Bath Shower Ha Na

European bathrooms can be quirky by American standards. Your hotel’s WC may come with luxurious heated towel racks — or a rattling fan and leaky sink. Just keep an open mind, and remember that nothing beats a good bathroom story when you get home. No matter what, my advice is to wash up quickly and get out and about in the place you came to enjoy. First, don’t expect big spaces . Over the years, hotel owners have carved out chunks of elegant bedrooms to shoehorn in prefab private bathrooms — and they can be very tight. Counter space is often limited, and showers can be surprisingly tight, especially if you’re a larger person. Be careful bending over to pick up a dropped bar of soap — you might just hit your head on the toilet or sink. Even in top-end hotels, I find some things poorly designed . Once, I used a particularly narrow shower stall with the hot/cold lever directly in the center. If I nudged it accidently while washing, it would either scald or freeze me....

Want a bathroom that looks like a sauna? Try the tongue-and- groove cedar boards , $19.97 for 15 square feet. You could use the AstroTurf mats ($10) as bathmats. In lieu of solid doors, wood and glass French doors in a variety of sizes ( 30 inches wide by 78 inches tall , $139 apiece) would add light to the classic no-window New York bathroom. Install a sheer curtain for privacy. Next stop: Ikea. The drive to the store in Elizabeth, N.J., was an easy one; on Saturdays and Sundays, there's a free round- trip shuttle bus from the Port Authority Bus Terminal at Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street (information: 800 BUS-IKEA or 800-287-4532). Ikea offers highly useful classics and interesting new designs. More than anything, this is the place to buy storage furniture . The Atran cabinets -- plain, metal rectangles with locks -- would make excellent medicine cabinets . In colors or shiny chrome, they are $24.95 each. The painted wooden Lack shelf ( 43 inches long , $12.95) is thick and...

''It can be a one-bedroom unit with an L- shaped living room or a small den or alcove,'' Mr. Grancaric said. ''But I think that a true junior four is a one-bedroom with a room off the kitchen that was originally set up as a dining area, but that can be turned into a second sleeping area.'' Hopefully, the room has a closet.'' And junior two's and junior three's? ''In my opinion, a junior three is basically the same thing as a junior one with a closet in the sleeping area'' Mr. Grancaric said. ''I don't think a junior two exists.'' O.K., then; what's a half room? ''I would say a half room is any room that's not normal-sized,'' Mr. Grancaric said, adding that a ''normal-sized'' room would be one that is no smaller than say, 10 by 12 feet. A half bath? ''That would be a bathroom with just a toilet and a sink,'' he said. ''But if the bathroom h...

Book reviews Review by Anniek After the terrible events that almost cost them their lives, Matthew and his family are picking up the pieces. They're starting to feel normal again. Their little girl Mia is helping them overcome their pain and grief. Matthew and Rebecca have lovingly taken Ashley, Matthew's niece, into their home. Matthew still has nightmares at night and is struggling with the mistakes he made that put his family in danger. When Matthew and Rebecca are introduced to Ashley's friend, Jasmine, no one has any idea what she's been planning for a long time. Now that the law is no longer on his side will Matthew be able to unravel the truth before it's too late and when he is being accused of terrible things will Rebecca stand by him once more? Matthew thinks he's useless. He's not opening up to his family and this stops his capability to come to terms with what happened in the past. He's passionate about his work and he's both determined a...

I had just finished showering and turned off the water. Soaking wet, I did what millions of Americans do every day -- I reached for my snazzy sliding glass shower door . Seconds later, glass was raining down on me. The door had failed somehow and exploded into a million little pieces. The sound was hideous, something between nails on a chalkboard and a torrential downpour. Only this didn't make me wet, it made me bloody. This was the grisly scene in my bathroom after a shower door exploded on me while I showered. I bled substantially from a wound on my right foot and had to walk on glass to get out. Glass shower doors are a substantial upgrade from old, mold- magnet plastic shower curtains found in many older homes. They look great. They let ambient light into the shower and make the bathroom look larger. If you have fancy tile rimming your tub, they show that off. The aesthetics come with a cost however, as I recently learned the hard way: Glass shower and tub enclosures ca...

I’m a lucky duck and have been staying at some really posh hotels lately. Not just posh in terms of price and number of pillows; but posh in terms of properties where the staff is truly friendly, helpful and attentive to details that can really count when you’re out on the road. Like the handful of bite-size end-of-the-day chocolates I was given when I checked into a Staybridge Hotel earlier this week in Elkhart, Indiana. And the complimentary pot of strong coffee that showed up outside my door at 6 am at an Omni Hotel in Indianapolis, even though I only signed up for the free program that offers that amenity (and free Wi-Fi) the night before. Are those amenities more important than having a complete set of personal-sized toiletries in your bathroom? Take a look at my Well-Mannered traveler column – Hotels dispensing with bathroom clutter – on msnbc.com this week, vote in the survey and let me know what you think. Here’s the story: ( Courtesy RoomsService Amenities ) You arrive at a...

We will, NEVER again cruise on PRINCESS! We are on our last day of a 10 day Princess (Grand Princess) cruise out of San Francisco. We have cruised on a Princess ship once before and were thoroughly underwhelmed. I choose this trip with reservations about the Princess cruise line , but liked the thought of embarking from San Francisco. (No flying!) I thought we should give Princess another try. Embarkation was a massive cattle call . We were given a number and told to ‘go sit over there (off to the side) until your number is called.’ Seeing other passengers proceeding, I decided it may be better to be turned away than to sit and wait. Sure enough, our number was already going through. Had we sat and waited for a little lady to shout out our number across the terminal, we may still be waiting to board! (In retrospect, that may have been a good-thing!) I was very disappointed when we entered our “minsuite.” The layout feels confined and the More lighting gives everything a yell...

Stylish Forest Hills Home Tops Our Dallas Open Houses Roundup | CandysDirt.com" width="640" height="426" />The Forest Hills home at  8423 Santa Clara Dr . is one of our three features open houses this week. We love bringing you an insider look at hot DFW properties with our   CandysDirt.com Open Houses of the Week column. Every Thursday, we pick three fabulous open houses in Dallas (and the ‘burbs from time to time) you shouldn’t miss. This week, our houses range in price from $539K to $1.175 million. Let’s take a look. SPACIOUS FOUR- BEDROOM FOREST HILLS HOME ON ALMOST HALF AN ACRE Stylish Forest Hills Home Tops Our Dallas Open Houses Roundup | CandysDirt.com" width="640" height="426" /> Stylish Forest Hills Home Tops Our Dallas Open Houses Roundup | CandysDirt.com" width="640" height="426" /> Stylish Forest Hills Home Tops Our Dallas Open Houses Roundup | CandysDirt.com" width="6...

If you like having your cultural compass skewed , you' ll love Pantelleria . The map says Italy, but everything about the island spells North Africa . Villages have names like Bukkuram, Bugeber, and Gadir. Dwarfed by palm trees and built of rough volcanic stone , clusters of one- story cubic dwellings with humped roofs erupt from the prickly black-brown landscape like oases. The port's architecturally challenged concrete apartment blocks and souk-like alleyways lend it the louche, scrappy allure of Tangier. The heat is the heat of the desert, with sun so strong that only crazies leave the cool of a shop awning to cross the street without first picking out a patch of shade on the other side. Citrus trees are grown in circular, high-walled giardini arabi that protect them from the wind. Locals count the days until restaurants serve the weekly special—fish couscous. I first visited Pantelleria , which is marooned in the strait between Sicily and Tunisia and has a mere 32-mile ...