Just like kitchen faucets, the variety of bathroom faucet styles and finishes can get dizzying. When shopping for your perfect faucet, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Start with the type of handles you prefer, such as one or two handles, think about your personal style and personality. Give some thought to the finish you want and does it complement your existing bathroom fixtures? Will the faucet you choose fit easily into your current bathroom sink or will you have to hire a plumber or call your Uncle Bob to install it? Lastly, think about how much George Washington you want to spend. Do your research and read what you get in the box, some manufacturers package the bathroom faucet separately from the handles, so you may need to purchase the faucet handles separately. Those sneaky manufacturers! There is nothing like receiving a nice gift for yourself and discovering that there are only two thirds of it.
The difference in the price of some faucets isn’t how they look on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and that doesn’t just apply to faucets! Some faucets look great at first but soon begin to leak due to the plastic parts inside. This means that you will have to put in the effort and spend money that you should have spent on a quality faucet in the first place. Again, do your homework and call the customer service department if necessary to find out what exactly you’re getting.
Now, I’ll break down the most popular styles so you can get a better idea of what’s out there. Oh, by the way, or by the way, for all you youngsters, the proper term for sink faucet is sink faucet. So in your search, if you can’t find what you’re looking for under “sink faucet”, try searching under “sink faucet”.
Two-handle sink faucets are the most common and come in a multitude of flavors. There is the traditional Centerset, the Mini-Widespread, the Widespread and the Wall Mount. They range from a traditional look like the Moen Brantford Two-Handle Lavatory Faucet to the contemporary side, like the American Standard Green Tea Faucet, which is discreetly disguised as a pull-out bathroom faucet – very cool!
The next two are Centerset Single-Handle and Centerset Single-Hole. Single-handle styles range from the 1980s oblong plastic pop-up handle like the Moen Chateau single-handle center sink faucet (I think this was in my house when I was a kid!) to the super-stylish Price sink. Pfister Bernini. Faucet.
Lastly, we have some nice faucets that are the epitome of relaxation. The Roman Tub and Clawfoot bathtub faucets. Roman tub faucets are a really nice piece for that built-in, freestanding, or whirlpool tub. Claw foot tub faucets are nice if your style is very classic, like early 1900’s and you have a good budget to play with. These faucets look extremely elegant and are intricately detailed, see the Elizabethan Classics Bath Filler with Hand Shower for a good example.
Now that you have a better idea of what you want, let me give you a list of available finishes. Of course, not all of them are available to all faucets, but they will help you narrow down your search even more. Finishes are: chrome, polished chrome, brushed nickel, satin nickel, polished nickel, polished brass, antique brass, bronze, stainless steel, oil rubbed bronze, platinum, acrylic and copper. And those are just the main ones, sometimes manufacturers make up their own final names just to confuse us even more.
My biggest and best advice to you in this crazy world of faucets is to buy something YOU like and buy a QUALITY bathroom faucet. There are more than enough quality faucet styles to choose from to really let your personality shine through in your bathroom. This is your place of solace, a place of relaxation. You don’t want to hear that horrible dripping faucet you have “on sale” every time you try to relax in the bathroom, do you? Until next time, happy bathing!