YAWN.....come and design my bathroom, tell me about baths, sinks, loos, taps, tiles, radiators and most importantly floors

[SlightlyMadSweet]

So we are planning to gut my bathroom...the full works.

DP will be watching doing it with my plumbing trained brother. SO no tradesmen costs/selection to go through.

So

1. Do people in RL really have those trendy bathroom suits...cos they don't look very family practical?
2. Button flush or handle flush?
3. Mixer taps or 2 taps?
4. Radiator or towel rail heatre radiator thingy?
5. Floor? Carpet? Laminate? Tiles? Lino? Won't anything other than carpet be slippy?
6. Where to buy? I want teh suit + mixer shower for under £1000. Is B&Q the only place I will be able to do this? Are they cheap and tacky from B&Q?
7. Anything else I need to know?

1. Trendy bathrooms never have any storage and yet in the pictures you never see shampoo bottles/ baby wash/ ear buds lying around. My mum has had new bathroom with lots of undersink storage -very handy

1. Handle - button flushes always seem really stiff and hard to use

1. Like mixer taps

1. Towel heaters

1. Hate cheap lino but could go for upmarket stuff if only small area e.g. amtico or karndean

1. The bathstore seem to have a permanent sale on and do nice up-to-date stuff

Are you going for bath/shower or both separately or shower in bath?

I feel your pain. I'm doing kitchens and then bathroom!

1. Don't know what a trendy bathroom is
2. Button flush v handle. Personal choice. I've got a high cystern pull chain
3. Again, personal choice, but I want 2 taps.
4. Radiator
5. Carpet supposedly unhygenic in the bathroom, but I agree, slippy and much warmer, surely?
6. B&Q fine. Also try Wickes, MFI, Bathstore
7. No!

towel heater rail thingy is a bugger to clean and mine always needs cleaning

big tiles are better-less grouting and makes room look bigger

button flush

definitely tiles or lino--no no no to carpet too smelly

do not get stupid toilet seat with self closing lid becasue they don't work and the lid doesn't stay up so small boys just piss all over the seat and stain it and they cost a bloody fortune to replace...phew!

Get lots of storage

Button flush uses less water.
If you only want back ground heat then a towel rail other wise a radiator.
Mixer tap.
Tiles or lino
Do you know anyone who is over 60 as they can get a diamond card and get you 10% off at b and q on a Wednesday. Otherwise ask for a discount anyway.

It will be bath over shower, but it will be a wall fitted shower rather than part of tap assembly.

We have an existing mixer shower in place...it is juust broken...

My bathroom is being started on Monday - I'm very excited.

Our suite is from here and is costing about £600, inc taps, but not shower. Our 2nd choice was from B&Q - I thought they looked OK, not too cheap and tacky! Check all the diy shops (Homebase, Focus, Wickes) they all have good deals on their suites.

We're having a button flush - that's all that seems to be around at the moment. 2 taps, no reason other than the fact that I prefer the look of them. Heated towel rail - saves space.

Lino - cheapish (£60), easy to clean, no bits of dust/hair/gunk trapped between floor tiles. Apparently it's the non-slip variety!

There is so much stuff out there to choose from it's a bit overwhelming - we've had to decide on everything this week as we got a fitter at short notice!

Hope this helps a bit. Good luck

1. Who knows - do what's right for your family!
2. Big button - built into hidden cistern
3. Mixer
4. Underfloor heating - without a shadow of a doubt best thing I bought with our kitchen!
5. Tiles but the non slippy/not completely smooth ones. Carpet in a room with a loo - yeuch!
6. Bathstore.com, Wickes, Homebase, any builders merchants?
7. It will be hell while fitting for a v short time - always is. Do you have a second loo? If not get friendly with the neighbours

Ooh - and hidden storage under sinks etc.

My brother has a discount at the Plumb centre, I am asusuming they will all be trade suites???

Not sure where we could add storage. We will replace the wall storage with something similar.

I don't think under sink storage will work in our bathroom as the sink is right next to teh bath and the toilet. And we actually have quite a large bathroom compared to the other houses we viewed.

My bathroom was done 2 years ago.....button flush hidden cistern loo....built in loo, sink and cupboards above with worktop over....whirlpool bath...walk in shower cubicle (no doors or curtains to close) and underfloor heating....underneath textured tiles (non-slip)

tis fab

We've nearly finished doing ours..

1.Ours is a trendish bathroom suite. The bath has one end that bulges out for the shower (didn't have room for seperate shower cubicle)
2.Button flush. Ds1 (nearly 3yrs) can press it ok
3.Mixer taps on bath bath and basin (but I love mixer taps)

1. We have got a radiator, but only because a)it was already there, and b)we haven't seen a towel heater that we like which is in our price range.

5.Haven't done this yet, but will prob have karndean 6.Our suite(toilet, basin, bath, glass shower screen, taps for basin and bath) were £506. It was from B&Q, on offer. Nearly bought a suite from Bathstore, but prefered the look of the B&Q suite. Def not tacky. 7.Other things - extractor fan? (dh bought one which detects movement, so no switch is needed (v quiet too) shaver socket? (shaver or electric toothbrush) lighting?

OUr neighbours a v v friendly.

We already have an extractor - although may replace it like we did in kitchen. It is linked to the lights.

Shaver socket will be fine I think.

personally I wouldn't have a hidden cistern, as ours leaked and took until the floor below exploded until we realised as obviously it was hidden.

We are about to replace our bathroom, and my main criteria is no hidden cistern, towel heaters and lots of storage (currently we have none).

Toothyboy....have you seen your suite displayed anywhere? Or did you buy from an online catelogue?

i have this on the floor, it's fab, non slip, warm, looks cool. nice man to deal with on the phone...

We have big white tiles, with grey/brown grouting which looks really good and won't show the dirt, should we ever let it get dirty!

what about going for a vanity unit for your basin? sounds a bit naff, but we saw some lovely ones when we were looking - very hotel chic. and ideal for storage.

oh yes, we have big white tiles too, with a small gunmetal grey mosaic pattern going around the middle.

hmmmm I think I like that floor Grinning Soul...DP isn't so sure ATM.

Just done ours...

we got an armitage shanks through a building supplies company locally for around £600. Look for something with a decent sized sink as these trendy ones are tiny

Be prepared for every eventuality - none of our old fittings fitted the new suite and it took a whole week to fit it properly!

We have a button flush but I always think they seem quite flimsy.

Mixer taps, definitely.

Try to get proper plugs instead of these stupid pull-up things we have. Stupid!!

Big tiles. We have bathroom laminate which was more expensive but it looks bloody lovely. Cold bathroom so I didn't fancy tiles without putting in underfloor heating!

Get a large towel radiator (just has gaps for towels) as if your room is bigger it will need real heat.

We got a massive cabinet from ikea which swallows bathroom junk.

BathStore had a sale on so we got this

I love it all...but then my old one was avocado...

Have seen it in an independent bathroom shop/showroom, and they've ordered the individual pieces in for us.

Fil helped dh fit ours, which didn't cost us anything except we had to wait for him to be free, iykwim. Luckily my mum lives down the road, so were able to bath/shower there.
Our toilet was seperate to our basin and bath, so we knocked the joining wall down to make one big room. Also turned out that what we thought had been condensation in the bathroom ceiling (which we knew had to be replaced and replastered) had actually been caused by a leak in our roof.
We also had old fittings, which needed to be replaced too.
Maybe hire a skip to to get rid of all the old stuff? We did ad it made life easier, knowing all the rubbish would be going straight in it.

My SIL has these soft close toilet lids that are supposed to prevent kids slamming them down. She loves them . I hate all soft close things - drawers/cupboards / lids cos I have to check whether they have actually closed.

OK, first and foremost - bathroom floors (and even walls up to a height of about 110cm or so) are covered with tiles. Pretty much always. This is because bathrooms are wet areas and don't work well with other materials, especially carpets.

If your bath is not freestanding and will have to be tiled up on all sides, make sure there is a small access 'door' in, so that pipes can be changed if necessary. (Your plumbing trained brother will know what I am talking about)

If you choose stone tiles for the walls, varnish/waterproof them before using the bathroom to prevent fungal dampness.\

Use a towel heating radiator. They are quite brilliant. Choose one that is not only connected to central heating (heats up when you heat the house) but also when you plug it in or otherwise switch it on by itself (in spring, for example, when you won't heat up the whole house but will still want some warmth in your bathroom).