A bathroom that won’t date quickly

[Tomorrowtomorrow77]

I love all the current bathroom trends… white or grey… marbles… gold taps and trimmings BUT I won’t be able to afford to redo my en-suite for a few years and so I want it to still look good in the future. Where can I find and what does a classic, ageless en-suite look like? I’ve spent hours trawling the internet and I’m still no further forward! Any advice or photos?

We cant afford to redo the bathroom at our new house so I'll just decorate it... it will be right on trend with the black grout etc... likely but it will do for a the 5-10 years or so until we can change it.

Nothing will be timeless. From coloured suites to white, from freestanding baths to wall baths and back, from wood to tile to different tile from carpet to lino... all have come and gone and looked horribly dated in a decade or so.

If you want the most timeless option I would not do tile at all... just plaster you can then paint it as your taste changes. All tiles/panels/wallpapers will date.

Things like taps really don't matter as you can just change them easy, they are basically just accessories to the suit. Its the actual suite itself that is hardest to change.

I'd personally go for a decent quality fairly standard fittings. When we moved in the bathrooms had last been done in the 80s, so it was all bowls balanced on tables rather than a proper basin. So toothpaste and water splashed everywhere.

Good quality chrome taps won't lose their shine - again there's a reason hotels use them.

Plain tiles.

Unless you have a real design eye and know what you want - I'd go for fairly bland and add interest with accessories.

Saying that we put in big blue mottled tiles in our ensuite, and I love them. But they will date!

When we asked our plumbers about bathrooms, he said, don't spend silly money on expensive baths/sinks/loos, just get a good, mid priced, solid quality one but spend a bit more on really good fittings. He said it looks better and lasts a lot longer that way, and the very posh baths are no better than the good mid range ones. Sounds sensible, and we may go that way. But I will be looking for things where getting access to pipework is easy, not ones that enforce a fiddly layout or make it darn near impossible to change the taps or whatever. Good design will always include ease of maintenance.
Our bathroom is fully tiled, and I hate that, feels like a public convenience. I'll be making anything except shower area, round the loo, and above the sink, just plaster, meaning I can change the colour of the room if I want to very easily. Plain white suite. And plain tiles.