Key Design Features of Bathroom Shower Shelves

June 7, 2011. Paul Hixon

Many walk in showers nowadays come with an installation of shower shelves as a matter of course, nowadays, thus allowing them to cut out the entire process of manual installation on your part, meaning you need not buy a slew of extra and possibly superfluous parts for the purposes of rigging up the entire assembly in a manner which will likely fall apart completely the moment it is subjected to even the least amount of stress. That is all well and good, for one of the key design features of most shower shelves nowadays, especially compared to the lack luster performance of the shelves of yesteryear, is the great solidity of the construction – allowing it to withstand pressures that most normal shelves would not be used to.

This is of course the primary design feature of most shelves. After all bathroom shower shelves are built for the heady purpose of holding one’s things while one takes a shower – it is the receptacle for the soaps, the shampoos, and all other sundry bathroom accoutrements which by themselves can take up a great deal of weight and space. It is understandable that holding things up is the most focused upon aspect of the shower system.

Of course they do not only have to hold up your goods – one of the things that is a remarkable side effect of the increased stability of your shelves is the fact that the shelves of today can easily hold up a grown human being, without any ill effects. The old shelves would suffer stress fractures as the weight increased, but thanks to improvements in materials technology your average shelf today can withstand pressures in excess of thirty to fifty pounds – not too bad for a flimsy slab of plastic!

These are the main things the shower shelf of today can do – but they are things that it can do impressively well, without sacrificing too much in the way of aesthetics. Of course one cannot construct a shelf out of crystal, but most metals and plastics will suffice, and in fact produce a much more beautiful installation than crystal.

Updated June 7, 2011. Published May 27, 2011. Paul Hixon