How to make shelves for a bath with your own hands: choosing the optimal material and design

How to make a shelf for a bath with your own hands

For a Russian person, a bathhouse is not just a place for hygienic procedures, but a religious building that cleanses the body and soul. And, of course, the heart of the bathhouse is the steam room, where, having climbed the warm wooden shelf for the bathhouse, it is so nice to forget about the hustle and bustle to the heights of pleasure. And it is doubly pleasant if the shelves for the bath are made with your own hands, and he, as a living person, knows all his favorite habits of the owner. It would seem – a simple design, a simple flooring made of wood, but how many nuances and rules you should know to make it comfortable and reliable, and each visit to the bathhouse would bring only joy.

Content

• Choosing the perfect wood for your shelves

• Lipa: cons and pros
• Aspen – the best choice
• Abashi – an expensive luxury

Types and shapes of shelves for a bath

How to make shelves for a bath: installation features

Comfortable shelf accessories for the steam room

Choosing the perfect wood for your shelves

In extreme conditions of high temperatures and high humidity, the Russian steam rooms traditionally equip only wooden shelves for the bath, and they try to exclude plastic and rubber: after all, they can accidentally ignite or melt. In addition, high-quality shelves in the bathhouse can be made not of any wood, but only of its species that meet the following conditions:

• low thermal conductivity;
• minimum resin content;
• high fiber density;
• resistance to extreme heat in high humidity.

In the Russian tradition of arranging baths, linden and aspen are most often used, a little less often – birch and poplar. Relatively recently, an African guest appeared in the holy of holies of the Russian bath – an exotic Abashi tree. These types of wood fully meet the strict requirements for the material for the shelves for the bath, although each of them has its own drawbacks. Softwood is not suitable for a bath at all. The rating of preferences for “bath” wood looks like this.

Lipa: cons and pros

Linden wood is free from flaws, there are almost no knots in it and it is easy to process. The linden heats up slowly, but dries very quickly, it does not crack and perspiration stains on it. When heated, linden exudes an unobtrusive delicate aroma. The healing power of the linden tree has long been revered among the people as a source of positive energy and well-being of the body and soul. The cost of linden planks is low, and their only drawback is that they quickly darken in a hot and humid atmosphere.

Aspen – the best choice

Perhaps the cheapest wood for a bath, and therefore very popular with builders. Aspen is famous among the people, as a healer of spiritual adversities, it is able to absorb negative energy, freeing a person from it. Came out, having been born again – this is about a steam from aspen. A significant, “hidden” flaw in wood is its tendency to rot from the inside.

Quite quality-looking aspen boards may be defective.

Abashi – an expensive luxury

An African alien who grew up in a hot and humid climate is ideal for a Russian bath. Heat and moisture are not afraid of him, he heats up extremely slowly and for a very long time retains its pristine fresh look and luxurious color from yellowish to cream. So far, the only drawback is behind it – the high price, for many unavailable.

Types and shapes of shelves for a bath

Construction supermarkets are filled with a wide variety of bath accessories, but if you personally embody the dream of your unique bath, then you definitely don’t entrust to the outsiders the steam room of the holy houses of steam and you’ll probably make shelves in the bath yourself.

When thinking about how to build shelves in a bathhouse, you should first decide what their design will be and how it is better to place them in the specific room of your steam room. By structural differences, three main types of bath shelves can be distinguished:

• benches;
• sun loungers;
• couches.

Already from the names of the shelves it is clear that fans of relaxation in a prone position will prefer loungers, someone loves a semi-sitting position and chooses a deck chair, and lovers to take a steam bath and at the same time talk with a pleasant conversationalist will quite arrange benches. The final choice, of course, is up to the owner of the future steam room, but the final dimensions of the shelves depend on the chosen design. The illustration will help you choose the ideal shelves for the bath – the photo selection presents not only the main structural configurations of the products, but also the recommended optimal dimensions for them.

You can endlessly reflect on how to make shelves in the bathhouse, which will satisfy the addictions of all family members, like possible guests and not find the right solution. Therefore, it is wiser to make a drawing of the shelves for the bath, perhaps not one, given the dimensions of the steam room and combining various designs of shelves.

Linking the design of the shelves to the steam room in the drawing, as a rule three-tier, several nuances should be taken into account.

1. The height of the regiments is determined by the number of tiers. If the ceiling height of the steam room is low, the lower level of the three-tier shelf is lowered to the floor, providing only a gap for air circulation.
2. The upper tier is always made wider than others (about 90 cm) and used as a couch. The best place for benches and sun loungers is the first and second tiers.
3. The distance between the third tier and the ceiling, the most comfortable for the well-being of a person, should not be less than 1-1.2 m.
4. According to safety rules, shelves should not be placed along walls with windows: when hot water and steam get on cold glass, it can crack and injure people.
5. In a spacious steam room, shelves are placed along any or all of the free, windowless walls. If there is not enough space in the room, the largest wall is chosen for the device of the shelf.

One of the three schemes proposed below will help you decide how to make the shelves in the bath house as compact as possible, but at the same time convenient. Three options for the layout of shelves in the steam room:

• Stepped. The design is ideal for equipping a steam room with a spacious bath for a large family. The shelves are placed along one wall in two or three steps and the top shelf is the hottest, while the bottom is always “cool”.

• L-shaped. The lower and upper shelves in this scheme are placed along one wall, and the middle – perpendicular to them on an adjacent adjacent wall. With this design, even in a not very large steam room, visitors create a feeling of spaciousness.
• Coupe. The design is ideal for very small steam rooms: here two shelves (only the middle and upper) are attached to one wall one above the other. If necessary, the upper shelf can be raised and fixed on the wall, as is done in the train compartment.

How to make shelves for a bath: installation features

Before assembling the structural elements of the shelves, the boards and boards are carefully grinded and smooth sharp corners. In order for the wood to last for shelves for a long time, it is resistant to rot and pests, it is treated with a natural-based antiseptic solution. The use of synthetic antiseptic compounds is unacceptable: under the influence of heat and moisture, they can become a source of harmful toxic fumes.

Recommendations on how to make shelves for a bath are extremely simple. First, the frame is assembled – several support posts from a thick beam of 50×70 mm in cross section are installed vertically and fastened horizontally to each other by a strapping. To give the structure stability and strength, the frame racks are sometimes attached to the wall. So that the future flooring does not bend, the vertical frame supports are installed at a distance of no more than 60 cm.

Benches, stationary or removable, are made of thin boards, stuffing them on a frame with a gap of 1-2 cm. For free water flow, the seat is tilted at an angle of 1-2 °. Boards are selected, adhering to the ratio of their thickness and width within 1: 4 – this is a condition for strength and quick drying of the product. If it is possible to make the shelves for the bath collapsible, this should be foreseen in advance in preparation for installation. After all, it is easy to disassemble a bulky design into small fragments, you can quickly dry them in the sun.

To connect structural parts, oak wedges are used, driving them into deliberately prepared holes at the joints. When installing wooden structures for baths, they try not to use nails and screws, at least in places of direct contact between the bench and the person, preventing possible burns. If it is impossible to do without traditional fasteners, metal screws or nails are tried to be drowned into the wood to a depth of 5-6 mm, or they are screwed from the so-called wrong side of the shelves.

If the owner of the future steam room is not guided by his own considerations regarding the overall dimensions of the shelves, then standard recommendations are used in their manufacture:

• the minimum length of the bench is 150-180 cm;
• width – 40-150 cm, depending on the preferred posture for relaxation and the dimensions of the steam room;
• height – 40-60 cm between levels, at least 20 cm from the floor, at least 100-120 cm from the ceiling.

The middle and upper tiers are attached to the wall with a ventilation gap of 10 cm. The lower shelf is usually mounted movable on specially provided runners – this simplifies cleaning the room. At the points of contact between the frame of the shelves and the floor, special rubber gaskets are laid for waterproofing. Sometimes the lower shelf in a not too spacious steam room is made in the shape of a triangle, at the top of which two sides converge – adjacent walls: the design allows you to compactly place all the benches.

Comfortable shelf accessories for the steam room

When equipping a bathhouse, do not forget about optional, but very pleasant additions to the shelves, without which hanging out in the steam room would not be so comfortable. We are talking about wooden supports for the legs and head. In order to be able to lie on a shelf, raising legs above head level, use a portable footrest. This is the simplest design of two wooden surfaces, interconnected at an angle of 30-45 °, but how much benefit and pleasure it brings to people who relax in the bath. A similar design – a wooden “pillow”, unlike a footrest, is not only removable, but also stationary.

The space between the two levels of shelves is recommended to be left open, which is not always convenient for vacationers: you want to lean on or lean against something. The way out is to create wooden backs by hammering wooden planks into two-centimeter slots between the steps and not forgetting to leave gaps for ventilation above and below. If additional accessories are made from fragrant wood of medicinal plants, they can become an excellent component of aromatherapy.

The steam room and the shelves in it are the soul of the bath. A very beautiful bathhouse can instantly turn into a dull log house if the shelves are illiterate designed and messy.