Museum Bathroom Art

When visiting an art museum, you most likely are there to observed the works of art featured in the museum. However, at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the bathrooms themselves are actually works of art. Creating permanent art in the restrooms "begun in 1974 as a means of supporting artistic exploration by providing artists with access to industrial technologies".

Annually, a group of selected artists collaborate with Kohler Co. and actually handcraft the fixtures each step of the way. Each bathroom represents different periods and technologies. Photos below are from The Art Museum Toilet Museum of Art.

The Social History of Architecture:


Sheboygan Men's Room:


The Women's Room:


Childhood Vitreous:


Sources: John Michael Kohler Arts Center
The Art Museum Toilet Museum of Art

Vintage Advertisements: Kohler

The first bathroom fixture sold by Kohler was the "enameled cast iron hog scalder/water trough". The product Kohler sold is more commonly known to those of us living in the 21st century as a bathtub. Later, in 1911, Kohler introduced the first built in bathtub.

Below are vintage Kohler advertisements throughout the years.

The first ad, from 1923, discusses the increase in bathrooms per household while promoting Kohler Ware quality enamel and design.


This advertisement from 1924 positions Kohler Enameled Plumbing Ware as attractive, affordable and durable.


The third ad jumps to the 1960's and promotes the "dreamy" Peachblow Dynametric bathtub.


View modern and vintage style Kohler products.

Customized Showering

If you've never seen it before, this is the Kohler WaterHaven custom shower. Equipped with seven different sprayers, you can customize your showering experience by adjusting the various knobs and ports. This shower is not only a great way to get clean, but you can adjust the direction and intensity of the sprayers for a massaging effect, or keep your hair dry while cleaning only the rest of your body. Additionally, the WaterHaven includes a handshower.


Another great thing about this deluxe shower is that it only requires one single connection. The WaterHaven can be hooked up through the wall or floor. For this reason, the shower can be flexibly located to your location of choice.Everything about this shower is customizable. You can even manipulate the water flow, using as much or as little water as you choose.Learn more about the WaterHaven custom shower or view more photos and and instructional video by Kohler.

3D Bathrooom Planning Tools

This will be my first contribution to the Daily Tubber and I can't be more excited about it. Today the hot topic has been tips on remodeling. I have looked around and found some very interesting tools to help with a bathroom remodeling project.

The most interesting tool I have found is the
tool which allows you to take some pre-made bathrooms from the Bathroom Design Center at HGTV.com. Then adjust them to your liking. I found it to be very useful to match up some colors for your bathroom. It helps most matching up colors for your faucets and counter tops or your sinks and bathtubs. The Design Center at HGTV is centered around Kohler products. The picture to the right is the bathroom I designed today.

Some downsides to the Design Center is the choppy graphics of all the fixtures, you can't seem to make out all the details in the products that well. Also sometimes it is difficult for it to run on your computer properly. We had some difficulties on computers here for it to work consistently. You can't choose products other than Kohler so if you aren't a fan of Kohler then you won't be to pleased with this tool. Who doesn't love Kohler though. I couldn't change the tub faucet on the tub either which bummed me out a little but I'm over it.

Kohler also offeres a design tool on their website. Kohler's program goes into a little more depth than HGTV.com. Kohler allows you to customize your room size, and put in whatever Kohler products they have on their website into your bathroom. I did not have time to play around with this tool but it appeared to be really cool and useful.

Here is another shot of my bathroom design with the listings of the products I used in my design.

1. Toilet - Kathryn Elongated Toilet 2. Sinks - Memoirs Self-Rimming Basin 3. Faucets - Memoirs Widespread Sink Faucet 4. Tub - Portrait 6' Whirlpool 5. Towel Bar - Revival 24" Towel Bar 6. Toilet Tissue Holder - Revival Toilet Tissue Holder