Bathroom mistakes & non negotiables

[Iceache]

We’re planning our new bathroom and am in the market research phase! Some things I learned doing our last bathroom:

Heated towel rails don’t heat the room

White grout and small tiles looks crisp and clean but you will be in the shower with a toothbrush and bleach for the rest of your days

Teracotta tiles are great for hiding dust & dirt

What would you do differently? Do you love or regret anything? Our bathroom will be a decent size (approximately 3.5 x 2m) but not enormous (plenty of space for a large walk-in shower & bathtub).

I like the idea of Bluetooth in the shower! I’m not sure it’d get used though; none of us really spend that long in the bathroom!

Another top tip of mine is buy the best shower you can. We currently have a 40 year old bathroom and, whilst functional, the shower is utterly miserable and neither of my fairly old children can actual work it independently. In our old house the shower was a huge rain type one and we loved it. Showering can be such a pain when the whole process is cold and difficult 🤣

Best shower - oh yes.
I had mine done a couple of years ago. We now have an amazing power shower with both handset and overhead/rainwater heads. My really tall adult son loves the rainwater one because handset ones often don't slide high enough.

I spend about 9 mins in the shower if I'm washing my hair, plus another 5 drying and lovingly squeeging the glass shower cubicle and chrome so the radio is good company. The shower is quite noisy so a speaker in the shower would have been nice.

We don't have tiles, but panels. The same pattern covers one whole wall which includes the shower cubicle and the sink, and then the window sill and the top of the blocked in loo cistern. We have hard water and the panels are the best choice I made.

I remodelled my favourite house's bathroom and I will be doing up ours here soon. I will never have another roll top bath. It looked gorgeous but took ages to fill and getting in and out isn't a good look. The sink was both big and useless. The porcelain tiles were fragile.

Much as I loved the rainforest shower they aren't all that really and much more expensive. I loved the light fittings as they were calming but my bathroom here isn't big enough so I'm going for spotlights I can dim.

I had a shower backsplash that was brilliant!

Three things I learned:

Don't put the radiator next to the toilet.

Make sure the shower is next to the vent/extractor.

Electric shower, if your boiler goes and you can't get it immediately fixed you can still wash (learned this the hard way, showering in ice cold water in winter for over a month is NOT fun). Where as if your electric goes off its usually a shorter emergency time and your gas likely wont work either (as combi boilers use electric) so no benefit.

Mains pressure hot water cylinder here - we could still have a hot shower, I think!

My top tip is use decent paint. I'm using Zinsser Perma White matte which we've had tinted. Scrubbable, moisture resistant and mould inhibiting.

We have herringbone style acrylic: shower board instead of tiles so barely any grout and they look lovely plus we're a lot cheaper to buy and have fit

The boiler still heats the water although if you’ve got an immersion heater you could use that I think.

I learned the paint lesson the hard way in my downstairs toilet. Every day I regret not choosing bathroom paint because it now has streaks all over it because my children are incapable of washing their hands without getting water EVERYWHERE

i have been thinking about this as I need to update our bathroom in the near future.
For me:

• a separate walk in shower with light above and niche shelving to hold shampoo, etc with specialist shower glass to help with cleaning.
• two shower heads-one above and a hand held one
• ability to turn on the shower from the outside of it so that I don’t get covered in cold water as I turn on the shower. My current house has an Aqualisa shower whereby I press a button on the outside and the light stops flashing when the water is warm
• wall hung toilet so that I can clean underneath effectively.
• shower spray by the side of the toilet so that it can be use for personal reasons, or in my case, for cleaning the toilet. I live in the Middle East, so shower sprays by the side of toilets are quite normal
• double sink so that I can have my own
• inset cupboard into the wall above the sinks which can hold a myriad of toiletries without being seen with a mirrored door
• heated towel rail and a radiator
• large tiles in the shower area to minimise having to spend hours cleaning the grout
• tiled floors or maybe Amtico or Karndean cushioned linoleum
• an opening window
• a bath with taps at one end. My current bath has taps set in the middle of the bath and when I’m in the bath and want more hot water, I end up scalding my stomach.
• a strong and quiet extractor fan
• a Japanese sit in bath is on my wish list, but I’m not sure if I can convince everyone that it’s a good idea.
• copious amounts of never ending hot water

i can dream!

I'd love a Japanese bath too @Barnabyted.

I'm dropping it into the conversation every now and them so when we do our bathroom my husband will just assume he's already agreed.

In the spirit of the thread, and rather than start my own.... after seeing a chat thread about magnetic soap holders - what nice/unusual accessories are must haves/.non negotiables in my new bathroom(s)

I'll start with these lovely cast iron hooks I've found with initials on so everyone can have their own hook for their own towel.

www.woodnwax.co.uk/

And I also want a really beautiful Japanese style art print/poster- botanical, black, coral pink.

Ds would like a posh soap foamer as well. There's a touch free one on Amazon which looks quite snazzy

Ours is up for a refit, hopefully in the net year. The current one is 1970s, and it's horrible.
One thing I will be insisting on is easy access to pipework/sink or bath drain traps/cistern. Nothing that may need access to be plastered up or behind walls/plasterboard. And all pipes to have easily accessible shut-off valves (for replacing washers, ballcocks, etc).

I agree about outsized items. Our current bathroom sink is so deep front to back I rick my back if I bend over whilst reaching the taps. It's idiotic, as the room is small and L-shaped so you have to shimmy sideways past the wretched thing to get into the room.
Also, I like baths against the wall(s) and with vertical sides to the floor. I'm not a fan of scrabbling under a free standing bath to clean the floor.

Because for those of us with short legs they are seriously NOT comfortable. or good for you.

In exactly the same way that for those of us with long legs and arthritis struggle with low/standard ones then!😂

Seriously though it’s an accessibility issue for many people with disabilities, which a higher toilet can help with

Love this idea: beautiful things for bathrooms!

I recommend Anthropologie. We have the most gorgeous fixtures for our downstairs toilet from there. My dad (our non resident handyman) says it’s all ‘that style over substance crap’ but it really does look great 🤣🤣🤣

I think we have a comfort height toilet in work because every time I sit on it, it’s a surprise how near it is and I sort of jar my back 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Get someone in who knows what they're doing...

My expensive porcelain tiles started to come up as they'd been laid incorrectly by an incompetent fitter.

We included a motion sensor linked to a very low wattage light to come on when we use the bathroom at nighttime. The light is at floor level by the loo. It means we don't have to switch on a bright light during the night.
We also built niches in the shower area and side of bath. These are fitted with small down lighters which are switched separately from the ceiling lights.

Warning: bum guns almost ALWAYS leak. You would need some sort of draining tray directly underneath.

Mine's been in for a year & doesn't leak at all however does have a lever which switches off the water going to it

@Iceache I looked at Anthropologie but oooh they are a bit expensive for me! I'm more likely to go for a rummage in tkmaxx or homesense.

I like the idea of motion lights, i am going to look for some.

I thought of another, not sure if it's been mentioned, but have your extractor fan on a separate switch to your lights so you don't lie there for 10 minutes listening to the fan every time someone goes for a wee in the night

@minipie poo shelf made me spit my tea out thank you 😂

Oooo fancy!
We have an overhead light that we rarely use, in favour of the backlit mirror (which has a choice of 'shade' and 3 brightness levels). I love it. You just press the 'button' on the mirror to turn it on, but it can be a bit hit and miss in the middle of the night. But it's very dim and there's no click of a switch.

😆