Bathroom decor tips/mistakes

[shelldockley]

Does anyone have any useful tips, or things to avoid when refitting a bathroom? Anything that's been a real pain to keep clean, or just a waste of money? We're doing our bathroom up, completely re-tiling all walls, we might keep the suite because it's fine (white), but most other things will be changing. I'm particularly thinking about storage for a tiny bathroom that looks neat, but is easy to keep clean. (We have hard water so everything seems hard to keep clean!)

Some things I've had in previous bathrooms/seen that I wouldn't have again:
Chrome wire shelves in shower - collects dust and hard to clean, rusts easily
White grout for floor tiles - gets very dirty/stained very quickly
Towel rail next to toilet - difficult to find any other home in a tiny bathroom but a bit grim
Glittery tiles - again with hard water, a devil to clean

Any tips anyone?

Try and plan for a mirror near the sink so you can see what you are doing when putting contacts in, best of all have a mirror cabinet but make sure there is a handle to prevent grubby hand marks.

Never again would I have a shower curtain, impossible to keep clean so I would go for a P shaped bath with a curved easy to clean show screen.

For toilets/sinks I am quite taken by utopia this although I haven't had a cost yet.

For floors tiles might look great but I still like the warmth of vinyl.

I would put a lot more importance on having a decent extractor next time I do a bathroom.
Spent quite a bit on a posh mirror with lights in but they are really fierce and never get used! worth it for the toothbrush/shaver plug though
Love my P shaped bath so I don't bang my elbows while washing my hair in the shower

Music to my ears (so far)! Right in the middle of getting our bathroom done - p-shaped bath with screen, mirror cabinet w lights. Floor tiles. Feeling smug right now

Also quite smelly as the bath has been gone a couple of days!

Are you putting underfloor heating under your tiles? so nice when getting out of the bath in winter (but a nasty reminder of needing to mop more often after 2 small boys with unreliable aim when you 1st turn it on after a while!)

We decided against underfloor heating because we're planning to rent/move in the next year so didn't think it was worth it.

Might be a little less smug when winter comes!

Don't tile over every surface without any means to access pipes for maintenance! [learnt the hard way]