged in in the evening before dinner, it is an incomparable stimulant aud refreshment after the day’s work. Have not great ideas been conceived in a restful bath, on many occasions, when body and brain alike were relaxed? We can call to mind at once the Greek, Archimedes, but his case is probably far from being the only one. Tho wealthy old Romans, wise in their generation, made a social function of the bath hour, which was always passed in beautiful, luxurious surroundings—of which the remains of the various baths to be seen in Rome, in France, and in England today are good and sufficient proof.