New bathroom - dos and don’ts!

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We’ve finally got the money together for a new bathroom. Our whole house has been a renovation project for the last 2 years and it’s the last room that needs doing. It’s a standard, small family bathroom with a shower over the bath. (No room for a separate bath and shower).

If you love your bathroom or if you’ve recently had it re-done, is there anything you’d recommend? We’re already noticing things we wish we’d done in other rooms, and I’m keen not to make the same mistake this time!

E.g. we have really hard water so I’m thinking of sticking to lighter colours/whites and wondering if it’s worth having panelling instead of tiles?

Hit me with your ideas!

Definitely under floor heating. I ❤️ ours!

Agree, underfloor heating it was only fractionally more expensive than having a towel heater instead. We got tiled recesses for bottles & towels at the end of the bath. I'd go fairly neutral in the tiles, you can accessorise/add colour with towels etc.

Fit a water softener.

Where are you going to put your shampoo etc in the shower? We have a couple of alcoves built in and tiled which are great, can't stand those metal caddy things that fall off all the time and/or go rusty.

Definitely as much storage as you can.

I like to have a separate rail for a hand towel as the bath towels need to be spread on the radiator to dry which makes it difficult to reach the small ones when you just use the loo and need to dry your hands. Or the same for guests if they will be using it.

Personally I would think about where the pipes need to go and minimise boxing, especially for the soil pipe which is very chunky.

Plain glass shower screen with as few fixings/frames/corners/folds as possible (they collect grime). Get a squeegee and give it a wipe after every shower, takes 20 seconds.

Do you want a heated or lit mirror? Make sure to decide and tell your fitter in advance so they can get the wiring sorted before tiling.

Underfloor heating, panelling not tiles, large sink, large bath, massive square shower head, industrial extractor for steam

We did our bathroom 3 years ago and I still love it.

• underfloor heating for sure, we only had space for 1m sq but that made it cheap!
• shower with a fixed head and one on a hose
• a big vanity unit
• big white tiles on the wall, I think the panels can look cheap
• our grey mottled floor never looks dirty!

@TeeBee Where did you get your soaking tub, if you don't mind me asking? I've been eyeing them up for a while.

If you’re having a shower look at Kinedo we have them in both bathrooms. So the sides are glass and a special design over the tray, no sealant, no grout. You can have coloured glass, we have white, so easy to clean.

Dont go for coloured tiles, tiling is expensive and you dont want to be stuck with one colour palette. Pick white tiles or any colour that gives you endless palettes to play with.

get a light with a sensor that switches on when you walk in, no grubby cord or light switch., no fumbling around at night.

Don't have the extractor on the same switch as the light. SO annoying when the extractor comes on when you're just using the loo/cleaning your teeth/washing your hands.

We can turn ours off to have the light alone, but not the other way round, so the light has to be on if you want the extractor fan, which seems wasteful.

Make sure there are a couple of shaver points inside the bathroom cabinet so you can charge toothbrushes without trailing leads from the shaver point.

If you don’t get underfloor heating then don’t use the online BVU calculator to work out was size towel rail you need. IT LIES.
I used it. As did 2 friends.
All our bathrooms are freezing

We did ours in September. Biggest positive is having hanging toilet and under sink drawer unit. So easy to clean, no more trying to get into too small gaps.

We have underfloor electric heating. It doesn’t heat the room fully but is nice in winter to have warm feet. Our main heating is a bad ass steel towel rail, even with the towels on it heats the room thoroughly.

Taps in the wall, noton the tub. Large tiles, not small ones, we have 30x60 on the wall and 60x60 on the floor.

Mirror cabinet with lighting around the mirror. It goes on when you are in front of it. Great for applying make up. That was my one luxury.

We did away with the riser rail ( less to keep clean) and had a fixed shower head like the photo.

MotherG, it's an Omnitub.

I have panelled walls and love them. No manky grout. I'll be getting the same behind my kitchen sink rather than tiles ass soon as I can get someone to do it.

Get a plumbed in shower rather than an electric one. Mine has barely any water pressure and the temperature can be unpredictable even though it has a thermostat. It's the third new shower this house has had and honestly if I had the money I'd turn the shower around so I could get a plumed in one.

Yep, panels much easier than tiles to keep looking clean.

Also fixed shower heads can be a pain. It's nice to be able to direct the water at different areas rather than it being a fixed stream.

Oh we can still angle our fixed shower head, so I wouldn't want to go back to having the riser rail. 🙂

I've got a fixed head and a riser rail. Both get used. Riser rail is good for showering the dog. 😄

I would have lights near the floor. I had a panel instead of tiles in the shower. I woukd never have a skirting board or porcelain floor tiles again.

We have a square basin here and it is rubbish. I woukd have a smaller baseless basin next time. A cupboard behind a mirror would be nice. Always a waterfall shower!

Ooo @TeeBee would you share photos?

Keeping tiles and grout clean is easy. Use harpic blue all over them, leaving them so the limescale comes off, then rinse in cold water, and vacuum with a karcher window vac. Never use hot water on harpic around stainless steel as it ruins the finish on metal!

We just had ours done. Getting an 800mm wide bath with nearly straight sides has been brilliant - it feels properly spacious to shower in, much more than our old bath.

Extractor fans - we actually had the first (supposedly quiet) one that was put in, taken out and replaced, as the vibration was annoying me. We mow have one from Blauberg which is much less grating to listen to.

YY to built in storage, shaver points in mirror, etc.

Straight sided bath - so much more space. Inset bottle storage in bath/shower. Mirror cabinet with shaver point inside.