Adding an outdoor shower to your home is a great way to blend practicality with creative design, taking your shower experience to a new level.
With a shower in your backyard, you can wash off after a busy day working in your garden or rinse off the chlorine or saltwater from your pool. And if you have kids or grandkids, think how much easier it’ll be to get them to shower when you offer them the outdoors option!
This was one of our favorite outdoor shower projects. It was part of a retire-in-place renovation for an empty nester and mid-century design fanatic.
Outdoor Shower Advice and Inspiration
Here are our top tips on how to get the most from an outdoor shower addition:
Ideal Positioning. We typically position showers on the east or south walls of a home to block the wind. Our favorite location is on the east wall of a northeast corner of a home with a sunset view.
Access. We like to situate the showers so you can use them directly from inside and also be accessed from the outdoor space.
Privacy Wall. Wall height will depend on the view you see from the shower, if the shower is higher than the surrounding ground and if you’re trying to create a visual extension of indoor space with the shower walls.
View to Shower. Shower walls outside a bathroom allow for full-height glass in the bathroom without the need for window coverings and can provide a Zen garden-like view from inside your home.
Drink Rail. A shower can be a nice place to enjoy coffee or an adult beverage.
Shower Size. In your design, allow for enough space to provide a dry place to leave a change of clothes and a place to sit down to dress.
Water Pressure. Our favorite fixture we used on an outdoor shower build was a surface shower fixture reused from a 1920’s house we renovated that had a high flow rate to keep you warm on cold days. (There are many new options to choose from, of course.)
Shut-off Valves. Provide an easy water shut-off valve location or use an actual fixture designed for outdoor use. You will need to turn off the water to your outdoor shower when the temperature drops below freezing.
The exterior was a resort-style makeover using planes of retaining walls to control a steep backyard grade that rose up behind the home. We used the combination of a stucco wall and two operable slat walls on either side of the shower so the homeowners could shower “in public” or with the door closed.
We positioned the shower to run the entire width of the primary bathroom floor-to-ceiling glass. The shower is also close to the owner’s “spool” (what we call a large spa) and doors from the owner’s bedroom. The combined effect of the owners’ bath, bedroom, outdoor shower and spool makes the backyard feel like you’re on vacation every day.
An Outdoor Shower for You
If you’d like to explore the potential of adding an outdoor shower to your home, Studio Jones can help you with a design that’s both functional and beautiful.
Contact us for more information by phone at 404.446.3881 or email.