Having house guests? Dress bath to impress

By Dan Howley | Albany Times Union • Published August 23, 2008

If you really want to impress your house guests, look no further than your bathroom. With some thoughtful decorating and accessorizing, you can transform your bathroom from a bland facilities center to a private oasis, a warm, soothing refuge where anything your guests desire will be at their fingertips.

And to create such a room doesn't require a major renovation. You can give your bathroom a luxurious ambience with hand-picked appointments that will give all your visitors the impression you use exotic soaps and bath salts every day.

"Since bathrooms contain so many cold, hard surfaces, it's essential that you soften them up a bit with yummy textiles," home-decorating author Mary Carol Garrity said in a Scripps Howard News Service article. "Start with the floor. Forgo the rubber-backed bathmat and spoil yourself with a gorgeous area rug, perhaps a classic Persian or a funky shag."

That's precisely one of the touches that add to the warmth of the guest bathrooms at the Brunswick Bed & Breakfast in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where impressing guests is the whole idea.

"Our bathmats are thick, looped cotton without the rubber," said Brunswick innkeeper Kirk Nichols. "They are safe, plush, easy to wash and add warmth."

Nichols said it's important that your bathroom decor coincide with the home's decor, which in the Brunswick's case is an early 1900s motif.

If you take your cue from a place like the Brunswick, your guest bathrooms could also include customized amenity trays with two soap types, a goat's milk soap for showering and a glycerin soap for face and hands; conditioning shampoos; and hand lotion. You could even add a shoe shine mitt to the vanity pack, which is standard fare at the Brunswick.

Other special touches at the Brunswick include mirrors set in ornate, period picture frames and framed, black-and-white, historic pictures from the city's past on the walls.

"They give the bathrooms character," Nichols said.

You could also adopt a few of the guest bathroom touches found at the quaint Old Stone House Inn in Altamont, N.Y., an early 1700s farm house converted to a bed and breakfast five years ago by Bill Turner and his wife, Nancy.