April Showers: Brick-Built Bathroom Showers
/Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published April 6, 2022.
Shower Time - by Nick Sweetman
“April showers bring May flowers.” That saying is a familiar one for those living in far northern latitudes. The phrase originates from the United Kingdom where April is one of the more soggier months of the year (relatively speaking). Having a cooler climate, their lower seasonal temperatures often push back the blooming of flowers to late April and early May. I know those “April showers” are actually referring to rain, but it seemed like a good excuse for a MOC round-up of bathroom showers, in all their shapes and sizes. So without further ado…
We’ve highlighted a few Instagram community challenges in the past, and Jesse (known as Brickdesigned) built these four different shower types for a LEGO challenge called #furniturefriday. They feature two modern tiled showers, a community shower, and an outdoor shower. All four have top-notch part usage and very clean designs with nary a stud to be found (they must be back in the locker room, snapping each other with towels).
Speaking of clean designs, I went into the Wayback Machine and found this tiled corner shower built by Vesna (redhead1982) way back in 2011. It still stands up to the test of time and looks as good now as it did when it was first posted. I think even now there is little risk of it needing a major renovation.
Now if I were to have someone tackle a contemporary bathroom renovation project for me, it might be aukbricks. As can be seen below, aukbricks can tackle bathroom shower projects at any scale, both big…
… and small.
Another person that would get a strong recommendation for taking on a contemporary bathroom makeover would have to be Sarah Beyer. She excels when it comes to expanding the color pallet beyond standard porcelain white as well as getting everything to fit within a tight space. European design at its finest.
Yet another option is to hire alego alego for your bathroom renovation project. However, budget-conscious people should be warned that hiring them will cost you “an arm and a leg”… and if you need a new toilet, it might cost you a torso too!
As if we needed yet another reason to “Cube Your Enthusiasm” for bathroom showers, Stefan from Germany recently created a series of “Wohncontainer” (container homes). It goes without saying that any good Wohncontainer needs to have a “Badcontainer” (container bathroom) to go along with it. Stefan’s ingenuity in fitting such a stylish, functional bathroom into a modular 6x6 stud interior space is astounding.
Communal shower poles are a familiar sight at many outdoor pools, boardwalks, and sandy beaches. They are also the dread of many when found in the showers of gym locker rooms (especially for those who value their modesty). However you feel about communal showers, Ryan Smith kept it simple in their approach to building them. I thought the usage of the printed 1x1 Star Wars Imperial tile for the shower head was especially clever.
Back in late 2013, Palixa And The Bricks started a little friendly LEGO contest between herself and her husband to help improve their building skills. They alternately would choose a theme and would each have to build a corresponding model. Palixa threw down the gauntlet first, and declared they would start by building a "bathtub/shower". Below is a cut/away view of the palatial shower interior that she created.
Are you one of those people that gets a little nervous when you have Friends come over to visit and they ask to use your bathroom? Afraid they might go snooping around your unmentionables? Well, Yvonne Doyle has the perfect solution to that quandary which is to build a bathroom especially for them! The Friends-scale shower she built uses printed parts to perfect effect along with using clear garage door windows as a shower curtain. That shower mat part is a perfect choice too to help prevent slips while exiting the shower (you know, since Friends are always hopping around with their legs tied together).
Yvonne also understands the need for privacy when it comes to locker room showers at the gym. Some time ago, she also created this locker room shower scene called “His and Hers”. None of those pesky communal shower poles here. Just good old-fashioned, tiled shower alcoves with frosted glass doors.
Well before Dave Kaleta appeared on Season 2 of LEGO Masters USA with Richard Dryden, he was already well known for building Miniland-scale vignettes of the memorable moments in his life. This one below captures the moment that he threw a baby shower for his wife and her boundless joy at Dave’s thoughtfulness. You can find many more of his recent vignettes on his Instagram account, including a weekly series celebrating the ABCs of Awesome Black Creativity.
… And well before Tyler and Amy Clites were crowned the winners of Season 1 of LEGO Masters USA, Tyler was going toe-to-toe with Bruce Lowell in a little competition they call Iron Builder. The seed part for their epic battle that occurred 10 years ago was the “clip light” part in medium azure. For those of us who witnessed it all unfold… well, we wished we could fold it all back up again after seeing Tyler’s build below. I think the title for his build says all that needs to be said: “Grandpa! You better not be using my loofah again!”
Did we miss any April showers you know of? Let us know in the comments below.
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