Bright points of colour may be obtained by stained glass in ceiling-lights or windows, and at night by coloured glass shades over lamps, &c.
The use of iron joists with glazed brick arches between is not to be recommended for the ceilings of the hot rooms. To say the least, it is a heavy-looking arrangement. Enamelled iron may be made to look very well if affixed in sheets of delicate tint with light patterns, and affixed with "buttons" with enamelled heads to the fireproof floors, as at Fig. 18. Large thin tiles make an admirable ceiling for small baths. They may be fixed with ornamental wood fillets, or made with screw-holes and affixed to ceiling joists.
Section and Plan of an Enamelled Iron Ceiling.]
Glazed brickwork for the walls of hot rooms, &c., should be specified to be executed with an extra neat joint, and should bond to less than 12 in. to the foot; otherwise the effect of the unwieldy mortar joints is clumsy. This applies equally to walling and to arches and vaults. Work which may pass as fair in ordinary cases, looks coarse and rough in the glazed interior walls of a bath. In selecting glazed bricks there is some difficulty in obtaining really delicate tints; much of the work produced is unfortunately of a very crude colouring.
One portion of the tepidarium, and other bath rooms, admits of being rendered very attractive; and that is the flooring. Mosaic work is always pleasing, if it be designed with taste and executed artistically. Marble and tile mosaics are both good, the former admitting of a richness of effect quite its own, and the latter of brilliant colouring. In designing marble-mosaic floors, however, one may well fight shy of including that senseless, purposeless description which is nowadays so often employed as a filling-in between borders. I refer to the heterogeneous jumble of every colour mixed without regard to one another, and giving at a distance a dirty grey tone, and near at hand an effect like a gravel walk covered with faded cherry-blossom--to be flattering. Despite the fact that this method of design is of antique origin, and has a real classical designation, I cannot but think that it is to be avoided, and that fillings-in should be made with tesseræ of one tint, or that mosaic should be abandoned altogether.