These Bathroom Sinks
Show Their Softer Side
July 8, 2003 -- The showstopper on interior designer Victoria DiNardo's tour of her home isn't the marble dining-room table or the Viking stove in the kitchen. It's the basin in her master bath. Resting on a sleek steel base, it's made of mahogany -- yes, wood -- polished to a soft luster. "It's just so striking," says Ms. DiNardo, who spotted the Aquaware fixture at a trade show and decided to get one for herself.
The latest trend on tap in high-end baths is wood, as homeowners looking to set themselves apart shell out for tubs and basins of mahogany, teak and even birch. While the number of sales are still small -- Aquaware has sold about 1,400 of its Structure wood basins world-wide in the last three years -- the wood fixtures do cost as much as $10,000 apiece, after all. Even at that price, Italian maker Agape, which just launched a double tub, says it's had to turn down retailers looking to carry its wood line.
Analysts say the move to wood is all part of the current focus on the bath as a place for pampering and relaxation. And it's not only about fixtures, with makers rolling out everything from wooden bathing benches to $275 bathmats made of teak links. "Traditionally the bath has been a sterile environment with hard, impervious surfaces like porcelain and tile," says Jim Krengel, spokesman for the National Kitchen and Bath Association, a trade group. "Wood adds warmth to the space."
Maybe, but it's also naturally porous, which means it expands when wet, contracts when dry and is prone to warping in wet surroundings. "I'd be interested in talking to someone who had one of these for six or eight years," says Mr. Krengel.
Makers say wood is not a problem, and that the products can handle the water because they've been specially treated. Top Impex's larch versions, for instance, are made from lumber that's been aged for two years, then put in a drying chamber for an additional two weeks. After all that, the pieces are glued together, the fixtures are impregnated with wax (to protect against "blue fungus stain and rotting," says the company) and then coated with a hard-wax oil.
Still, you can't exactly break out the Comet when it's time to clean. In fact, some of the new fixtures need to be pretty pampered themselves. Agape suggests not only rubbing its wenge-stained oak tub with hard-wax oil a few times a year, but toweling it off after every bath.
Sabine Girond says she hasn't had to go that far with her Agape wood tub. In fact, her biggest problem was having to wait eight months for delivery because of a production problem overseas (the company says it's since been corrected). "So far everything seems fine," says the Palo Alto, Calif., surgeon. "Knock on wood."
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