[.ca] The Bathroom Idea Book (ISBN 1561583944)

From Amazon.com:
As its name suggests, The Bathroom Idea Book is all about ideas. In fact, anyone who views the book's 400 color photos will have clearer ideas about what they absolutely love, simply appreciate and definitely detest in bathroom design. Andrew Wormer has done an excellent job of covering enough ground to make this book useful for both the do-it-yourselfer and the homeowner who wants to paint a clear picture for an architect or a builder. Just about every bathroom style and option is covered and beautifully photographed, from antique fixtures (pedestal sinks, clawfoot tubs), to modern luxuries (a shower with a bubbling footbath and eight adjustable body and hydromassage jets), to high-tech touches (a cascading waterfall shower digitally controlled by a thermostatic valve and 10 massaging body jets), to the low-frill and durable (installing an acrylic liner over your old, battered tub). The book would be even more useful if Wormer devoted additional space to the costs of the sometimes sensible, sometimes spacious and sometimes glorious bathrooms we see. He does offer a few paragraphs on general price ranges and helps the reader understand what drives up costs (moving fixtures and walls), but this book ultimately is about dreaming, not budgeting. Read it to imagine how your bathroom could look, then worry about the price. This is not to suggest that the book lacks helpful planning tips. Overhead drawings on many pages give you a sense of the rest of the bathroom that can't be captured in a photo. And Wormer offers options for one of the trickier challenges when trying to improve the most frequently remodeled room in the house--finding more space. Among his ideas is annexing space from an adjoining area, such as a closet or hallway. Readers of The Bathroom Idea Book will find that even if their dream bathroom isn't pictured, they will be able to mix-and-match and combine features from various photos to get a good idea of what they can do. --John Russell

great for the professional as well as the novice:
This text has many wonderful photos to inspire the professional. It is also full of basic info homeowners can use. It is not too technical, but covers most of the features needed in a bathroom.

NO IDEAS:
Being in the home improvement business, I felt odd needing ideas when it came time to upgrade the bathrooms in my own home. Perhaps making a living building the bathroom of everyone elses dreams helped to fog the picture of what I wanted my own to be. Taunton Publishing puts out a trade magazine that I swear by. So when I decided to purchase a book on bathrooms I thought I couldnt go wrong with this one. How wrong I was. This book is little more than a collection of photographs of high end and ultra high end bathrooms. Here in my neck of the woods a complete bath renovation ranges in cost from between ten and fifteen thousand dollars for an average bath. Very few of the rooms displayed in this book would make that budget. Aside from the introduction there is almost no text to assist the "reader" in understanding requirements or even necessaties pryor to planning a bath remodel. Perhaps the fact that I am in this line of work colors my opinion of the book, but if photos qualify as ideas, Id recomend picking up a few magazines on bath remodeling and get a fuller picture.

I gave it a star for every idea it gave me:
That's why there are only two stars! First idea, the shape of a single cupboard. The second idea, a way to add counter space over a toilet. That's it. I guess I could have gotten both from any other magazine on the shelf for a lot less than I paid for this silly picture book filled with pictures of _pieces_ of bathrooms. A more appropriate title would have been: Bathroom Parts Picture Book A guide to bathrooms for those who can't read. The most I'll get from this book is the enjoyment my children will receive from cutting out the pictures for their paper dolls.

Everyone will pick up at least a few ideas from this book:
I found this book to be very helpful, as we are currently in the midst of re-doing 3 bathrooms. For our large bathroom, we will incorporate a number of ideas that we hadn't thought of previously. This book is exactly what it claims to be - an "idea" book. There are tons of pictures, all beautifully photographed. I usually get this type of book out of the library, but I'm happy I invested in this one. It's definitely worth the money, and a wonderful reference guide.

A Must See & Read for New Bathrooms or Bath Renovations!!!:
An incredible amount of information with beautiful pictures of how to plan a new bath / shower OR how to update / remodel an existing bath....Hundreds of illustrations that can be incorporated into any bath depending on budget and desire...