12 Refreshing Ideas for Outdoor Showers
See the many ways you can build in a great-looking bathing area outside
With designs ranging from sleek and modern to rustic and organic, outdoor showers don’t have to be reserved for beach houses or hidden in side yards. The latest outdoor showers fit in with many styles of homes and stand out as garden features in their own right.
Get started: How to Add an Outdoor Shower
Get started: How to Add an Outdoor Shower
1. Modern organic escape. This outdoor shower strikes a balance between sleek and earthy. Thin wooden slats provide just enough privacy for outdoor bathing and create a graphic, horizontal pattern in the garden. The painted black back wall highlights the wood pattern and the shower’s off-center entrance. A natural boulder set into the shower decking anchors the design — and provides a useful spot to throw a towel.
2. Wildflower meadow. A simple wall-mounted shower is a great spot to rinse off before or after hopping in the pool in this New England backyard. Tall grasses and black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) provide little privacy but create the feeling of bathing in a wildflower meadow. Any water from the shower splashed on the copper pool house siding would add to its patina, enhancing the rustic, weathered backdrop. (If this type of patina is not what you’re looking for, treat the surface with an all-weather anticorrosion metal spray.)
3. Edgy contemporary nook. A corner at the top of a stairway may be the last place you’d expect to see an outdoor shower, but it works well for this sloped Los Angeles backyard. Tall concrete walls conceal the shower from neighbors and work beautifully with the design of the stairway. Plus, the position of the shower midway up to the house makes it a convenient rinse station for those coming home from the beach.
4. Tranquil garden retreat. Take a soothing rinse in a private shower in a leafy, shaded side yard. When drainage runs straight into garden beds, use plant-friendly, biodegradable soaps and choose plant varieties that appreciate moderate to frequent water. Paperplant (Fatsia japonica), growing on either side of the shower here, thrives with moderate water and has lush, tropical-looking palmate leaves.
5 Steps to Selecting the Right Plants for a Rain Garden
5 Steps to Selecting the Right Plants for a Rain Garden
5. New England farmhouse. This understated outdoor shower is tucked into an alcove of a traditional home in New York’s Hudson River Valley. An outdoor shower attached to the main home can be easier to install than a more remote garden outpost. It can tap directly into the home’s water line — particularly easy if the outdoor shower is off an interior bathroom — and save on the cost of running additional water into the landscape. Drill holes for a simple tray to hold soap and a hook for a towel, and that’s all you need to enjoy bathing alfresco.
6. Surfer’s paradise. In this Santa Barbara, California, backyard, a rinse station for those returning from the beach has become a far more elevated landscape feature thanks to the addition of a shower area screened with diagonally set wood panels. A large bench provides an area to strip off a wetsuit, rest bath products or place a towel. Flagstone set into dark gravel provides adequate gaps between pavers to allow water to percolate into the ground below the shower, reducing runoff.
7. Indoor-outdoor bathroom. Running the same tile from an interior glass-enclosed bath to an exterior shower creates a flowing transition between indoor and outdoor areas. In the summer, the owners can bathe outdoors under the canopy of a tree while having additional bath products and fluffy towels within easy reach inside. In cooler months, they’d have nearly the same open-air feeling soaking in the tub and looking out through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the garden beyond.
8. Rustic ranch house. Corrugated metal — typical of countryside barns — is an excellent material for the backsplash of this outdoor shower. The metal is inexpensive and durable in relation to moisture, and keeps with the farmhouse style of the home. Copper piping to coordinate with the roof gutters and playful multicolored knobs to adjust the water temperature complete the design.
9. Modern cabin. An intricate wall made up of split logs framed with steel creates one side of this outdoor shower in Bigfork, Montana. Concrete walls add privacy — and a ledge for resting a towel — while the rest has been left open to the surrounding woodland. A steal beam supports the log wall as well as a waterfall shower head and adds a graphic, industrial edge to the design.
Learn more about this modern log house in Montana
Learn more about this modern log house in Montana
10. Basalt slab. An upright stone slab makes a stunning garden feature but can be difficult to stabilize. For this slab turned into an outdoor shower, the landscape architect came up with a clever solution. Turning the basalt away from the stairway and bracing it against the rock wall created privacy for the shower and stabilized the stone.
11. Tropical sanctuary. A dark stone backdrop for an outdoor shower gives the feature weight and presence in the landscape. In Hawaii, lava rock is plentiful and commonly used in building. For the outdoor shower here, puka basalt makes up the backsplash, flooring and adjacent garden wall. Bright tropical foliage, garden furniture and a towel stand out against the dark surfaces.
12. Au naturel hideaway. Tucked away in the woods, this simple shower and wooden platform provide a peaceful place to bathe for the owners of a small cabin on Decatur Island, Washington. Sited between redwood trees, the shower itself has been kept to a bare minimum to draw the eye to the natural forest surroundings.
Your turn: Do you have a stylish outdoor shower? Share a picture in the Comments.
More: Bathrooms Without Borders Bring the Outside In
Your turn: Do you have a stylish outdoor shower? Share a picture in the Comments.
More: Bathrooms Without Borders Bring the Outside In