New bathroom - dos and don’ts!

[WhatAreWordsWorth]

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!

Found Houzz website really useful to plan our bathroom. We found we could fit a bath and a shower like PP but by doing a wet area for a slim bath and shower, and a dry area for toilet and sink. Large format tiles were great for minimal grout. Niche to put shampoo and soap are great. And lots of storage for towels, loo rolls, toiletries etc so no clutter. Also one of my favourites are dimmer switches for the lights, so you can have dimmed lights at night

Do u really need the bath ? We renovated 10 yrs ago and was always sorry we didn't just take out the bath. Then last summer, having never used the bath, we took it out and have a big walk-in shower instead. It's got a glass screen which has a coating that doesn't need any cleaning. Get large tiles - less grouting to get dirty. If the walls are very good of, maybe think of glass screen panels instead of tiles.

We went for a taller white radiator rather than chrome towel rail as it gives off far more heat.

We decided on larger tiles = less grout to clean up.

If you’re going for tiles don’t get something that’s the current trend as they will date very quickly. If you love them and always will, go for it, but otherwise I’d steer clear of anything grey (my pet hate if it’s not natural like slate) or that’s a current ‘on trend’ pattern.

My top tip if you want a bath and shower but can't fit them separately is get a p-shaped bath. Unless it's a really big freestanding shower, I prefer my over-bath shower now because it feels much more spacious than most freestanding showers. And DD's favourite thing is to bath with me - she sits in the "P" and I sit in my normal spot.

I don't agree with the the pp who said get rid of the bath. Definitely don't do that. You're taking value off the house. What could be a family home if you ever sold is much much less of a family home without a bath.

My house doesn't have a bath and I really miss it. I can use my sister's (well, in normal times) but it's not the same!

Use large tiles on the walls as smaller tiles make the room look smaller. A guy who owns a tile shop told me that when I was looking to decide - and he was right. In fact he gave me a lot of advice - so I’d definitely recommend going to see a local independent for advice on tiles if you’re thinking of tiling.

And as a PP said, a lovely cabinet with demist, lights and charger. We bought ours from Illuminated Mirrors and love it. Not cheap, but fantastic quality.
www.illuminated-mirrors.uk.com/

A stainless steel dispenser for shower gell, shampoo & conditioner saves bottles on shelves or those metal things where bottles always fall over.

If you have a bath panel make sure you can remove it easily, they wedged ours in (useless fitters!!)
I think ours will need ripping off as the posh Bristan taps have only lasted 2 years and now leak!!

Don't get a shower with only a fixed head, impossible to clean the shower properly unless you're in it otherwise you get soaking wet, also a pain if you don't want to get your hair wet. I would also go for very standard fittings where parts are easily fixed and replaced. I once bought a house with a ridiculously expensive Philippe Starck bathroom, the toilet broke and it was impossible to find replacement fittings.

We have mirrors with small spot lights around them which we use for nights and early morning toilet trips instead of the spot lights. Our spot light are connected to fans but we also have switches to turn the fan off if needed.

We opted for large tiles which are far easier to keep clean (less grouting!).

Kardean flooring is easy to keep clean too.

Mixed taps - so much easier and, again, less cleaning! (Always a bonus for me as I hate cleaning.)

Squeegee for the shower screens/doors reduces water marks.

Sockets for electric toothbrushes near a surface for them to live.

Towel rails - ours aren’t heated but that’s never been an issue.

Our sinks have 2 large drawers underneath but not on a pedestal so cleaning is easier.

@ReviewingTheSituation

Re the tap thing - you can get mixer taps that rotate. I think it must be a man thing - my DH was adamant we couldn't have a static tap over the sink, but it made/makes no difference to me. I think it must be to do with how they rinse their faces when shaving? I only use the sink for teeth and hand cleaning, so don't need to move the tap.

I work with textiles & wash them in the bathroom sink (no utility room). I chose the largest basin we could get & a rotating tap, so that I could move the tap out of the way when washing fabrics, delicates, new clothes that might run, etc. A static tap would be awful for me as it would get in the way.

OP, get the biggest mirror you can find & position it so it's right for as many people as possible (I'm short with a tall husband, so this was important for us). Most mirrors are illuminated & it goes in fashions: ours has lights above, which I prefer, but recently I noticed newer ones have lights on the front of the mirror which shine straight at the viewer.

We have a small bathroom so went for a P-shaped bath with a shower over it & a curved glass screen which is hinged at the wall. The extra space given by the P-shape is great.

We have the most beautiful bath that noone ever uses, now that the little ones are bigger we all use the shower so the bath is just another area to think to clean. If you don't need a bath, stay with a shower

My main bathroom is big, it has a separate shower light (with fan) and a massive towel rail so that warms the room up very quickly and beautifully. It has a recessed shelf set with a spotlight which looks much more expensive than it was. The mirror is illuminated so I can shower and do my makeup without wakening the rest of the house (I'm the only one leaving for work/school)

We have neutral walls and tiles, modern white, shower sink and bath set. In the last 10 years I've only changed the towel/mat/accessories colours. Right now we have slate grey towels, bath mats and accessories. Its a good canvas

Don't get a shower with only a fixed head, impossible to clean the shower properly unless you're in it otherwise you get soaking wet, also a pain if you don't want to get your hair wet

This ^

Re the tap thing - you can get mixer taps that rotate. I think it must be a man thing - my DH was adamant we couldn't have a static tap over the sink, but it made/makes no difference to me. I think it must be to do with how they rinse their faces when shaving? I only use the sink for teeth and hand cleaning, so don't need to move the tap

Well, I'm not a man and I wash my face every day. Sometimes more than once a day.

I wash my hair over the sink too..... can't imagine getting in the shower when my mobile hairdresser is washing my hair whilst doing a colour

Re the tap thing - you can get mixer taps that rotate. I think it must be a man thing - my DH was adamant we couldn't have a static tap over the sink, but it made/makes no difference to me. I think it must be to do with how they rinse their faces when shaving? I only use the sink for teeth and hand cleaning, so don't need to move the tap

I wash my face but fill the sink and use a facecloth, I remain upright the whole time.
DH washes his face like one of the seven dwarves!

We installed Regal light grey floor tiles from Topps Tiles and have found them impossible to keep clean. We actually have to use an electric scrubber on them.

Two things that irritate me intensely about our bathroom (we're in a rental):
The tiles, right to the ceiling all around the bath/shower are highly textured. Not too bad to look at when new/sparkly & clean, but an absolute bastard to keep that way. Especially given that we're in a very soft water area, with high peat deposits, that leave a pinkish brown tinge in the water. Everything goes pink after a week. They basically need scrubbing daily. I bought a steam cleaner, thinking it would sort it... it isn't enough. Dread to think how they'd be with hard water.

Obvious when you think about it, but make sure there is somewhere to put a wall mounted loo roll holder that's in reach of the loo. There isn't in our bathroom & we have to have a freestanding holder. Pain in the arse, TBH (excuse the pun). I much prefer using the downstairs loo, for this reason - it's smaller & the loo roll is more accessible.

Also, if you fill a bottle or similar with water for bed at night, make sure the bathroom sink is not tiny. Ours is semicircular & relatively shallow, I can barely get my 500ml insulated metal bottle under the tap. If the bottle was a few mm longer it wouldn't fit.

Our sink. Observe its tiny size, & the stupid tiles to the back. I want to find whoever designed them & give them a good shake. They obviously don’t have to worry about such mundane things as cleaning...

Argh, forgot photo!

@DuckBatRabbit

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.

Can those alcoves be ‘cut’ into the existing bricks? Is there a lot of work involved?

I’d love one as I can’t stand the caddy things either but I have seen some videos where they build a frame (or something) over the whole wall, and leave a gap for the alcove, so I guess you would lose a few inches of space? (a few inches too much in my small bathroom!)

@Whatisapension a brand caa as led Genesis make shelves that can be tiled straight into the wall, so nothing to rattle or rust but doesn’t require the depth an alcove does.

Don't get your taps in the middle of the bath. Get them at the end. If there is a leak from the taps you have to rip the whole bath out (trust me I know) if they are at the end they can normally fix them!

Wow so many ideas to consider, thanks everyone!

I’m a bath lover so we definitely won’t be getting rid of the bath! good idea about a straight sided bath (the bathroom place recommended this) or a P-shaped one. We’ve got them coming round to measure up this week so will see which type of bath would be best.

Will be going for a very plain shower screen with as few nooks and crannies as possible - we’ve got an awful quadrant shower in our en suite and the corners and bottoms of the doors have gathered so much shite and I physically can’t get to it to clean it!

We’re thinking of going for the white marble style tiles as we’re hoping they might be easy(ish) to keep clean and they’re pretty timeless.

Really interesting to hear about underfloor heating too - hadn’t even considered it but it’s such a small room that it could be an option without being too expensive!

For a recessed shelf next to the bath/shower we’ve been told that they’ll need to create a ‘false wall’ and we’re hoping we’ll have the space!

I made sure the boxing around the bath was broad enough to fit a wine glass on!