bathroom design genius desired...

[MarmadukeScarlet]

We live in a barn and oast (a round tower like thing with a pointed roof, used to used for drying hops) conversion.

It is not a funky modern open plan jobby, quite cottagy but with huge rooms, smallish windows and is half white timbered outside (on flat walls) and half brick.

We are gradually undoing all the crap DIY 80's conversion that was done - acres of orange pine and electic sockets running from extension leads down through ceilings etc.

This week we have had a soil pipe block and burst upstairs, ruining the perfectly usable children's 4 yr old bathroom - Dolphin, not by us previous owner did it up for sale . I wasn't that in love with the bathroom but it asn't high on the list of prioities.

It was white 'wavy' tiles with a row of mixed blues and greens through with (oragey) beech fitted cabinets with inset sink, hidden cistern loo etc all white.

We have decided, although the insurance will only cover part of the cost we are going for a whole new bathroom - the bath, cupboards and loo will have to be moved anyway to get the contaminated flooring/floor boards up.

We went and chose a new bath - bigger, stronger shower bath type sink and loo and were going to recycle the cupboards BUT whilst looking at tiles fell in love with some Tavertine tiles which won't go with the cupboards. Are thinking about some walnut flat door cupboards with horizontal long chrome handles - it will be quite modern and a bit designer hotel style.

Now (if you have got this far ) my style is a bit french country/west coast style (pale walls, white painted furniture, pale ginhams mixed with ticking and florals) which my DH dislikes.

I did the dining room in more his style, bold curtains, modern oak furniture etc

Is it going to look a bit odd and not have a good 'flow' iyswim?

[whomovedmychocolate]

Sounds a bit like our downstairs bathroom. We live in a 16th century thatched place, with a brand new stone conservatory and bathroom. Obviously nothing would match so we went for Utopia cabinetry in walnut wood with light ash doors and blue granite sink and worktops, with chrome handles with inset bits of enamel to match the cupboard fronts. And it looks the dogs wotsits. We also have travertine window ledges and a run of travertine mosaic tiles with stone italian big tiles above and below.

Several people have said how nice it is and how quite like the loos in W Hotels (I should have remembered this really).

But it can go if you mix up styles. If you get good quality stuff it will all hang together, I mean obviously stick to white ceramics and be careful that your floor tiles go with your wall tiles, but apart from that, just go for it, I'm sure it'll be lovely

[MarmadukeScarlet]

Thank you wmmc!

a) because you waded through my ramble and b) because you have had experience of similar!

My DH is unexpectedly paying (don't have joint finances) so will be having the best of everything!

The beams in that part of the house are particularly old and dark, so I think it will go fine.

Is there any other colour but white for ceramics?

I checked with DD today as she's back from camp and told her it will look like the hotel we stayed at in Portugal and she's very excited - so that is one less thing to worry about, I thought it might be a little 'old' for the DC.

[SofiaAmes]

I am an architect and believe in modern clean simple bathrooms and kitchens with a passion. However, I also do not think that these conflict with keeping period parts of a house. In fact I do not see why you can't do each room in a house just the way you want it to be. I'm back in the usa now, but when we renovated our edwardian house in london we painstakingly restored all the edwardian bits to their previous splendor. Then redid all the bathrooms and kitchens, ultra modern and did an ultra modern loft conversion. You can see pictures of it here.

[SlightlyMadSweet]

I am not a designer...but clicked as we are just putting th efinishing touches to our bathroom ATM, so was being a bit nosy.

What I will say though is that showerbaths take a huge amount of extra water to fill - make sure you are aware of this. If it is only for the children I would be inclined to go for a straight bath TBH.

[SofiaAmes]

Yes, but eventually children start taking showers.....And you don't have to fill up the bath completely full.

[MarmadukeScarlet]

We had one in our old house, we have a huge hot tank so should be ok.

When we have an AP she shares with the DC when we don't have an AP my DH uses it as it is bigger than his bathroom. So it gets used for showers quite a bit.

I did think about putting in a seperate shower but the room is 2 m wide by 3.5 long, you enter by a 85cm wide, 1.3m long 'corridor' (where the airing cupboard takes a chunk out, door to airing cupboard from landing). The only practical place for the cubicle to go was where the 'corridor' stops, which would have made it seem very long and narrow.

I amy regret this, as I'm sure a seperate shower would be more attractive to buyers when we decide to sell. The pipe work is currently there for one as the (unused by us)bidet is in this position.

[SlightlyMadSweet]

It was only a comment...something we were warned about when we were looking, that I thought might be helpful - obviously no obligation to do what I say .

We went for a straight bath in the end with a shwer over....has been like that for 10yrs with no probs.

[MarmadukeScarlet]

Lovely house SA, just my type. Cottagy current is more DH's taste in exteriors, despite the modern interior requirements.

Good point about the DC eventually taking showers.

It is not an absolutely huge one anyway, not like the 'p' shaped ones, just big enough to wash hair without bumping elbows!

It is an Ideal Standard porcelain resin cast one wich elegantly flares out create bath

[MarmadukeScarlet]

SMS, no thank you for your input. When doing out last house I bought a really high pressure pump for the shower, had to then buy a bigger hot tank and cold tank for the loft!

So have made some very basic mistakes before. I have experienced the 'not enough hot' in a holiday cottage where htere is a corner bath, but the hot tank isn't big enough to half fill it before it runs out. So although the DC would love a corner bath, we are not getting one.

[BoyzntheShire]

im now wracking my brains to think of the name of the people who made the sink cupboards for my bathroom... theyre oak but they also had walnut (and you can have travertine, or white, basins on top or inset)
as soon as it comes to me i'll post it

[MarmadukeScarlet]

Why thank you

Now all I need is a towel radiator with enough wattage to keep my room warm and bingo!

Have visited 2 diff sites and put in same room/window dimensions + variable and came out with wildly diff results - one was 50% higher!

[BoyzntheShire]

ah, have good towel rad tip for you too.

if i go and read the little labels on said items id prob know the details (cant quite beleive i dont remember off top of head tbh)

[BoyzntheShire]

rad stuff:

have this make in one bathroom

and this make in another

both v good and quite high outputs. i have attached hooks from ikea to the latter one for hanging towel robes on for the dc. and i have towel rails attached to a traditional style rad on the latter.

seem to have taken the little plaque off the wooden cupboard thing... will find some other way

[BoyzntheShire]

ah, found it. stonewood brochure

[SofiaAmes]

No you are right slightlymad for pointing out about the water. As an American, I am obsessed with showers and could quite happily live without a bath, but never without a shower. But you do need to make sure that your hot water system is equipped for what you do put in. I spent a small fortune putting in mains water pressure hot water heaters, extra pumping and a huge reserve tank in our london house.

When it comes to radiators, I am a big fan of this radiator or anything else eskimo makes. I had them do a custom one with a towel bar welded on the front for two of my bathrooms and just used ikea pegs (as suggested above) for the others.

Also, I was really happy with my Helios automatic humidity sensing exhaust fans. They don't need to be switched...just go on after a shower and stay on until humidity is lowered enough. Totally quiet and really subtle low profile and only marginally more expensive than the cheap ones.

And another thing I did was put in low level lighting (a very cheap concealed rope light) that went on with an automatic motion/light sensor when someone walked into the bathroom. It turned out to be fantastic for the kids so that when they were toilet trained, they could get up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom without fumbling for the light switch OR WORSE, waking me up to help them.

[BoyzntheShire]

ooh i like the concealed rope light on a sesnor idea... v good