How on earth do you design a bathroom?

[QuentinInQuarantino]

I have three bathrooms in my home, all from the era of vomit coloured suites. Not one shower. Two of the baths are square (shower sized but baths).

But I have no idea how you design a bathroom? I think I want a dark
Shower room, so it feels a bit like a spa. I have three blank canvases so this should be really fun but I'm at a total loss.

How would you style a bathroom?

It's difficult, isn't it?

Think about where your water and waste pipes are- I like to keep boxing to a minimum especially for the waste as it's really chunky, so this may limit where you want to put your toilet. Avoid having the toilet right opposite the door if you can so it's not on view so much if the door is open. I went for a big walk in shower in my en suite and took the bath out as we have one in the main bathroom and until my son was born, never used either of them! Towel radiator is right where you step out of the shower.

Do you need storage? In our main bathroom we fitted in a narrow cupboard that goes almost floor to ceiling which is great for spare shampoo etc, medicines, loo rolls, cleaning stuff. We also have drawers under the basin in both bathrooms. Where do/will you keep your towels?

Most of the main bathroom stores will help you do a plan if you take your measurements, they will be able to suggest what works and what might not.

invest in a lot of house magazines, even the glossy eywateringly expensive bathroom ones, and rip out pix of what you like the look of. Stalk Rightmove and copy photos of nice bathrooms.

As Duck said, moving pipes around is expensive so only move stuff if you need to, especially the loo. Storage and shelving are a must.

I had wall-fixed mirrors with a heating plate behind them to stop the mirrors misting up, and a lighting designer told me to place a light on either side of the mirror and one on top to downlight the gap between my nose and the mirror. Really inexpensive to do, and brilliant for makeup/teenage spot admin etc.

This is so useful thank you! I think it the main one I just want to change the bath for a shower (and redecorate) so hopefully not too much pipe moving there.

Another one I wanted to make into an en suite, that would involve moving the bath, I guess that gets expensive.

I've never even heard of heated mirrors that's genius! I thought a heated towel rail was fancy!

Lots of modern toilets seem to have the flush button on the wall and just the seat protruding from the wall which looks really nice, but what happens if the toilet breaks? (Ours are always playing up and we need to get inside the cistern) or are modern ones more reliable?

Make sure the type of showers you need are compatible with your boiler and/or water pressure etc.

Don't get a double sided mirrored door for your bathroom cabinet. We spent a few hundred on a fancy cabinet, with electrics, light etc and then after a year or 2 it started to get discoloured at the edges of the mirrored doors. I can only assume it's the damp that's got between the 2 pieces of mirrored glass and its started to rust or something.

There are so many different types of taps and wastes etc that you need to really look at those closely. I'd only ever lived in houses with normal plugs on chains and when we got our bathroom done we just didn't know what to answer to questions such as "what type of waste do you want - a pop up one, click clack...? And do want separate taps, or mixers, single lever/swivel spout/ wall mounted or what?" We just looked at each other, going "Er......."

There was so much we hadn't considered. So really do your research for each component first so when you're asked what you want, you already know!