What do you wish you'd known before renovating: Bathroom Edition

[applesauce1]

We're buying a new house and should complete end of December/early Jan (🤞).

The en-suite and family bathroom both need to be ripped out and started over. We'll do it all before we move in.

This started as an exciting prospect, but now I feel completely daunted as there is just too much choice.

We have a £12k budget for this element of the renovation but, it would be nice if things came in under budget (has such an astonishingly obvious statement ever been made?)

I really like the aesthetic of industrial/modern fittings and reclaimed stained wood. These looks are all over Instagram but don't appear in any catalogues. I really don't want to go for the hexagonal tile thing or anything too 'of the moment'.

Before I spend toddler nap time scouring the internet for bathroom furniture, please tell me everything you wish you knew, or your best advice, for bathroom renovations. The kitchen version of this thread was brilliant.

Things we did well (had to do 2 bathrooms and toilet in a new house):
Lots of research to find best value/quality for the type of things we wanted. Found some smaller brands that were excellent. Heuppe had some nice things.
Bought the high end tiles we wanted from Tile Expert website. Was a massive saving on the prices here.
Fully tiled in one bathroom- very easy to clean and looks lovely.
Discovered waterproof paint. It's an epoxy paint that can be used even inside the shower. Looks great.
Had towel storage niches built in. Very practical.

Things we didnt get right:
Couldn't get a heated mirror with the cabinets we chose. This is really annoying.
We had a tiled floor in a shower. The drain is a nightmare to clean.
The shower screens we took from the showroom are ugly and bulky even though they were the most minimal ones available. We should have got a seperate glass company in to do them.
We also had a waterfall style tap that is too big for the sink. We got this changed as the water went everywhere.
The brand of sink we have in the toilets has marked terribly. So check out reviews first, it is a Sphinx.
Bought fancy stylish heated towel rails. They are completely useless but look pretty.

My DH and DS are both very tall (over 6’3”) and I am 5’9”. We got a double shower so there is a very large fixed head and a smaller head on the rail which is removable for cleaning. I actually use the smaller head to shower underneath as I don’t get wet enough under the large head as it’s too far away from me.
Also with height, DH hung out cabinet which had drawers underneath it. Unfortunately I couldn’t even see in the mirror when I went into the room so I had to get him to lower it about a foot.

We are upgrading due to leaks and so I’m paranoid about spending all this money and it happening again. Got a few quotes and they all mention different types of waterproofing the floors (marine plywood, waterproof mats, liquid foil, ditra matting, plastic mesh) What’s the standard process for bathrooms? How did you waterproof yours?

If you have space in your shower have the controls near where you get in so that you can turn them on without having to stand under a freezing cold shower. It's brilliant.

Another we did was have sensor lighting so that we don't disturb each other having to turn on the light in the en-suite.

Oh no misty, is there something in particular that’s not turned out how you hoped? Sometimes it’s easy to get fixated on little things and overlook everything that did go well.

@chloechloe

Oh no misty, is there something in particular that’s not turned out how you hoped? Sometimes it’s easy to get fixated on little things and overlook everything that did go well.

Thanks for asking - I've renovated the entire house and the bathroom is the smallest room (bar the loo!) but has caused the most stress! My plumber let me down at the last minute and I struggled to find another at short notice, which then meant I didn't really have time to choose stuff (or he didn't give me that chance) and had to accept what the new plumber ordered and installed The tap doesn't work well with my heating system, the toilet seat is very flimsy, the towel rad isn't particularly practical with bars too close together... Just little things

That must have been stressful misty. Sounds like there wasn’t much you could have done in the circumstances. I’m sure it’s lovely if you can manage to put the little things aside (easier said than done) Well done on renovating an entire house - what an achievement!

Yes to grey or other coloured grout, anything but white.

Vanity units great for storing bits and slicker to clean than poking behind a sink.

We've got Harvey Maria vinyl flooring in both downstairs loo and bathroom. Warm to touch, easy to clean, non-slip. Fabulous stuff.

Fully tiled walls much more expensive than part but only you know how much you want to pay.

Local independents often sell much better quality units and fittings than the big chains.

Substantially sized heated towel rail doubles as a radiator and saves space.

We got rid of the 3/4 bath and shower unit that was here when we moved in and replaced it with a shower/bath. Leaves much more space, less to clean and shower just as good.

I find it massively useful to have the sink next to the loo. When I’m changing sanpro I can rinse my hands clean while sitting on the loo. No drips or hopping around with your trousers round your ankles! I do wish I had more bathroom storage for spare loo rolls and toiletries though.

if possible, don’t buy a bath without trying it in a showroom first!
I sat in all the baths! It’s worth paying more for a composite material that doesn’t flex when it’s full of water. Get a bath filler that goes on the side of the bath so you don’t have a tap getting in the way.

Just had our en suite done. My top tips - wall hung toilet and sink make it super-easy to mop the floor. Electric heated towel rail to dry towels when the central heating is off and underfloor heating on a timer is lovely on cold mornings. We used large square tiles (I think they're about 70cm x 70cm) in grey stone effect - they are end of line Italian porcelain and we got them really cheaply from a warehouse. Same colour on wall and floor makes the space feel larger. We built in a recess in the shower for shampoo etc

If you get a frameless shower, make sure the glass is at least 10mm. Thin glass bends 🤭

If you’ve chosen an odd shaped loo, you can get toilet seats made to measure and you don’t have to pay a fortune for the one the toilet manufacturer sells. www.replacementwoodentoiletseats.co.uk/

You can always get at least 40% off hansgrohe showers and taps If you hunt around and they really are worth the money.

Not all bathrooms need a bath. Think about replacing the imprint with a walk in sized shower (when did you actually last have a bath) but maybe leave a bath in one room.

Get the tiler to create a shelf/knock in the shower to store the shampoos and gel. So much more attractive than a wire shelf.

If in doubt use white and add fashionable colours with towels, soaps and blinds.

We’ve just fitted two bathrooms. Decisions I am pleased with:

• having cubby holes built for Holding shower gels etc rather than metal shower holders or on the bath, looks much tidier
• digital shower controls that are outside of the bath/shower (can set temp before getting in)
• vanity units with storage, make the bathroom look much tidier
• light switches outside of bathroom
• heated mirror

Lessons learnt:

• get plumber to source materials. Our plumber used city plumbing and we sourced most items from there which they ordered and collected and sorted any issues with. For the items we decided to source ourselves, all came damaged and were a nightmare to get refunds on (Victorian plumbing the Victoria plumb were the worst for it).
• when determining how big a towel rail to have, allow for hand towel if not having a separate Towel holder for that

@BarelyMerry

Just had our en suite done. My top tips - wall hung toilet and sink make it super-easy to mop the floor. Electric heated towel rail to dry towels when the central heating is off and underfloor heating on a timer is lovely on cold mornings. We used large square tiles (I think they're about 70cm x 70cm) in grey stone effect - they are end of line Italian porcelain and we got them really cheaply from a warehouse. Same colour on wall and floor makes the space feel larger. We built in a recess in the shower for shampoo etc

Which tile warehouse @BarelyMerry if you don't mind me asking?

Have a look at Tikamoon for vanities like the one in your example, OP.

Or do what we did and find a piece of furniture and butcher it... I'm both of our bathrooms we've got 1950s record cabinets with sinks cut in. They look great.

We've got a mix of tiles and painted walls in our main bathroom (pictured). I really love our tiles - they are simple 150mm square flat white trade jobs from Topps which were practically free (I think they were £5 per m2) but with dark grout they look amazing.

I completely need this thread. I just can’t get my head around what needs to be done despite having put in a kitchen last year. This feels way harder!

Will be back later once I’ve read through

Trying to work out how to phrase this politely, but does anyone on here know how much weight a wall hung toilet can take? We are planning a bathroom renovation, and I like the idea of the convenience of wall hung sinks and loos and being able to mop the entire floor speedily. My DH is nearly seventeen stone though (he is massively tall too). Does it make a difference if they don't have a column under the bowl, if that is the weight-bearing bit, that is?

Don't use a cowboy company ( we use a company recommended by the Tile and Bath company I used - they are nationwide in Ireland and should have known better. I trusted their recommendation ).
A heated towel rai is great. You can get ones that don't need to be linked to the central heating, I think.
Lots of storage. I have one of those storage units on a pole that swivel and have a mirror on the front. It's really handy beside the sink.

@Acornsgalore

Trying to work out how to phrase this politely, but does anyone on here know how much weight a wall hung toilet can take? We are planning a bathroom renovation, and I like the idea of the convenience of wall hung sinks and loos and being able to mop the entire floor speedily. My DH is nearly seventeen stone though (he is massively tall too). Does it make a difference if they don't have a column under the bowl, if that is the weight-bearing bit, that is?

Not sure, I’m 96kg and we have wall hung toilets.

Groher and Ideal Standard for taps, we've always been happy with Mira showers. Beware that units make it harder to access plumbing, last house we had exposed pipes and it was far better, oh and water isolators on every piece of pipework.

Get the floor tiled under the bath. Don't have the toilet pipes boxed in unless it's removable.

If space is in any way tight be very careful about where any cupboard doors are going to open. We put our sink unit up tight to the wall and only later realised that meant the door banged on the wall and ended up cracking.

Bathrum. That looks amazing. What sort of extractor fan do you have? I’d be worried about condensation in a bathroom like that.

I wish that we had kept the proper radiator as well as getting a heated towel rail as the towels absorb all the heat making the bathroom freezing.
We also put a mirrored bathroom cabinet above the wash basin which was utterly stupid as twice now a heavy jar has fallen out when we have opened it and cracked the basin. We are now on basin number 3 in 5 years!

Just thought of something else. When we koved in the whole bathroom had floor to ceiling tiles and the bath was tiled in. Unfortunately we had a leak so had to break all the tiles on and around the bath to sort it which is why we had to redo the bathroom in the first place. We chose a removable side for the bath to avoid the same problem in future. I do regret not having floor to ceiling tiles again though as it now needs repainting which is going to be a pain due to towels rails etc.