can we have a 'soucing great stuff for new bathrooms' thread please?

[MousyMouse]

tiles: are tiles are us ok? or are there better sources? is there a great difference in quality?

electrics: are there pretty fixed installed hair dryers? have only found ugly white gym stuff.

bathtub: dyi store ok for that? are showerbaths ok?

We are having our bathroom done right now! We went to tile flair and tile source to look for tiles but not sure where else their show rooms are.

We didn't actually go to many showrooms to pick the suite out. Our plumber dropped some brochures off we picked what we liked and he sourced it at trade prices for us! Try asking yours and see what they come up with.

Best places I found:

Wallsandfloors.com for tiles. Much cheaper than elsewhere, lots of tiles exactly the same as fancy places like fired earth, etc. Good service.

Victoriaplumb.com for sanitaryware, if you want more basic stuff. Much cheaper than other places and just as nice as bathstore. Can't vouch for them for fancier stuff like roll top baths, etc.

Can't comment on fixed hairdriers, sorry.

Isee that would be good. have a brand new hairdryer still in the box (christmas gift) would be great if that could be fitted.

If you are in London, Waterloo Bathrooms is one of the last independent bathroom showrooms these days. Everyone else has gone onto the internet and if you don't find what you want in Bathstore you are stuck.

Waterloo is a proper showroom with loads of different baths and showers and basins actually on display rather than in a catalogue.

I just realised the typo in the title

lightrain ooh thanks for those links! I'm just bookmarking a few items on the Victoria Plumb site now. I initially thought it looked pricey next to similar items at Bathstore, but I can see now that VP includes things Bathstore doesn't (so, VP has the bath + shower screen + panel, whereas Bathstore charges a lot extra for all those things together)..

By the way, I'm looking at this bath. It says "excludes waste", what does that mean? What item should I be adding to a potential purchase?

It also says there are no holes for a tap. Would this be normal? When I have someone install it, they would expect to have to make holes for the tap? (I also assume I'm picking out a tap separately? )

Sorry, am new to all of this... obviously! :)

Having ours done next week. Waiting for delivery from Victoriaplumb - again! (seems to be their weakness) Bathstore were excellent, much to my surprise as was Bathempire, Plumbworld, Showerdoctor and wallsandfloors for tiles. Happy shopping.

GreenEggs - the 'waste' will be the plug, and if it doesn't have tapholes then the taps are meant to come out of the wall, I think

Plumbworld was recommended by our plumber in UZk.

Not so sure about Victoriaplumb. We got some stuff and parts of the actual plumbing (washers) etc. were really poor quality. Luckily our plumber could replace and fix these quite easily.

oh wow flatbread that site looks good as well. And loads more feedback that VP. I also like that it suggests the missing items (see: my question regarding the waste/plug. If VP were smart, they'd have the one that fits that bath in the list of suggested items nearby, which this site seems to do).

Shall have a nosy around, thank you as well Bertha for that explanation. :)

I've been very pleased with plumbworld.

they also shift some clearance stuff on fleabay as user plumbworlduk

ISee yep that's just the one I've moved on to now. I'm searching as and when I have time, so I haven't moved past the bath yet. I do still need to source tiles, but I worry about that because I've not done that before (or any of this) so I'm afraid of buying too many or too few, if that makes sense.

Thanks for the ebay idea, Piglet, I shall check there before ordering new from the main site.

oh yes the tiles.
a lovely family member (used to be a builder) will do the tiling for us.
but so far we know what we don't want (beige/grey marble/sandstone effect) but we are baffled by the choice.
our family member told us to get 1 square meter more in case of breakages and for later repairs and to get proper floor tiles for the floor as wall tiles can get dangerously slippery.

This is bath tube porn.
www.giant.co.uk/leggera.html
has some of the best designed baths, even a fish tank one.

me again
mixer taps: would one with a thermostat like this work with a combi boiler? apart from the fact that this one is ugly