To ask what bathroom mistakes you have made

[Egoanono]

Doing up the bathroom at the mo, ripping it out and starting from scratch. Mid range budget but want a high end finish. I'd love to learn from your mistakes (and successes! please.

[Whistlejacket16]

Two to add.
If you like the natural stone look there are really good stone effect ceramic and porcelain tiles now. These are practically indestructible, will not stain, don't require annual treatment and look amazing. So much better than 10 years ago when you could see the pixels.
2) Get your plumber to plumb your shower valves in on the wall as you enter the shower NOT under the shower stream. I would not be covered in cold water every day and have soggy dressing gown sleeves if we had done this. Agree with all of the above.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Waterfall taps look nice but will need adjusting to a trickle in the sink otherwise you get wet and look like you've wee'd yourself.

If you have space, separate bath and shower are a winner. We moved the door in our bathroom to make this possible.

Natural stone doesn't go mouldy if it's sealed before use. We have it in all our bathrooms.

Free standing baths are great and avoid tiling up the wall but only use if you can have a separate shower. Get one that sits on the floor otherwise you need everything to be chromed as it will be on view and cost hundreds.

If you buy the products online, you may get them cheaper but will probably need to buy extras like wall brackets to attach the sink and loo. Check the thickness of the glass on the shower doors, the cheaper ones must legally still be toughened glass but are ultra thin.

Shop around. Bathstore is expensive.

Make sure the person tiling can actually tile well especially if you're a perfectionist. Tiling perfectly isn't an easy job. And only use a professional tiler for natural stone.

[TheTeaFairy]

This: Our towel rails are connected both the the heating and the electric, its the best of both worlds.

Use mermaid board to line your shower cubicle and you'll only need to clean it once in a blue moon

[WankersHacksandThieves]

Check that you can get a decent flow from the taps - modern baths have steep sides and take ages to fill - we have a shower bath in the main bathroom with an extra wide square bit for the shower cubicle - takes about 20 minutes to run a bath - thankfully we are not big on baths in our house.

Get a sink in a cabinet - loads of storage :)

We had ours done a few years ago - like this.

[YelloDraw]

Ah, forgot about taps. Do NOT go for waterfall taps! Yes they look lovely, but if you're in a hard water area you get limescale really quickly on them. I have ended up cleaning and polishing them daily

Oh I had my heart set on water fall taps :-(

[PigletJohn]

"takes about 20 minutes to run a bath "

Sounds like a combi boiler to me.

Either type of cylinder should be much faster.

[yumscrumfatbum]

Spend money on good taps DH bought cheap ones for our new bathroom and they are awful they move about when you turn them and just feel really unsubstantial. In my last bathroom I had a white ceramic tiled floor never again it never looked clean. I also had a roll top bath with ball and claw feet. It was beautiful and meant you could have a proper full bath right up to your neck but it was a total bastard to clean under. We had it almost up to the wall space behind was too small to get your hand down and the kids were forever dropping stuff behind it! Ventilation is really important if you can't have a window get the best extractor money can buy!

[minipie]

BalloonSlayer that's why we went for the one that you press to close and open... but DD opens it by accident when she sits on it. It seems there is no perfect bath plug solution... maybe the old fashioned kind with a chain?!

Agree totally with whistlejacket's tips. We had limestone in a previous bathroom and a couple of the tiles went all flaky from trapped moisture (they'd been sealed before use). Porcelain "stone" is really good these days. And yes we have our shower controls on the side wall not under the shower stream

[englishmummyinwales]

The biggest shower unit you can fit in - so lovely to have room to move and bend down. And nice cupboards so you can de clutter - clean surfaces make it look high end and calming.

[Graceymac]

Get the wall where a slimline shower tray is fitted lined at the area where it sits (and underneath it) beforehand or otherwise you will have to have ugly lengths of plastic between it and the tiles to prevent leaking underneath it. This totally takes away from the minimalistic look that a slimline tray is supposed to achieve.

Do not use skirting or it will swell up like mine has.

Do not use cream porcelain tiles as they are very slippery and as PPs have said every speck of dirt becomes visible.

[minipie]

Piglet it takes bloomin ages to run our new bath, we have an industrial sized Kestrel and a Megaflo but the bath is an enormous Bette effort with huge internal volume...

So to add to the list of mistakes: baths with a large volume may seem like a great idea but they take forever to fill.

[Cherylene]

The worst thing I did was pay upfront to a company that had previously done a perfect job on the kitchen.

Fitter was crap, company went bust and the KBSA is a complete waste of space.

[minipie]

If you want to avoid the mouldy silicone problem, Bette do a built in upstand on their baths/shower trays, which can be tiled directly onto, so you don't need silicone sealant round the edge of the bath/shower tray.

It does require pre ordering quite a way in advance though - we ran out of time which I'm still sad about!

[PigletJohn]

"they move about when you turn them "

that's due to the nut underneath not being tight.

[atticusclaw2]

Our bath also takes forever to fill but thats because we don't have any taps and the water fills from the overflow. Good in theory but it does mean that to fill the bath takes 15-20 minutes. The old bath in the en suite that has been there since 1970something fills in minutes.

[minipie]

Re skirting - we have a short upstand made of the floor tiles instead of wooden skirting

[littlewoollypervert]

Glitter grout! I'm halfway through my bathroom, grey cement look tiles, was going to do grey grout (had white grout on mosaic tiles on floor, yuk) - but now I'm going to add the glitter to the grout to cheer it up. Lovely!

[minipie]

Oh yeah we have that too atticus. Didn't realise those overflow fillers go more slowly than taps

[littlewoollypervert]

halfway through tiling* my bathroom

[MrsMillions]

We had a bath filler from the overflow in our old house (and indeed old bathroom in this house). Agree it is rubbish as (a) slow to fill and (b) not enough water force to generate bubbles from your bubble bath.

Measure everything. Our rim-fitted taps are marginally too big for the rim of the bath. It annoys me slightly. They are lovely taps otherwise which offsets the size problem.

We also love our shower niche but again think it is higher than the water spray.

[FadedRed]

BalloonSlayer you could try a travel sink/bath plug. Search for 'universal fit travel bath plug' - cost a few quid and fit most sizes of sink and baths.

[purpleleotard]

Suggest wall board, a bit like formica, instead of tiles for the shower enclosure as they are less likely to leak. A bit more expensive, easier to clean.
Make sure the installer fits isolators that are easy to get at on all units shower, basin, loo etc so you can do maintenance easily.
Don't put a bath in as they use huge amounts of water and take ages. Also swilling around in your own dirt is a bit of a no - no. Showers far quicker for all family members to use.
Two taps on the basin. A single central makes washing difficult as you cannot get your hands out to splash your face etc.
Avoid the 'cattle trough' like basins as they take lots of water to fill to a useable depth

[Aftershock15]

Low level lights that come on with a movement sensor so that you don't need lights on at night. We just have a couple either side of the loo.

I like shower niches - just get a slight angle and water doesn't puddle.

Dh loves the tiled mirror in the shower for shaving - just a tile replaced with a mirror tile.

If you are looking at contemporary basins and baths consider how easy they will be to clean. I have a couple of very squared off ones inside - look very stylish but that corner bit gets grubby/ is harder to clean. Then ones with the slight curve are much easier to keep clean.

[atticusclaw2]

Don't put a bath in as they use huge amounts of water and take ages. Also swilling around in your own dirt is a bit of a no - no.

I'm not sure that it's generally accepted that taking a bath is swilling around in your own dirt and is a "no-no"