Round bathroom and kitchen!

[TiredDad45]

We live in a converted oast house, which has 6 round rooms, each about 4 to 5 metres in diameter. It looks lovely but it's a nightmare to furnish, especially when you are trying to fit in with the world of flat-sided kitchen units/ showers cabinets etc.

Anyway, we need to redo the kitchen which is in one of the roundels and also a bathroom which is in another roundel (we are thinking of putting a wall down the middle of that one to turn it into a bedroom with ensuite bathroom, as the wall will also give us a flat surface in one direction).

We don't have huge amounts of cash to spend so we have had a go at using some of the online planners (e.g. Ikea) but none of them allow you to start with a round room! We tried a couple of bathroom designers in the real world too but they were lacking in ideas and creativity - and wanted to sell us over-priced hardware to populate their designs.

There are some non-obvious (to me) features of having a kitchen in a round room, such as being unable to open two drawers at the same time that are next to each other because they crash! The existing kitchen just consists of standard units around the curved wall with a non-standard worktop above them. This means that there is a cake slice-shaped gap between each cabinet so that the fronts are roughly aligned. Probably the only way to do it.

Has anyone managed to design and build a decent kitchen or bathroom in a roundel? Any helpful hints more generally?

Thanks.

hi - yes I have designed kitchens in oast houses before and in large round new builds on the south coast ... most of the time they have been as you described - using standard cabinetry with void wedges getting larger at the rear and templated bespoke worktop on the top - but one client had a totally bespoke kitchen made to the curves ! - this was because it was really small so every bit of space was needed ! the simplest way for you to plan it yourselves would be on oaper - with bathrooms using built in furniture fitted in a similar way to kitchens can work well for loo and basin and freestanding tubs come into their own in a curved space !

Thanks OnePlan. Looks like time to refresh those graph paper and compass skills!

The hardest part is working out the variable height problem in the bathroom, since we have a vertical wall to about 5 foot and then a sloping ceiling. We want a nice shower (and we are all over 6 foot tall) but we don't want it way out in the middle of the room, so we are having to plan it going close to the wall, which is straightened out by a new partition. So it will be an alcove shower in which three sides are new partitions (one tight against the real exterior wall, one that is a new partition dividing the room in two and one at the back of the shower as a new partition). However this involves having a bespoke glass panel and door on the remaining side and the designer has quoted us a price for that glass side panel and door of nearly £4,500, including template and fitting. That just seems unaffordable/ mad...

Bespoke will always be more expensive, but you can potentially diy your own (eg get the glass cut to size, then build it into a door yourself). The alternative is to design it so that a standard door will fit. This may compromise what you want to do with the space.

I think the door part would be standard anyway. It's just that the glass panel to the right of the door would have to be profiled to match the sloping ceiling and would have to be attached to the door as it is the hinge side. But should that really cost £4k+?

Seems like a huge amount, even though it is special glass.

With your kitchen could you have an island in the centre or a variation of that rather than trying to plot cabinets round the walls?

Quodlibet, at the moment we have a round table in the middle of the kitchen, which we use for breakfast. It just about sits the 5 of us around it if we keep it clear. Other meals we eat in the dining room or outside. But you are right that it could be an option to have an island. The only slight weirdness would be that if it is a large island then you end up with a very curved walk to get from the kitchen's outside door (which is our main entrance to the house, because the real front door is in the wrong place) to the hallway door.

But we could do with the extra work surface of a central island (or moving the hob to an island) and some extra storage space, so perhaps the island is the answer and we eat elsewhere/ standing up!

Really we need to build a new kitchen somewhere else but that is ££££s and also a planning issue because the building is listed.

Glass can be got much cheaper by going to a glass store and getting it cut for you - example here

you can make a freestanding shower out of curved wedi board in the tallest part of the room - sort of like a curved snail shell shape ! with an extractor with lighting over the middle !

Carol, thanks for that link. I've emailed them to find out some more.

OnePlan, I'm going to investigate Wedi in the morning - never heard of them before. Thanks for that. However we are trying to avoid having the shower in the tallest part of the room because it is a waste of space. Also if you use the tallest part of the room then you can just put a normal shower cabinet in there so no need for fancy boards (unless I've misunderstood). Hence our plan to turn the massive bathroom into a partitioned bedroom + ensuite bathroom, which unfortunately means we need to get cute about fitting the shower relatively close to the wall so that there is enough space left in the bedroom part of the room. We could do with the extra bedroom and it will add to the value of the house too, we hope.

sounds challenging !! but doable !! I don't suppose you have any architects plans of the place do you ? you could use them to help with the planning ?!

Can you not simply position single kitchen cabinets around the outside of the room (there'll be gaps because they'll produce a chord along the arc)? Using small cabinets will minimise these gaps. The worktop will hide the gaps.

It'll probably work best with more cupboards and fewer drawers. If you want mostly drawer-based storage, you'd be best off going for a fancy island kitchen with nothing attached to the walls.