can someone please help me with this bathroom setup - maybe one for pigletjohn??

[movingonup2015]

Ok so I have a small upstairs bathroom and as you can see from the photo it has a false wall at the back with a shelf - behind the wall is all the plumbing.

The bath panel was completely tiled in so to make things easier for the future I decided I had to smash the whole thing off and replace with a normal bath panel. Whilst that was off I decided it would be better to tile the floor as it was grubby old lino.

Anyway during that time I had a look behind this false wall just for curiosity reasons and noticed that the toilet has a flexible pipe that goes the entire length of the wall and then turns left into the soil stack....

it doesn't have a good flow on it and goes up and down in places and I wasn't totally convinced this was a good idea...

So then we took the toilet and sink out and I wont go into too much detail as its making me heave but lets just say the flexible pipe isn't working properly and "stuff" doesn't get flushed out properly because it doesn't flow downwards enough. this would explain why the toilet bowl water always looks dirty a few minutes after flushing!!!

I cant live with this its gross and by the looks of it the toilet used to be where the sink is currently but they have obviously switched everything around so that the mirror can go above the sink.

My other half thinks we should put everything back to where it was originally i.e. the toilet on the right and sink on the left. I'm not particularly happy about this because it means the mirror will then be above the loo and theres nowhere to put it above the sink.

im concerned because im not planning on being in this house forever its my starter home so no more than 5 years.

so what do I do? do I change the setup, would this put you off as a buyer that the mirror is above the loo and not the sink or do I somehow try and get the plumbing sorted - its not going to be easy to sort the plumbing out because the soil stack currently goes down through the extension instead of outside and its all boxed in..

thoughts anyone please??

the quality of plumbing looks quite poor (plastic pipes, green flux stains, flexible hose).

If your photo is accurate, the basin looks needlessly wide, so the WC is cramped and you might bang your shoulder on the basin.

I'd recommend asking around for a competent plumber who can change that flexi for a rigid soil pipe. It does take a bit more time as you have to cut and measure and use elbows and joints, but will be more satisfactory.

If re-positioning the WC improves and shortens the soil pipe run it will be worth it.

Try not to have a lot of tiles that prevent you getting at the plumbing. You can have removable panels if you want. I think the boxing-in was done to hide the shoddy plumbing and make the bathroom look pretty for a quick sale.

I can't advise on the plumbing issues, but you can have a mirror attached to a wall bracket which you then pull in front of you to use. See photo. This one is £5.50 from Wilko but there are bound to be bigger and fancier ones available.

Or move the sink round to the wall facing the bath.

p.s.

the position of the loo roll is absurd.

I wonder if there would be room to put the basin or WC on the wall opposite the bath.

p.p.s.

It looks like they have put the cabinet on the wall above the basin. In which case you will be buying a new basin soon, because a glass bottle or jar will fall out of the cabinet and crack it. Any plumber will advise against that.

Any chance you can run rigid pipe work along the outside to achieve the correct falls etc?

Think would definitely swap the basin and WC over if at all possible and look into getting a smaller basin. (Looks like you can't sit on the WC properly.)

And agree with pj - we broke our basin in our first place with something falling out the cabinet.

We have a similar layout to what yours would have been originally, with the toilet in the corner and the sink underneath the window. We looked at rearranging but that would have involved other compromises and not having the mirror above the sink was the least worst compromise. We have a small mirror on the windowsill which the OH uses for shaving and then a large mirror along the side wall, (not yet up when this photo was taken). Works absolutely fine in reality.

We have our cabinet with mirror above the toilet. PJ is right, in our rental it was above the sink and l dropped my perfume bottle and cracked the sink.

We always keep the toilet lid down so minimises loss, but l did lose the toothpaste top last week

Thanks for all your replies. I think the least hassle is going to be to move the toilet back to its original position on the right as it seems to doesn't seem to be a huge turn off to have no cabinet above the sink and actually I didn't think of it like that with things falling out and cracking the sink! The sink is definitely too big I already ordered a new one last week which I forgot to mention it's much smaller and has a cupboard built in underneath because I didnt like the fact that loo rolls etc would be on display as there was nowhere to put a cupboard in there. I think they did just quickly throw that bathroom together because the plumbing under the bath is just as thrown together. The pipework slopes back towards the bath instead of away from it so there's always water in the pipe! There's no way to alter it either unless I cut all the floorboards :-(

You could turn it round so the taps and the plughole are at the window end.

I don't think I could pj the shower is above the bath and all the electrics and stuff are the tap end so it would be a nightmare to move it all wouldn't it?