What's the current fashion for bathrooms?

[Karbea]

We are hopefully having our house extended/refurbished and I will need to make decisions about two bathrooms and a downstairs shower room fairly quickly.

If you've had your bathroom redone lately how do you do it, what's in at the moment (not that I'll necessarily follow fashion but it's nice to know)...

I like subway tiles but these seem to have been around for ages and don't want to go that way if they are on their way out!

Thank you.

How can metro tiles be classic, regardless of the pattern they have only been in for what ten years or so? I bet the people who put in avocado suites thought they were classic too! Certainly I can remember similar threads about those big flecked beige marble looking tiles. Unless you choose a period look to go in a period house I suspect that whatever you put in will date to some extent.

Personally I really don't like hotel style bathrooms. I've stayed in enough hotel rooms (for boring business trips) to not want to recreate the look at home, and I think they look and feel very cold.

Our next bathroom is going to have one of these in it.

nooka metro tiles have been around for a lot longer than ten years - look at the tiling in Tube stations in London for starters. Definitely a design classic.

I'm just talking about in domestic bathrooms though. Where they are a relatively recent fashion. And yes I would expect to see metro tiles in underground stations, as they were originally designed for the New York Metro and found to work really well as they are durable and easy to clean.

The all white metro tiling makes me think a bit of municipal toilets, it's very stark and not very homely. However it's not my bathroom!

Can I just mention I had wet wall in the shower & it is fab - no grungy tiles to clean. Tiled elsewhere, but the shower wet wall is my happiest thing, always looks clean and fresh.

The biggest fashion in bathrooms at the moment is freestanding baths. I like them (and have one) but they are space dependent of course.

Sorry, I am boringly practical - for me form should follow function every time.

Thanks for starting this thread. I'm at the same point as you in as much as I'm renovating an old house in France and have done one bathroom. It's tiny and has sloping ceilings (all the upstairs rooms have this) so we were limited in what we could do. I've done tumbled travertine on the floor and walls, a chrome ladder towel rail which heats the room beautifully and a walk-in shower. We have a rectangular basin on a cupboard and a waterfall tap. The mirror is an electric de-mister which is great. I'm thrilled with the result and think it looks beautiful (sorry grumbleina )

I'm now moving on to do our en-suite. We're having a double ended bath and a large walk-in shower. I've got a granite basin and will also have another chrome ladder towel-rail. I'm trying to decide whether to repeat the tumbled travertine or to go for something else that is also simple like white tiles.

Sanitary ware and baths etc are extremely expensive here so I shall buy in the UK and have them sent over. Does anybody have any recommendations about the quality of baths from Victoria Plumb, Victorian Plumbing, Bathstore etc please?

I'm watching this thread with great interest.

I've seen metro tiles in old bathrooms, my sisters Victorian terrace definitely had them when they moved in in a been there years bathroom.

Anyway, we're on the middle of having ours done. We've gone for 15cm white tiles on half the walls, laid offset with grey grout (metro style I suppose) white basic suite, simple chrome taps etc (curvy but chunky designs) the floor is a dark blue tile with a paler blue design (floralesque) walls are going to be a very pale blue and bath panel is wood with a panel detail painted the same blue. Bathroom cabinet is an old pine one with panel details and mirrors painted white.

We purposefully didn't copy a whole look from a bathroom catalogue because I think that can be risky in terms of dating and concentrated on when we liked.

Metro tiles weren't used in houses I don't think, more hospitals and metros in the past.

I feel they are fussy.

Prefer big tiles. But I have an old house with the original tongue and groove wood paneling still in situ to half way up the wall and no skirting board. Great. Easily changed with a coat of paint and change of wallpaper above. Shower is tiled.

We went for what I thought was a huge towel rail but I realise now we could have gone even bigger - it has space for 2 adult sized towels and that's it. It does keep the room fairly warm although we have to bleed it often to keep it hot top to bottom.

If we'd had the money to make the room a bit bigger (by stealing a bit of space from the landing) I'd have put in a shower cubicle as well as a bath. The shower screen is already a bit grotty round the edges which I hate.

We have half tiled up to waist height (except round the bath) as I find completely tiled rooms too cold and echoey. Same goes for ceramic tiled floors.

Oh and I have mosaic tiles - I know they're naff but I love them.

I think bathroom style is very personal but things which are most important are storage and ease of cleaning (plus having a good shower).
I like metro tiles with dark grout but my house is old and they seem to work best here, they don't work everywhere.
wow can I ask if you have a link for your taps/shower hose arrangement? Sounds good.

I agree that metro tiles are a bit 'over' - I don't think they are a design classic for a residential property in any shape or form.

But its the same as anything in interior design - of course there are looks that are dated, or designs that may become dated in a few years - but through all of that its your home and you have to live with it. For me personally, it wouldn't matter how fashionable spanish tiles become, I would hate that kind of look. Having said that, I've been waiting to do my bathroom for about 5 years given that we inherited a 30 year old peach bathroom suite (complete with louvre doors on the boiler cupboard) when we moved in. I am therefore not qualified to make comments on bathroom design

I'm pondering a big glass splash back over the bath instead of tiles. Ease of cleaning and less grout isn't thinking! Will see if I can find any examples.

mandy you have the same bathroom as us. Lovely and tasteful isn't it?!

4ever in a couple of years it will be the height of fashion again

mandy quite probably, then we'll be complaining that we wasted all that money having it taken out.

I put really boring white square tiles in eighth years ago with a mosaic strip in the shower ( chunky run thirty tiles wide) it is simple and hasn't / won't date.

I'd go simple white it stands the test of time. I didn't do floor to ceiling as I wanted to change the wall colours plus this house is old and everything is on the piss, which doesn't look good for floor to ceiling tiles.

I know they are not Bristan - or even British made - but these are the 4 hole taps we've got for our bath and they come with a decent guarantee. I wanted cross head taps as a nod to the age of the house and have bought the matching mixer for the basin. You can buy far more expensive than these, but as we are likely to be moving soonish we're getting a manky bathroom replaced without going mad in terms of cost. If we were staying we would probably do some things differently and spend more money.

We inherited a fairly 'modern' bathroom when we bought our house. It's not bad but I detest the sink - one of those big bowls that sits on top of the unit and a trendy-looking tap that just spurts water everywhere - I spend my days cleaning the sink, tap and mirror.

Not in a million years would I choose these. Even though they look quite nice in a photo

In downstairs shower room, there is a ridiculous rectangular, shallow sink. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish - again, it might look quite nice but it's highly impractical to use and hard to clean.

In our current house we have yet to tackle the bathroom, which despite most likely dating from the 1990s, is actually quite naice with decent Sottini sanitaryware and wood panelling which, whilst not original suits the style of our mid 1850s property. The carpet definitely needs to go though!

The ground floor cloakroom has a retro 1960s/70s primrose yellow suite with matching tiles, which no doubt some people would opt to keep, but I hate the look so that'll be going on eBay sometime soon.

Our last house had two shower rooms, a bathroom converted from a former bedroom and four toilets in total, so with only two lots of 'facilities' here we feel somewhat under provided for and I hate having to descend a steep flight of stairs from second floor to first several times in the night to have a wee.....first world problem, I know, but we really need to get an ensuite squeezed in somewhere on our second floor ;@)

The pics are of two of the bathrooms in our last house - fitted 2013/14 - which were quite hotel-y and I guess not to most people's taste. We have friends with a high-end bathroom showroom and DH (who used to design interiors before he quit the rat race) also has a bit of an eye for such stuff, so you can blame him for the styling. The sanitaryware etc was a mix of eBay purchases (V&B basin, shower tray plus TC vanity, tiles and karndean) and Crosswater & Hansgrohe taps & shower valve etc (still bloody expensive even with a generous discount from our friends!) -

The first two pics are of the first floor shower room (formerly the tiny family bathroom) and the third is the ensuite bathroom (unfinished in this pic)......

We have no tiles at all in most of our bathrooms! The kids bathroom has tongue and groove panelling and vinyl tiles on the floor. It only has a bath. Our en suite has a small slipper bath with shower in it and an oval shower rail, so curtains completely enclose you. The only bit I tiled was the shower enclosure in the second en suite and the splash backs by the two cloakroom basins and I used black and white metro tiles....I think they look clean and inoffensive. We were trying to finish as quickly as possible and cheaply too, so metro tiles seemed an obvious choice and as they were only £8 a box, I won't weep if I rip them off in a few years to replace them.