This article shows an example of how to squeeze a bath into a small bathroom

Small Bathroom Layouts With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

Introduction

Adding A Bath To A Small Shower Room With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

Existing Bathroom With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

Existing Bathroom With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

Existing Bathroom With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

A challenge was laid down to fit a bath into a small shower room (180cm x 150cm) whilst maintaing a toilet, basin, shower & radiator, and giving the room a general update.

Planning

Planning is very important where tolerances are this tight!

A carefully measured dimensioned drawing was drawn up and pipe runs and services were noted before alternative plans were drawn up to show the landlord.

Small Bathroom Layouts With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

This is where an experienced bathroom fitter can advise you best, as they will know what can and cannot be placed into the available space (Notice I said ‘be placed’ not merely ‘fit’ as there is a difference.)

Think of it it terms like this – A shower cubicle may ‘fit’ in the centre circle at Wembley, but unless it has water pipes supplying it, and waste water pipes taking water away from it (at a specific downhill gradient) then it will not ‘work’ in the terms we would expect.

Warning

Bathroom planning cannot be done by someone remotely in a Bathstore showroom – they need to actually be there to see how the existing plumbing is laid out as this will determine where suite items can be located.

Otherwise they will have no idea (for example) which way the joists run under the floor so will consequently have no idea as to whether their nice, sleek low profile shower tray can actually be fitted in the corner of the bathroom they had planned!

Please ring a fitter before committing to buying £1000’s worth of sale items that will not fit in your new layout (or will fit but only with waste water pipes running across the centre of the floor or uphill) These sale items do not reflect good value for money in these instances!

PS If you think I’m joking I priced a job for a couple who had bought £3000+ worth of suite items from the bathstore sale (as they were seemingly very impressed with the professionally drawn up ‘plan’) only for me to tell them that it was impossible to fit all the items where they wanted them due to plumbing constraints.

Don’t let this be you!

Installation

Planning A Small Bathroom With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

After considering the two options I presented them with, the customer chose the layout shown top right as they wanted a 1700mm bath, rather than a 1500mm one.

I personally recommended the layout at the bottom as I knew the space between the toilet & the basin would be tight, but in a space this small there will always be trade-offs, and it often comes down to personal preference.

New Bath Location With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

We chose to fit a 1700mm long bath into the 180cm long room, and this gave us the opportunity to stud out the wall behind the bath taps & shower 10cm, allowing us to conceal the shower pipework within
(We could have used an 1800mm long bath but chose not to due to budget constraints).

Doing this ensured that the bath would fit snugly between the two opposing walls, to negate the need for any pointless boxing in at the bottom of the bath, which sometimes needs to be done if the room is slightly longer than the bath.

PS
Where this gap is a bit bigger, it can be used for storage.

Towel Radiator Over Bath With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

In order to fit the towel radiator into this layout we positioned it over the bath, ensuring a hot towel was always on hand following a shower.

Positioning it as far away from the shower head as possible meant that towels would stay dry whilst the user was showering.

Close Coupled Toilet And Small Basin With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

A short projection toilet was used to make the best use of the space, as it only projects 600mm out from the wall instead of 720mm+ for a standard model.

It was moved as close to the bath as possible to give maximum clearance from the basin but existing drainage pipes and the window position largely influenced its final position.

A tiny basin unit with integrated storage space underneath was chosen so that it didn’t protrude too far out into the room or clash with the door when it opened. I think this particular unit was 450mm wide x 250mm deep.

Again, this was placed as near to the fully open door as possible to produce the maximum clearance from the toilet.

Necessary waste pipework was tested before being boxed in and tiled with ceramic white wall tiles (to match the rest of the walls.)

Small Bathroom With Bathroom Installation In Leeds

The finished bathroom included a vinyl floor, new lighting and a re-hung door to give more of a sense of space when walking in the room.

Conclusion

Take the time to plan your small bathroom with the help of a professional and you will create a useable space that adds value to your property, but skip this step and you may have problems.

There are many space saving products for small bathrooms and it is just a matter of finding the ones that will work best in your space to suit your tastes.

If you have a small bathroom to renovate in or around Leeds, please get in touch and I can carry out a free site survey.

Thanks for reading

Chris