Choosing Good Towel Bars

Choosing the right bars for your home isn't rocket science. But there are some tricks of the trade that will help you in choosing the right towel bars for your home - tips that will make them more convenient and more useful.

When choosing the right bars, know that they come in different sizes. The most common stock sizes are 7-inch, 12-inch, 18-inch and 24-inch. If you need a size in between, many styles allow you to easily modify the length by simply sawing off the required inches from the next largest size. So, if you need a 20-inch bar you'd buy the 24-inch long on and saw off four inches.

When choosing the right towel bars for your bathroom, the first consideration is the location for each bar. You want the towels to be convenient for you and guests, so think about the room and where someone is likely to want a towel. Obviously, the sink and shower/tub are two natural places where towels will come in handy.

For the shower/tub, you want at least two towel bars. Thankfully, there are many models that have two integrated bars, with the lower one sticking our farther than the top one so the towels will hang freely. If you're choosing the right towel bars for the shower/tub, make sure you have sufficient wall space to mount the bar. And if you have extra plush towels, make sure the space between the two bars is wide enough to easily and quickly hang the towels.

Choosing the right bars for the sink area is a little more complex. That's because you'll probably want to have a couple of hand towels and at least one, if not two, washcloths. You could conceivably go with two different towel bars - one hand towel sized and the other washcloth sized. Or you can layer them on a single bar, which is a good idea if you have limited wall space near the sink.