Help me with all my bathroom questions! (+ preferably show me yours!)

[user1479289699]

We've just exchanged on a (new to us) house which needs quite a bit of work. It has a main bathroom, ensuite and downstairs WC. We're prioritising the main bathroom and want to get that done before we move in in Oct. But I have no idea where to start! Our builder has said "go and choose some tiles and a bathroom suite" but I don't know what I'm doing!

The bathroom will set the tone for the rest of the house upgrade so it's important to get it right. My questions are:

1. The builder/fitter has recommended fully tiled bathrooms with dark grout as it's easiest to keep clean - me and partner are happy with this but will it work out more expensive?

1. What do I need to know before I start shopping? How do I know how many tiles to buy for floor and walls? The bathroom is 7'0" by 6'0" so pretty compact.

1. Where do I look for bathroom suites and do I buy them as a set or individually? We also want as much storage as we can so could I get cupboards from the same places?

1. I don't even know what kind of style or colour scheme I like, I've looked on instagram and Houzz but I'm struggling to find 'real life' versions, please send me yours, if you don't mind, for inspiration!

1. What do I do about an extractor fan? Do I buy this myself?

1. Is there a free app or website I can use to put in colours and layouts to visualise what it will look like?

Thank you and sorry for all the silly questions!

If you have fully tiled an extractor is a must. We didn't have one in our last house relying on having the window open all the while and we had quite a mould problem.

you mention extractor fans. If you have access to the space above the ceiling, e.g. a loft, you can have an inline ducted fan, which is quieter and much more powerful than rubbish cheap fans.

it must blow outside the building, through a duct, preferably rigid not flexible, which slopes slightly down towards the exit. Some shoddy people fit fans to blow steam into the loft. By the time you see the results of condensation they are long gone.

this is a good one

preferably switched on by the light switch, with a run-on timer. It is very quiet.

I am very pleased with plumbworld

If you like bargains, put "clearance" into their "search" and see what they have. Architekt is their budget brand.

IronmongeryDirect sell hardware and are a good source of towel rails and stuff. If you know anyone unsteady, get grab rails, especially round the bath.

If you are lucky enough to have a hot-water cylinder, your plumber will know a way to connect the heated towel rail so it is always hot during and after running a bath, even when the heating's off. Towel rails are not powerful enough to keep the bathroom warm, though, especially when they are lagged with a thick coating of towels.

Shamelessly marking my place. You don't want to see mine.

Tile mountain is a great site for your tiles! We've used it twice for kitchen and recently bathroom. You can order samples and they are so much cheaper than the high street. Can't recommend them enough :)

We used q&s supplies online 1/3 of the price of the usual stores

We brought different bits from different shops

You need to check water pressure for the shower before you buy one! Great pressure? Go for a bar shower! If not go for an electric one.

Every plumber recommended B&q toilets in the cheapest range £80

Ours is a similar size to yours half tiles was 15 square meters - so you're looking at maybe 21/22

We likely the shower baths - but you need to buy the waste and overflow pipes at the same time - some places do 'continental fittings as opposed to U.K. Fittings'

I liked the 'Fresh blue linear tiles' but they have other colours

Oh and we brought a Bluetooth mirror to keep the teens happy - you can get TV mirrors but they were really expensive!!

Also look at heat pads for the flor if you want tiles floors - and some radiators run in both the heating and electric again depends if the house is warm at cold

@gothicsprout love yours! Very swish.

Just had mine done through a plumber. He brought a catalogue and we chose from that for furniature and San et. Chose tiles from his recommended shop. Tile shops are helpful at putting stuff together for you to see if they go. We paid £4500 all in fully tiled, new everything including roof and lights and fancy LED mirror.

Have a look at Drummonds and Lefroy Brooks for nice suite ideas, we have a mixture of Lefroy Brooks and Heritage. We can't afford Drummonds!

Find an independent bathroom store and avoid ordering from cheap online places (Victoria Plumb) as it's very poor quality.

Our plumber recommended B and Q toilets they are very low. Even the staff in the showroom commented on that.

I just wanted to add a line or two about dark grout :)

We recently had our ensuite redone. White overtaxed matte tiles on the walls with dark grey grout lines. Very Scandinavian in style, it looks ace. BUT dark grout lines with light coloured large files are totally unforgiving. If one grout line is half a millimetre wider than another, you can see it immediately. Our builder thought he could do the tiling himself to make more money on the project, but in the end he admitted defeat, ripped the tiles out, bought another £1k worth of tiles and brought in a pro. It was really stressful and turned a one-week project into 4 weeks of pain and mess!

That should say 'white oversized tiles'. Sorry.

Don't get a square bog unless you have a square arse.

If you have got a square arse, don't get a square bog. Find out the price of a replacement seat.

And check how wide the rim around the bathtub is. I have a very large bath with a room that's so narrow that my shampoo bottle keeps falling in the tub. First world problems....

Continuing that theme! Took me ages to find a sink that soap doesn't slide off!

Inject some personality into it. Builders will always recommend something which is easy for them and it's normally quite middle of the road style wise. For me I love bright floors and then plain walls, part tiled being more modern and homely I think. Then simple everything else to show off the tiles.

For main bathroom I chose the encaustic tiles I wanted first then kept everything v simple. Hard to get a decent pic as it's so tiny.

I love your floor tiles gothicsprout. Where did you get them from?

If you're buying plain metro tiles get them cheaply by the pallet from Tile Mountain. A white metro tile is a white metro tile whether it comes from a cheap online retailer like TM, Topps Tiles or ££££ Fired Earth.

This is ours, quite small so all the units are very practical. Bought tiles from porcellanosa with trade discount the rest was from a plumbing merchant that were more than helpful with everything.

Floor tiles are from Marrakech Designs in Sweden, search for Dandelion tile - pretty sure we went for this colour in the end: www.marrakechdesign.se/en/product/dandelion-laurelpure-white-16mm-thick/

They have some other nice colourful designs too, and they have good image galleries of different layout options on their website.

Thank you :) It's just the sort of thing I want for my office shower room.

You can get the Marrakech tiles for much cheaper from best-tile.co.uk. they're a copy and the ones gothicsprout have are the originals. Not sure if they're as good but worth getting samples as they're, from memory, less than half the price.

Wow I've just re-logged in now I've got a minute at work and am amazed by all responses and pictures! Thank you so much - it's all really really really useful! I'll spend the next few days reading your tips and advice, and we're going to look/feel tiles at the weekend along with going to a showroom to sit on toilets

@Allthebestnamesareused I love your shower tiles. Can you tell me where you go them from and what their called? Thank you.
Lots of good suggestions on here, which are giving me food for thought for when we redo our bathroom -infiveyears-

I love those floor tiles, gothicsprout. Love both rooms, actually!