Shower panels

[CoolShoeshine]

I’m thinking of getting shower panels in my new bathroom, the plumber has recommended them for being practical and they look nicer than I’d feared.
Daft question but if you have them, where do you keep your soap/shampoo? Tiled bathrooms are often pictured with a little cubby hole for them but I’m not sure if they can be cut out of board.

We have metal corner baskets mounted onto the panels!

Metal basket attached to the panel..I love my shower panels and can't imagine ever going back to tiles.

Arent they loads more expensive?

Thanks for the replies, I’d have preferred a wall cubby because we have metal baskets at the moment and they have got tarnished over the years but I think that will be our only option.
@BlackAlys do you mean are the panels more expensive than tiles? The ones I have seen seem to range between £100-500 per sheet but the plumber says they are much quicker to fit.

I've been tempted to go for panels for my bathroom - so much more practical. But I haven't seen any that I really like. Can anyone recommend a good supplier I should look at?

I like the panels but the ever dwindling bucket of cash for my renovation is telling me that panels aren't possible.

Just visited a house that bought a cheap job lot of large square shiny floor tiles and they've used them up the walls as splashback and wall tiles in the shower.

They looked fantastic.

You can have a niche with panels but it’s not very straight forward. - few ways to do it…

You could use panels with tiles in the niche and edge strips to finish the edges. This wouldn’t look very good.

You could mix and match by using panels on one wall and tiles on the wall with a matching niche. Could look good depending on your setup.

You can buy prefab niches made from plastic or porcelain that slot in to the space. They look dorky.

The best panel niche option is if you use Nuance Bushboards. They’re a profile free board which also have chamfered edges. This means It is possible to create a great looking niche. It does take skill to do this correctly though. Nuance are expensive too but they’re worth it. They have a sister company called Mermaid, who are also good.

We have panels with a cubby hole

Love my panels, no discoloured grout ever again!

Love my wall panels. They're easy to clean and there's no mouldy grout between tiles.

I use a metal corner basket with suction pads for bottles etc.

Bushboard by Nuance are the best. We bought very good quality metal corner baskets/racks and screwed them into the bushobard, then sealed the holes. If you are going to do that, you need to buy good quality racks so you won't need to replace them for the life of the shower.
We love ours and we are never getting tiles again!

I have wonderful big tiles and no grout issues. 12 years old now and still perfect. Depends on value of house I think. Larger houses in expensive areas never have panels. The panels cost significantly less to fit so builders can fit them. You don’t need a tiler. Personally I wouldn’t want them. In a friends house they remind me of a cubicle you see in a hospital or static caravan.

As for fixing something to them: on our tiles we have glass shelves made for bathrooms. Look perfect and work well.

@TizerorFizz

I have wonderful big tiles and no grout issues. 12 years old now and still perfect. Depends on value of house I think. Larger houses in expensive areas never have panels. The panels cost significantly less to fit so builders can fit them. You don’t need a tiler. Personally I wouldn’t want them. In a friends house they remind me of a cubicle you see in a hospital or static caravan.

As for fixing something to them: on our tiles we have glass shelves made for bathrooms. Look perfect and work well.

Are they the same tiles as for your floor? What colour grout do you have?

Hope you don't mind me asking - am also needing some inspiration with this.

Go for it OP, I will definitely have showerboard in future. So easy to clean, seamless, waterproof, grout and crack and let water through, much better than tiles IMHO.

We looked at shower panels for our bathroom but couldn't find any in budget that didn't look cheap.

In the end tiles from B&Q were the cheaper option and had the look we wanted

Love our shower panels; so much more practical and easy to keep looking good. You need to go to for expensive ones if you want it to look good though. Cheap ones look like you're in a leisure centre cubicle.

Oh and as for where to put shampoo etc, just make sure you buy a shower fitting with a small built in shelf on the riser rail. I think most of them have them as standard. Much simpler and neater than creating cubby holes or screwing metal holders into the shower panel, which might risk splitting the panel anyway.