Bathroom brands

[PraiseBee]

Hey Oh Wise Ones,
Which brands for bathrooms (sink, loo, bath, the whole lot) are good quality in the UK? My DH and I are shopping around and the websites are hard to navigate and there is so much choice. Feeling a bit flummoxed.
We would like minimal, white, and traditional but modern. House was built in late 80s..We haven't got the money to splurge but not a tight budget. Is Ideal Standard alright?

I would go for something like Grohe, Briton or Crosswater for mid priced quality.

Porcelansa, Bauhaus, Hudson Reed also good but a bit more £££

If you are looking for a reasonable one-stop-shop which has different brands, my plumber said yes to Victorian Plumbing but no to Victoria Plum. Drench also ok.

Ok so for sanitary ware (the sink bath loo etc) you could look at

• Duravit
• Roca
• Catalano
• Villeroy & Boch
• Kohler
• Bette (baths esp)
• Roper Rhodes
• RAK (cheaper)

Ideal Standard IME are perfectly good quality wise although usually not super fashionable design wise.

For brassware (taps and showers) which are suited to UK water pressure you could look at

• Crosswater
• Justtaps
• Arteform

We had our bathroom done a few months ago and got an Ideal Standard toilet. It's the most uncomfortable toilet I've ever sat on and I actively avoid using the toilet in that bathroom! We also bought an eco bath (small capacity). It's ok for the kids but too small for anyone older than 12 to have a lie down in the bath.

If you can I would go to shops to go and sit on toilets and lie in the bath to check both for comfort and size.

Thanks all. I feel quite overwhelmed by the all the different brands and have absolutely no experience of bathroom buying. Thanks for giving me some good places to start.

Do you have an independent bathroom supplier/showroom near you? We have a few and they will generally give good advice on what brands to look at and can often suggest specific products to fit your dimensions/budget etc. It is overwhelming and if you’ve not done it before I would suggest getting some help.

@minipie

Do you have an independent bathroom supplier/showroom near you? We have a few and they will generally give good advice on what brands to look at and can often suggest specific products to fit your dimensions/budget etc. It is overwhelming and if you’ve not done it before I would suggest getting some help.

Yes we have. But the showrooms have a bizarre choice at the moment so we've shuffled home and back to looking online. In the showrooms, the baths are steel (no thanks) with no taps (water enters from what looks like the overflow), the sinks have weird metal four legged frames (yuk and not suitable for the existing piping). We've seen bette sinks that look like an Alexa with weird padding round the side. It's turning into a bonkers experience hence coming on here and asking for some sensible pointers.

Will try to get some firmer ideas in place and go sit on some showroom loos and in baths again

We have Ideal Standard and it is ok depending which product line you choose. We live in an apartment and the bathrooms were chosen by the developer. The problem we have is that the toilet is a specif size and it fit just a specific toilet seat.The toilet seat looks good and modern but it cracks easily and it can't be cleaned with bleach (3 toilet seat in 6 years ).The good thing with IS is that their products have a 10 years guarantee so the toilet seats have been replaced free of charge (thankfully as the retail price is £100plus !).If I was designing my bathroom I would go for Vitra or Duravit.

Crosswater and Burlington have their annual big bathroom sale starting around 2nd October. Worth waiting for if you can

I know what you mean about the showrooms, some of them like to display their most “cutting edge” products even though that’s not going to be what 95% of people order.

They may still be useful for pointing you towards more normal products though.