Bathroom renovation - where to begin

[VintedoreBay]

I posted in Home Decor but maybe here is better?

I've got contractors booked to renovate kitchen and bathroom, living room, attic room and hallway. Starting Jan.

Kitchen all sorted but bathroom - omg totally haven't sorted what I want yet! Got a couple of weeks....and I've no idea where to start.

I think I want some colour and some pattern tiles on the floor.

I want a sink with storage, new loo, new straight bath (double ended I think) and separate shower.

And I think I want black taps and hardware (is that the word) but only if they're easy to keep clean and looking good. Are they? Or is chrome better? God I'm so useless.

Looking for low maintenance, easy cleaning so I guess....large tiles on the wall and floor?

Help! Can you tell I'm new to this renovation malarkey?

Can you show me your bathrooms? Point me in the right direction?

Don't get black taps. The black chips off.

Work out what layout you want first and post on here for advice.

I’d say black taps only if you’re lucky enough to be in a soft water area or have a water softener installed!

Oh and you are not useless, you’ve booked in a kitchen and bathroom renovation- I’ve been putting that off for five years now! 😄

Who ever is doing the work should be able to draw up plans, maybe even a 3D VR. That’s what the firm we used done and it really brings your ideas to life

We have been putting it off for over 6yrs, despite damp probs... now we're actually booked we're scared! 😂

Very hard water here. I'll ask about water softener. Where would that get installed? Kitchen presumably?

Layout all sorted as can't change it.

Need bath, separate shower, toilet, sink, radiator/towel rail, tiles, flooring and whatever else required.

It's a building contractors doing work in other parts of the house as well. They're not a bathroom designer. They use Howdens or Wickes for kitchens and we've got that sorted, but we're on our own for bathroom. We source order and buy, they fit.

We recently did our ensuite and we visited some local bathroom suppliers who had displays and we could see the types of things that went well together. Once we decided the colour scheme we wanted (large white-ish matt tiles, wood effect wall hung vanity unit with chrome finishes and a mirror cabinet with lighting - we did green paint on the walls so we can change colour scheme in the future if we want as everything else is pretty neutral). I scoured the internet to find what I wanted with a reputable brand (invest in good taps and showers) for the best price. Ended up from about 4 different suppliers but it tied together really well. Excuse the non professional photo

Go to some bathroom showrooms - not the ones that only do supply and fit - look for the plumbers' merchant type ones. Have a look round to see what you do and don't like. They should have brochures to look through and someone to discuss possibilities with you (eg what will practically fit in the space) who will then draw up the design for the builder to work from.

Then move onto tiles or shower panels and making decisions about colours.

My Dad's came from a builders merchant called RGB. They are westcountry based but maybe there is something similar near you.

We visited their showroom and they did a basic plan and Dad, who is in his 80s, chose everything he liked and they checked it fitted and added on the boring bits like wastes.

The flooring Dad did after but it would have been best fitted before the units went in.

I love love LOVE my bathroom. Got it done 2 years ago and it's still one of my favourite rooms in the house!

We originally had just a bath, sink (no storage) and a toilet. We now have a bath, separate shower, toilet and sink with storage and it's great. The only (arguable) slight downfall is we picked tile for the flooring, and having windows open for ventilation etc means it can sometimes be a bit nippy to walk on in bare feet (though easily remedied with slippers or cranking the heating up before a bath!)

We went for chrome fixtures. Easy to clean and polish. Attaching before/after pics for your info!

We're getting a new bathroom installed soon too! Agree it's a minefield.

My only advice is to check delivery times. Our vanity is taking 14 weeks to arrive. Cast iron bath is taking 6 weeks. Didn't realise this until far too late and had to swap our slot with the bathroom company to push the work back a couple of weeks. -.-

Love you bath panel and shower tiles! 😍

What would you have in the floor instead of tiles if you could do it again, if you don't mind me asking?

Any how slippery are bathroom floor tiles? I have small kiddos so want a least slippy option ideally!

😱 OMG don't tell me this. I will cry if that happens.

We did ask our builder and they said order in Jan is fine 🤷 but.....they start work in Jan!!

I think we'll be a pretty standard fit though so fingers crossed it's not too late...

Pinterest?

We've got Amtico on our bathroom floor. Not slippery, looks like tiles, easy to clean, stuff doesn't break if you drop it on the floor and it's warm under foot.

I second above poster recommending LVT for floor - Amtico, Karndean etc.
We didn't get our whole bathroom done (would have done so if we had enough money!) But we did get the flooring done at same time as rest of ground floor. Small children, lots of splashing etc and 2 years in so far so good! You can get LVT in a sort of tile effect instead if wood effect, if you prefer that.

How big is the shower? Are you having a nook in the shower for shampoo or a separate shelf/ rack? Recessed or surface mounted shower? Single shower head or a double one with the seperate hand held bit? What is your water pressure like? Are you going for electric or hot water fed?

Stand alone bath or boxed in? Do you want storage inside the boxes in bit?

Are you getting underfloor heating fitted?

Do you want the towel rail to come on when the lights come on? Or just with normal heating? Do you want warm towels in summer?

Floating or floor standing loo? Do you want a Japanese bum washing loo?

How large sink do you want?

Lighting? Spot lights? How many? The best lighting for make up application is side lighting so you might want wall lights next to your mirrors. Do you want the lights to be dimmable? Do you want low lighting for night time?

Do you want heated mirrors so they don't mist up?

Shaver points? Toothbrush chargers? Where are these going?

@RidingMyBike @AuraBora where did you get your amtico flooring from?flooring shop or..... bathroom shop?

Double shower head with the handheld bit too. Not a massive walk-in shower, regular shower cubicle size?! Hot water fed from combi boiler, water pressure already approved by plumber for rainforest shower head. How easy to keep clean and shower nooks? Wouldn't water just sit in them and create a mould haven?!

Straight, double ended boxed in bath, tiled board backed bath panel.

No underfloor heating - big radiator / heated towel rail.

Standing loo. No Japanese loo (as much as DH tries to argue for one)!

Deep sink with vanity unit/storage, floating/wall hung.

Spot lights, 6 of them. Hadn't thought to do makeup in the bathroom as currently no storage in there at all so makeup lives in my bedroom. Like the idea of heated mist-free mirror.

No shaver point necessary but a place to charge electric toothbrush would certainly be useful - currently have zero electric outlets in our bathroom and toothbrushes get charged in our utility

If you don’t know yet what colour scheme to go for, try looking in Pinterest or Houzz… just type in Bathroom ideas and then you can see what floats your boat.
Agree that black hardware looks good initially but ours has stained very quickly… I wouldn’t get it again.
I would always recommend underfloor heating , especially if kids make a mess and get water everywhere, it helps it to dry quickly.

@EdgarAllenRaven I'm getting quite mixed feelings on the black hardware!

This is my bathroom that I've just had done. Fixtures and fittings were all from Victoria plumbing, it shouldn't be a problem getting stuff in time from any of the major retailers providing they have the stock but if I were you I would definitely at least start to draw up some options so you can check their stock levels and source alternatives if necessary. My tiles were from smaller independent stockists and they don't tend to hold as big quantities of stock so depending on what you want it might be a good idea to start trying to source asap.

There's a bathroom fitting company I follow on Instagram called simplybathroomsltd. I used their pictures for inspiration.

I'd start by ordering a ton of tile samples, although have a mind about budget first - I fell in love with expensive ISH ones and it wasn't worth rethinking the choice when costing them up at the end. Having said that, quality tiles are worth the investment. Once you have tiles you like that will help you work out the colour scheme. There's a lot of cement encaustic ones out there - very expensive and from what I can tell very difficult to maintain, so avoid those.

My shower room tiles in attached photo - absolutely love them!

Chrome furnishings are easiest and cheapest to buy and seem more durable, so unless money is no object I'd stick with chrome.

Bathroom furniture is easy and quick enough to get. Send a list of what you want to your builder / plumber before ordering just to check that everything is suitable in terms of type and measurements.