bathrooms... pooled mumsnet wisdom please!

[hairtwiddler]

The plumber delivered bad news today and it looks like we'll have to totally rip out and replace our shower. We've decided it would be daft not to do the rest of the bathroom at the same time.

I have never had to re-do a bathroom before and am terrified at the thought. We need to get it sorted as we have a slow leak from the shower and are scared of what lurks beneath!

At the moment - fairly clinical - tiled from floor to ceiling in white tiles with green strip of tiles around shoulder height. Lino floor. I think it looks like a public loo! DH wants to keep the tiles and thinks half tiles half paper is a bad idea.

Ok, long enough for an advice post. Tell me about your bathroom please! Details re: cost and sourcing of suites etc much appreciated.

I have bought two extremely reasonably priced suites in the last couple of years, both from plumbworld.co.uk. Would highly recommend them for decent quality, fab prices and very fast delivery. If you go to the usual suspects - homebase, B&Q, etc - watch out for outrageously long delivery times (think months!) so ask before you buy. They do have some good deals from time to time though.

I like tiles around the shower, up to the ceiling, and then waterproof paint on the other walls. Saves the faff of papering and looks modern and tidy. Need nice flat walls to get it to look really good, but replastering needn't cost much for a small room and gives a beautifully smooth surface to paint on.

we're just about to have new bathroom put in - can I get back to you when I have a moment though ?

I also think half tiles/paper is a bad idea. I would suggest all tiles. Easy to clean and unlike paint and paper water won't make them peel off.

Our en suite is painted but once we get some cash we are going to retile the whole room.

Thanks Scoobi6, will check them out.
Mary-Ann... course you can! Really glad of any advice.

Bathrooms eh

Where to start

What sort of budget are you thinking of?

B&Q?
Bathroom sheds?
Fancy designers?

I disagree, we had a fully tiled bathroom before and it was a major PITA. Plus the grout soon gets grubby looking and there's nothing you can do about it.

We now have it tiled around the utilities and the rest is painted with wipeable emulsion.

Victoria Plumb (website somewhere) is great. Very reasonably priced and a good range

my advice would be, if you can possibly avoid removing the tiles, then leave them in place. loads of hassle getting them off, replastering and retiling and tbh paper and bathrooms dont mix well. If your going down the half tiled route then replaster and use bathroom paint.

we gutted our bathroom (after making sure we'd put in a downstairs loo!) when i was 7 months pregnant. we live in a 1930's semi. I have a friend who works for a bathroom company so we got a good discount.

try and design your new bathroom around the existing plumbing as saves money. go for something that wont date, plain white ceramics will always be stylish and stick to clean unfussy lines.

we went for a showerbath, new basin and corner loo, crome towel radiator, we also used kitchen wall units instead of bathroom units to build a large storage wall with a mirror in the middle (god sounds bad, but looks great, and totally practical!), which saved money as bathroom units are dead expensive. we retiled, striped, varnished and sealed the floor. all in all i think we spent a total of £2000 and we did all the work ourselves.

Not fancy... I think we don't want to spend more than £3000. Is that unrealistic? Would love to do it for less than that but realise it'll be an investment. All will depend on whether floor rot needs work.

if you are putting in a new shower remember to put the controls somewhere so you can reach in to turn it on without getting deluged with cold water!

there is a nifty aqualisa digital one i have my eye on that actually has a remote control. it even has a wireless remote you can put by the bed to switch on the shower so you can slob in bed until it is hot enough. But I wouldn't trust dp/dcs not to switch it to cold if i was in there too long

Clare, am so impressed you gutted a bathroom when seven months pregnant! I have absolutely no practical ability and will be trusting this job to others.
I can, however, make a cracking cuppa and muffin for tradespeople .
Thanks for this, keep it coming... all very useful.

i dont think £3000 is unreasonable at all, i think you would even be able to pay someone to do all the work for you for that and have it done quickly so you dont have to badger your neighbours for a shower

how old is your house?

It's a 1930s semi. Has been much extended (badly, and not by us). Hence leaky shower!

What do we think of roll top baths like this one at the top of page

You can get grout pens which clean thr grout easily enough.

We have tongue and groove to half way up our walls and paint above, painted in matt eggshell (Ostrich Feather from Homebase, its lovely)

I have a free standing bath, a corner shower cubicle with a huge Victorian style shower head. The thermostatic control is hidden inside the tiles so all you see is the handle to turn on and off.

I used on the floor Laminate from B&Q that looks like tiles...but is suitable for damp rooms. Ornate teeny tiny old fashioned school style radiator.

I love my bathroom sooooo much. I would marry it.
Victoria Plumb website is good as I recall.

dp did most of the plumbing, but we had fun making big holes in the walls getting the tiles off. I would have liked to have kept them as they were the original ones, but they were in really bad condition so went for large white tiles, to the ceiling around the shower part (recessed) and half way up round the other 2 walls.

it was really hard tiling the bottom 2 rows cos bump was in the way!

And if you are gutting a bathroom, rip everything out and do what you REALLY want to do, rather than reusing old tiles etc.

I would tile where you need to.
bathstore.com are good. And Victria plumb also.

ooo.... 1930's semi... snap, well you prob have the same layout as us! lol... every job we do always seems to take 3 times longer cos once you've started there's always another problem lurking underneath.

do you have room for a seperate bath and shower?

We have half tiled walls all around our bathroom, then wipeable emulsion. Got a very good deal in the sale from bathstore on an all white bathroom, simple but nice. Only PITA is the white ceramic tiled floor we chose. Feels great (with underfloor heating) but is a bollox to keep clean and all the grouting is yellowing already (only 2 months old! )

Yes, currently have corner bath and decent size seperate shower. Think would like corner shower. Lots of the tiles are plain white, so I could be envirnmentally friendly and reuse, perhaps with some new tiles to go with?
Browsing Victoria Plumb now.

we have one of these

i like the roll top, do you have space to walk round it?

No, would have to be against wall...

you wont know about the floor til you take it all out i guess. prob best to have a contingency fund for a new floor!

but i think £3000 would def be enough to do the whole bathroom.