Be inspired by over-the-top hotel bathrooms

Travelling to foreign places can provide excellent inspiration to try something a bit different with the decor in your own home.

With many hotels outdoing themselves to attract customers by offering cutting edge, quirky interior designs, these can be a particularly good place to get some fresh decor ideas.

According to Forbes magazine, bathrooms are one area where many hotels excel when it comes to luxury interior design.

It lists a number of particularly intriguing hotel bathrooms, many of which could provide some inspiration for those thinking about updating their own homes, including some interesting uses of bathroom lights.

Top of its list is the Skylofts hotel at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas, which uses colour-changing, underwater LED bathroom lights in the bathtub.

"The centerpieces of the oversized bathrooms are the deep-seated infinity tubs, where you are completely immersed (no cold shoulders here) as you watch an in-wall oversized flat-screen TV," adds Forbes.

"Water continuously overflows on all sides of the tub and then rises back to the top, with fine bubbles emerging from the jets."

Guests can also put in a call into the spa butler who will draw a scented bath, adjust the lighting and music and bring some beverages.

For a more traditional look, check out the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund.

This luxury hotel features opulent hanging chandeliers in the bathrooms of its rooms, as well as plenty of other high-class touches, such as including heated tile floors, a large clawfoot tub, a shower room, a double vanity area and an in-mirror TV.

"It's also one of the more well-stocked bathrooms we've seen, with Salvatore Ferragamo bath products, a shaving kit, a vanity kit, a shoe mitt and more amenities," said the magazine.

Finally, bathrooms at the Peninsula Chicago hotel come replete with mood lighting, a stem-free flat screen TV, hands free telephone and a wrap-around terrace with an outdoor whirlpool.