Bathroom to shower room, what not to do!?

[sbplanet]

I think we've finally decided what kit we want for our small bathroom to upgrade it to a shower room.

We're going for a wall-hung rimless toilet, a wall-hung basin and a digital dual rear-fed shower - the gubbins to be boxed in along one wall. Then a glass panel with shower tray for a kind of wet room look. Plus a towel radiator and extractor fan. Still looking for a long thin mirror to go over the basin...

...but I starting to wonder, what haven't I thought of? You know the things were when it's all done you go 'oh no' or 'doh, why did I chose that one'?

So what not to do? :)

ps don't say leave the bath in, that's gone!!! :D

• Don't have tiles around the sink surround. I dont mean on the wall, but at the top of the sink cabinet so the top of the cupboard the sink sits in. My mum did this and the tiles collect soap scrum, toothpaste etc.

• have as many smooth sections as you can that are easy to clean

• Our bathroom abroad has a drain in the centre of the room which is great for washing the floors down. I've never seen this in any bathroom in the UK though. Not sure why?

• MIL has a little autolight which comes on at night. Its great, because you can use to the loo at night without turning on the main lights and exhaust fan

• You can buy super low decibel exhaust fans. Depending if the house is a semi or if the bathroom is next to a bedroom, consider getting an extra quiet fan

I'm in the process of deciding on mine. Am thinking of bath panels in the shower and epoxy grout on any tiling. Trying to plan for the least amount of cleaning possible.

@Oregghiette wondered about panels but in the end I prefer the look and feel of tiles. Also I considered our old rectangular white ones that were put up about 15 years ago and actually the grout isn't too bad, especially once I decided to wipe down the shower walls after showering. :)

@Elouera think there's a lot more 'wet room' style bathrooms abroad, perhaps because they dry out faster? Or maybe to do with plumbing systems? Anyway can't afford to go totally wet room as the first floor bathroom would have to be tanked.

The autolight sounds good - were is it fixed?

Light switch outside the bathroom next to the door so you can have a dimmer switch instead of those grubby pull cords!

I also prefer the look and feel of tiles, but I'm hoping I can make it look clean and modern rather than a hospital... I just think it will be more practical for me.

Make sure that you new toilet has a big hole in the bottom of the pan and a decent flush Many modern toilets fail on both these fronts, leading to frequent erm, blockages.

If you look for rectified big tiles then the grout lines are minimised between tiles and also there is less of them. I was looking at some 300x600mm tiles, wouldn't need many for our bathroom! :D

www.toppstiles.co.uk/knowledge-base/what-are-rectified-tiles

Do you want a shaver point?
We have a large bathroom cabinet with 2 separate points inside which we use for electric toothbrush and shaver, plus one on wall which is used for water jet. Brilliant as we never have to unplug something to charge another item

I've had the shower panels instead of tiles in two showers, so much easier to keep looking clean and nice than tiles - some much nicer designs around, although the expensive ones in my en-suite look like tiles anyway. DH uses the family bathroom & he had cheaper panels .

Think about cupboard space, wall hung cabinet or whatever, there is always loads of stuff to keep in a bathroom however ruthless you try to be.

I had wondered about that @Perro (lol!) as I'm intent on getting a rimless toilet too. But we've a downstairs loo as well - perhaps we'll have to have a loo for ones and a loo for twos!

@BruceAndNosh ah yes we have a shaver point - really handy for electric toothbrushes.

Re an autolight. MIL has one inside the toilet rim. It was bought separately, attaches to the side of the rim and runs off batteries. Something like this:
www.amazon.co.uk/Motion-Waterproof-Backlight-Luminaria-Bathroom/dp/B07KVW9BCS?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Mum has one abroad in her bathroom, but its plugged into the wall. I realise that UK bathrooms don't have any socket to use though to plug one in!

@Elouera Thanks, but goodness they look haunted!!!

Big good quality mirrored cabinet over basin to hold all your stuff.
Cabinet for all mounted sink with two shelves, one for loo roll, the other deep enough for all my cleaning stuff.
Towel radiator high btu for size, rugs when hot water is on, so bathroom is nice and warm without the expense of running underfloor heating.
Make sure your can is powerful and quiet, I love my shower niche for gel and shampoo.

If your purchasing your own fittings, make sure the toilet cisterns are Geberit and you can buy them direct from Germany through eBay for considerably less than over here

"If your purchasing your own fittings..."

Thanks, but I'm going to let our plumber get them from his preferred local supplier, just in case things go wrong/aren't the right thing. :)

Make sure your floor is flat no tiny bumps ours is an awful floor to clean.

I put a low narrow step/ledge at the end of the shower, to put my foot up on when I'm shaving my legs. You can also get a corner step/bar for the same purpose. It's a life saver that I'm grateful someone mentioned to me when I changed from balancing my leg on the edge of the bath to a walk in shower iyswim

Are you sure about letting the bath go, I mean really, really sure? We did exactly that in 2006 and have regretted it ever since.

Yes to shaver points inside the cabinets, the toothbrushes just live in there

Heated panel behind the mirrors so they do not steam up when you in shower. Ours are linked to the lighting ring like the extractor fan.

If you boxing in a walk next to shower /behind loo for the plumbing an inset cubby next to shower in the wall space/void to have shower gel Etc in. Insulate that spage too in non-pipe containing bits to help with sound proofing

If it's your only bathroom, try to do it such that the bath could be put back in future even if it was a squeeze.

Hi we're literally about to start work on our bathroom hopefully turning it from a hideous low rent bathroom into a really nice wet room.
We are tiling all walls floor to ceiling, its will have a Gerberit hidden behind the wall flush thing, you can then create a big cupboard over the loo a wall hung rimless hung loo, wall mounted taps, all pipe work will be behind the wall, a wall hung sink, we're having a heated mirror over the sink with a shallow cupboard behind it, the door will slide into the gap in the wall instead of opening into the bathroom its not very big, heated floor, two extractor fans my DH is obsessed about mould, glass screens round the shower to stop everything getting wet, drain in the middle of the floor one set of lights will switch on automatically when you walk in.We already have a water softener I would recommend it to anyone with hard water it just makes your taps etc last longer and no limescale on tiles glass etc to keep cleaning off. I think thats it. I personally think it's costing a lot of money so Im bloody well going to like it!
If you're planning to stay in the house for more than 5 years buy the very best you can afford of everything everyone has told us this and said it will simply last and look better for longer.
We've gone for white sink loo etc I know coloured ones are fashionable at the moment but I worry they'll date and in a few years you'll think why did I buy those? We've also gone for "clean lines" for the sink taps shower etc all in chrome rather than brass or antiqued copper or whatever for the same reason.

Thanks for some good suggestions. It's a small (1.85m x 1.7m) bathroom so not room for many ideas.

But @NaToth we've been here 16 years and not had a bath in all that time! :D But the shower tray will be where the bath was, so...

@CalmConfident the bit about insulation is a good point and I'll wait and see how I feel about an inset space, had wondered about one below the wall-hung basin.

@newbathroomforme I agree with the sentiment buy cheap buy twice, but sometimes too it can depend on how it's fitted and how it's looked after. Just recently I saw the 'for sale' details of our old place in Essex - the £500 Screwfix bathroom suite we put in to sell the place was still there! Are you having a digital shower - we've decided to go hi-tech!?