what do you wish someone had told you before you redid your bathroom and/or kitchen?

[Heathcliffscathy]

following on from the awesome breastfeeding thread, and on a much smaller and less important scale obv, i'm looking for your collective wisdom as i embark on major building works in my house.

weirdly not only am i going to hopefully benefit from your bathroom and kitchen wisdom...but as i'm preg AND undertaking building works of doom i'll be benefitting from the bfding thread too...

so your dream kitchens and bathrooms linked please...and also things you wish you'd known.

TIA

it's a bit of a hassle though isn't it IWill? you have to have it boxed in or separated out or something?

Space on your surface is more important than a little extra storage - kitchen

Storage is more important than space on your surface - Bathroom.

Check appliance prices on the internet - 6 week old baby and my eye was not on the ball on that one!

Look inside the dishwasher and CHECK your plates/bowls etc will fit properly

Aqualisa quartz showers are nice - get the extra button for outside the cubical and never again dodge the shot of cold water as you turn it on! How far away from the shower you position it depends on how sure you can be that the shower door is closed before you turn it on! Ours is right outside!!

Thanks for all the advice - need to do my bathroom soon and it's quite big (about 3m x 2.5m I think)

Currently it has laminate flooring, and a grey bath, sink and toilet which matches the pattern on the tiles not my handiwork might I add!

I wish I had known that in reality shabby chic white painted floorboards in the bathroom need painting every 4-6 weeks.

Bathroom - Go to independent bathroom showroom. Let them help you find the exact appliances you want and give you their best price.
Then take the list to your local plumbing merchant (the sort on industrial estates where plumbers go) and ask them for their price. You will save yourself hundreds if not thousands of pounds(I saved nearly £2000 on two bathrooms and a downstairs wc).

regards bathroom i wish someoen had told us you lose alot of length with double ended baths (fortunatly dh and i are fairly short) but we do lose some length with the bath being like that so cant really both lay end to end. Also ours sits in a surround (see profile) - it was a nightmare to put in and you cant simply slide the surround back to see if its leaking so we just have to hope it isnt till the day the ceiling falls through (it makes me kind of nervous).

I thought of another one last night - his n hers sinks. We had in last house but don't have here - DH ALWAYS comes in and starts brushing his teeth while I am washing face etc and it drives me nuts. Horrid way to go to bed! (And how he hasn't learned that me going to bed grumpy isn't ideal... well, no learning curve there, obviously!)

I second the aqualisa quartz digital shower. Fab.

are handleless units annoying to open?

i think handellless units are annoying (and cant spell), we have them in bathroom and the dc just like pressing them to make the annoying da du noise. Handles better though looks better in bathroom without

I want this shower

Thats nice - i also wish id known that if buying a shower with a massooove head there is less pressure so i would then have to spend another load of money on fitting a pump.

Keep the worktop cut-out from the sink - can use as chopping board and will nicely cover 2 big bowls-full of yukky dishes in a flash when people pop round

Always check the height of your bathroom basin. I gave all measurements to B&Q designer, asked if a partic basin would fit, Designer said yes, only when going to pay for it did one last check on the box and realised it would sit higher than the window sill it was going against! It bring a new meaning to DIY!

Designer taps - look nice, fitting is a nightmare and they rarely work as well as they should.
Wetroom - fantastic! But get the biggest screen you can. And watch out for the people who will just dump it on the nearest bit of hard surface they can find. Expensive, heavy and fragile and they just dump it on the street!
Large travertine tiles on the walls, be careful because when they get wet, they can look like the breezeblocks on prison walls :)
Taps: avoid Perrin and Rowe, Taps4Less. Lousy service.

Tiles: Parkside Tiles in Leicester are superb and competitively priced.
Final tip - if you are having a shower that is linked to your central heating system (tank of hot water), consider also fitting a second electric shower in the same shower enclosure if you have space. It is brilliant for the Summer when you don't want to heat a whole tank of water just for showers. And when you have a house full at Christmas and the water tank can't keep up with the number of showers. Best thing I ever did - two new bathrooms and a kitchen later.

Don't put down flooring that will make you say "but it can't come up!" to anyone later trying to help you with a leak or other problem.

Hi,

I am from the south east. Can I have the name of the kitchen fitter that you recommend please? Many thanks