A pet hate of mine is when bathrooms don’t have enough towel rails.
Towel rails for family bathrooms should be a practical consideration because where do the towels go after each member of the family uses one? Where do guests hang their towels?
Multiple rails or racks should be installed to ensure each person has a place to hang their towel.
It’s my opinion that the racks shouldn’t be slim and there should be enough room between each towel so it can dry without touching the other towel.
The rail should also be long enough so the towel can be draped without bunching to dry between each use.
From my experience, in order for a towel to dry effectively, it shouldn’t be folded or bunched. It promotes growth of mould and bacteria.
If your bathroom is pongy, it may not be the plumbing. Sniff the towels. Often they are the culprit and it’s because of they way they are hung to dry, or lack there of.
Many bathrooms will have the towels folded over the rail or rack for styling, but for practicality, no one is going to fold their towel over the rack after they use it.
Towels are usually folded for styling purposes or when the bathroom is cleaned and new linen is placed in the bathroom. (like I have in the pics below)
I have been looking for towel rail solutions in our ensuite and our main bathroom. Both never had enough towel rails, but we made use of the shower screens.
I did use robe hooks but the towels either slid off or the bunching of the towel didn’t allow it to dry before the next use.
Multiple Towel Rails in a Family Bathroom
We only had one wall per bathroom to work with. I opted to install singular towel rails and space them out on the wall to ensure each towel would get their drying space (650mm between the top two rails).
The singular rail in the kids’ bathroom was transferred to our ensuite to match with our existing one. Jacob now has a place to hang his towel. It’s taken him a week to get used to it.
For the main bathroom, we used Mondella 600mm Chrome Rumba Towel Rails from Bunnings which were $64 each.
We could have spaced them 300mm apart as per interior design recommendations… but again, the towels would overlap.
Instead, we opted to have the rails spaced apart. Admittedly I did wonder if we placed the rail too high, but we’ve had this arrangement for the last week and it’s worked so well.
It was a budget friendly installation because many of the racks start from $200 plus!
But towel racks are an alternate solution if you lack wall space. Here are some towel racks to consider for your family bathroom. All of these are minimum 600mm in width.
- Bunnings Bradley Sorrento Towel Rack $285
- Meir Australia Matte Black Towel Rack $379
- Reece Milli Flow Towel Rack $433
- Reece Grohe Essentials Multi Towel Rack $498
- Reece Milli Axon MK2 Towel Rack $355
Measurements for Towel Rails and Racks
Ideally the first towel rail should be installed a minimum of 1200mm from the floor.
Each towel rail should be a minimum of 600mm in width to allow the towel to be hung across with no bunching. You will need a wider rail if you use larger towels.
Spacing between each rail will depend on the size of your towels and what will look aesthetically pleasing.
At the end of the day, the towel rail placement needs to suit your family and what space is available on the bathroom wall.
It’s my hope I won’t have to remind my kids to hang their towels now after they’ve used them. They’ve each got their own rail to hang their towel.
I might have unrealistic expectations on that one though. 😉
