Shower panels advice - Rock Salt Prints in very small bathroom

[happymonkey36]

Please help! We are shortly redoing our downstairs bathroom which is small and narrow with only a small window for natural light. At the moment it's hideous, with peeling paint and old tiles coming off the walls! I really want to be brave and decorate it in a way that makes my heart sing whenever I'm in there, but I'm also really scared I'm going to make a big, expensive mistake that I regret!
I've attached a rough layout. There's a small window low down behind the toilet. We plan to swap round the sink and the towel rail positions but keep the shower and toilet in the same place.

I've looked at lots of bathroom companies and all of the shower panels are so dull - mostly grey or white, and very cold colours. We're in Scotland and I feel I need warm colours to brighten up the room, but I can't go too dark as it'll be oppressive. I'm thinking about getting shower panels from Rock Salt Prints as they have some lovely options, but I'm worried that my ideas might look dreadful in real life! I really like Botanical Sand (Botanical Watercolour Sand Shower Panel -) but would it be too twee and busy? There are three walls to cover with shower panels so it might be a bit too in your face? Or could I have the wall facing the toilet in that and have something more neutral on the other two shower walls? But what? Any words of wisdom?

Or what about Blush Pink Marble: Blush Pink Marble Effect Shower Wall Panel -. That's still striking but perhaps a bit safer? What do you think?

Please advise as I really don't have a clue and find it hard to visualise the finished room! I'd love flooring advice too. I love Harvey Maria floor tiles (Bathroom LVT Flooring | Harvey Maria) but I'm worried if I had a decorative floor with a decorative shower, it might be far too busy!

Neither of those, sorry

You need a plain floor with those sort of panels. Otherwise it will be clashing horribly! One or the other!

I like the marble effect one.

I think if you had to choose a pattern or print, my choice would probably be the William Morris green panel over the chinoiserie or pink marble.

However, I’d go for a white or grey/white marble tile effect, & brighten with paint on one wall, accessories and towels instead. You could go really wild with those and change them often and far more cheaply.

Thanks so much for your replies and advice everyone - I really appreciate it! All of the different opinions are very helpful and it goes to show how "marmite" the panels I'm considering are! Lots of food for thought!

Pineapple, thanks for your advice about using white tiles and accessorizing. Unfortunately, in my house all shades of white just look dingy because of the lack of light. We're in Scotland so don't get much daylight for half the year, and the way the house is positioned means not much light comes through the windows. The previous owners had painted all of the rooms different shades of white to "brighten it up for selling" but it actually had the opposite effect. Everything just looked grey and drab. That's why I want to use some kind of colour as I know white/ grey won't work in this house. In many other houses that would work brilliantly though!

I think if you went with your first choice, the chinoiserie, go all out

Don’t just do the shower, do the whole wall behind the towel rail too. It looks odd in their photo of just the panels in the shower with everything else plain. The photo with the sink and mirror and the panel behind looks better.

Or the whole wall behind the towel rail and continue along the shower, with the other two shower panels on a gold or another colour from the pattern.

Treat it as you would wallpaper.

Keep the rest a neutral in one of the other pattern colours in plain, or basic tile print, go all out with accessories and enjoy the bold.

Worst that happens is you have to redo a panel or two when you’ve had enough, which you’d also have to with a bold tile. If you like it, go for it.

I found another couple of similar images, and think it would look better behind a mirror/sink/loo rather than just in the shower.
Any chance you could put the sink where the towel rail is? Or offset the towel rail and add a large mirror there?

Firstly, I bought a shower panel from Rock Salt Prints last year and honestly they were absolutely amazing to deal with. In my case we ordered the sample pack first so we could feel the product and see the designs in real life. Then we ordered a made to measure panel so the design would be centered. Ours is a very bold in your face print which we used in a shower cubicle. Like you I was so bored by the other options out there, greige, grey, black, white blah.

Your botanical print is gorgeous but this is your bathroom and you should decorate it for you as you will be looking at this every day. What some people love other people hate, decorate for you for now not some random potential buyer in the future. For the rest of the bathroom it keep it simple. I do agree about wrapping the room in it but I am aware how expensive this is. You could order one small panel and if you love it, order more. They are non-refundable as they are made to order.

For installation, very easy, they sell a wall primer and then the adhesive is easy to apply and squidge between the wall and the panel.

The panel we bought was the di-bond and you cannot see through it so no splodges of adhesive show through. Very easy to squeegee after a shower too and wipe clean. Any more questions, just ask.

our en-suite is the same dimensions as you have OP.
the walls are stud partition so we’re able to replace all the walls with shower panels.
we have a pattern in the shower itself but plain colour on the the panels for the rest of the walls. Saved having the walls re plastered , primed and painted.

We had one particular problem which was we bought 1m wide floor to ceiling panels. The fitter couldn’t manoeuvre them through the door and get them stood up in place, apart from the first one ( I didn’t see this with my own eyes but had no reason to doubt them as they’d done the main bathroom a few months earlier and we were very happy with their work ). We improvised with a kind of dado rail design in an aluminium strip running around at the height of the top of the door frame. That allowed the fitter to cut the height of the boards enough to get them in.

we have a small hand basin where your towel rail is, sticking out 22cm so we chose a pivot shower door where the pivot is 24cm out from the wall. This allows a nice easy entrance/exit, looks nice and is one big piece of glass to clean.

Thanks so much for all of your comments! It's been incredibly helpful!

bootbootboot - that's great that you've used RockSaltPrints and given a glowing recommendation! I'm really glad I'm not the only person who wants to go bold with their bathroom!

PineappleCoconut - thanks so much for sharing the pictures. You've convinced me it would be good to have the panels behind the sink as well. Our plan is to swap the sink and towel rail around. I drew the plan of how the bathroom looks now, rather than what it will look like after we fiddle with the layout! In hindsight, that wasn't very helpful to all of you helpful people :-).

tanstaafl - thanks for the heads up about the panels possibly not fitting through the door! That hadn't occurred to me and I'm really glad you told me that. We'll need to bear the door dimension in mind when we order them.

Agree with this. I am surprised i like the first one.i think its better than the marble one

Id consider picking a colour from botanical sand... the pink or blue? and doing the walls that colour. Just make it super joyful .... i know a lot of people with "crazy" downstairs bathrooms these days

Have you had Maria Harvey samples? I wanted to like them but irl they are SO plastic and naff looking...

I've not ordered samples yet! I was going to in the next couple of days! Thanks so much for the warning!

How often will you redo the fixtures and fittings? I'd be inclined to go neutral on the tiles / panels and go to town on the walls with paper and paint. That way it's more easily changed if you get bored in 5 years.

@happymonkey36

tanstaafl - thanks for the heads up about the panels possibly not fitting through the door! That hadn't occurred to me and I'm really glad you told me that. We'll need to bear the door dimension in mind when we order them

I think he realised if he tried to keep them full height ( and possibly full width ) he would likely scuff and scratch the ones he’d already fitted with the ones he’s was trying to manoeuvre into place with only a metre or so of room depth.

Also, shower tray… when the room was cleared out they looked at the existing pipe work and said we’d be ok to have a low height for our shower tray. We went for a Mira white resin model. Think we got it from Screwfix, direct delivery to house. So nice not to step up about 10 inches into the old monstrosity of a tray.

I’m really interested to see the finished result. Some of those panels are amazing. Can you post a photo when completed?