The Wikipedia definition of "bathroom" contains the following sentence: " In the United States, 'bathroom' commonly means 'a room containing a toilet'. " I find this fascinating, for the following reason: look at any book or magazine dedicated to the purpose of designing or decorating a bathroom, and the one thing you will almost never see is a toilet.

Designers and decorators seem to wish there were no such things as toilets, and they deal with this dislike in two main ways: they either hide the toilet or ignore it. In the first case, they devise claustrophobic little closets for the toilet to be hidden away in, and in the second, they opt for all-white toilets and seats, then move on to the "real" designing of the room. When one company came out with a Mondrian-inspired color blocked toilet, a shelter magazine declared it awful, saying that the toilet should be a place for quiet contemplation, presumably not a place for color or art.

To me this hatred for the toilet seems entirely unwarranted. Do we really need to go back in time (or to an old rustic cabin) to know that indoor toilets are a vast improvement on outhouses? Before that we had chamber pots; maybe designers would find those to be beautiful pottery that they would appreciate, but without a servant to empty them, they too lose their luster.

So let's begin by acknowledging the toilet, being thankful for its indoor presence, and considering how we might decorate it accordingly. After all, the toilet is what defines the bathroom.