When doing up a bathroom, apart from the obvious expenses of flooring and wall tiles and a new bathroom suite including toilet, pedestal sink or a basin in a vanity unit or storage cupboard, shower and or bath, there are a lot of smaller items that also need to be considered but that can add a significant amount to your budget when added together.
If you have decided to have a shower over the bath, whether it’s to save space or because there isn’t room for a freestanding shower as well as a bathtub, one particular accessory you will need to purchase to prevent water spraying out into the bathroom is a shower curtain rail.
There is a lot of choice in plumbers merchants, bathroom shops and DIY stores, and even the likes of IKEA, when it comes to shower curtain rails. The main limitation you have is the position of your bath dictating which sort of rail you can choose to fit. Shower curtain rods, like shower curtains themselves, are available in different materials, but are most commonly available in either white or grey plastic or chrome.
Straight shower curtain rails
If your bath is positioned between two walls, it is quite easy to find a shower curtain rail which will fit neatly between the two walls, screwing in at either end of the bath to provide a secure hanging rail for your PVC or polyester shower curtain.
‘L’ shaped shower curtain rails
If your bath is positioned in a corner of your room but does not have a second wall at the other end, straight rails will not be practical as there is nothing to fix the second end of the rail into. This is where an ‘L’ shaped shower curtain rail can come in handy. ‘L’ shaped rails, as the name suggests, have a bend in them so they can follow the shape of your bath and be fixed to the wall the back of your bath runs along.
Although there are ‘L’ shaped shower curtain rails on the market that just fix into each wall, it is advisable to choose a rail which has a third support, usually screwed into the ceiling. It is best to try and screw this into a joist or stud running in the ceiling above, but if this is not possible, the additional support should still be enough to prevent the rail from pulling out of the wall or dropping under the weight of the shower curtain, especially when it gets wet.
According to projections made in exhibits at the Ideal Home Show 2010, bathrooms, and indeed other rooms in our homes, are likely to incorporate a great deal more technology including innovative products that take advantage of wireless broadband connections.