The small choices you make can have a big impact on your overall bathroom design, so bear these 5 things in mind with your next project….

1.Pick suite items carefully

There’s so much choice now when it comes to suite items, and this can be a blessing or a curse depending on how you look at it.

Use suite items shaped to the flow of the room – you don’t need to put a plain, boring rectangular bath that juts out into the room and you bang your knee on it every time you walk past.

How about, instead, utilising a bath with a rounded corner to make the space flow better….

2. Don’t be afraid to move things around to suit.

Relocating suite items can open up new possibilities for your bathroom and turn it from a compromised space into something with a real wow factor.

Here, we made space for a beautiful WC & basin set with an illuminated mirror over the basin.

PS Be aware that shifting suite items around is not always feasible or may come with increased labour costs.

3. Use space creatively

There are no hard rules for how you can use your space.

The key is thinking outside the box a bit, and if you find this difficult a good installer should be able to help you.

With new technologies such as wet tray formers (which can be cut to size) you’re not even limited to having standard set sizes for shower enclosures.

Here, we helped out customer to envisage a scenario where we could open up the old shower enclosure into something much larger and more dramatic, as well as being more functional.

Using our experience, creativity and knowledge we made the shower area twice as spacious by:

  • Removing the false lintel over the old shower enclosure door.
  • Extending the showering area out from the alcove into the room by means of a wet room tray former.
  • Increasing the height of the ceiling within the shower enclosure by raising it up.

Our customer was also pretty tall, so rather than having to stoop in the shower area we further increased the available space (i.e. the gap between the shower head and the floor) by:

  • Lowering the floor vs the previous tray by installing a level access walk in shower (wetroom)
  • Utilising a recessed shower head that did not ‘hang down’ from the ceiling (in combination with a shower hose mounted on the wall.)

You can see that we also added a fan to deal with the humidity of the shower area.

4. Use tiles & grout creatively

You don’t have to have boring tiling!

True, the more glamorous tiles are generally more expensive than small plain white ceramic tiles, but there are a number of things you can do to make even the cheapest of tiles have a big impact.

Tile pattern / bond options 


In this example, a nice quality ceramic tile have been laid in a herringbone pattern (with a strong contrasting grout colour) to make a dramatic feature wall that extends from behind the WC & basin and into the shower area.

You can see the difference impact that the exact same tile can have when laid differently.

Tile Bond Options  

PS different tile bonds will incur higher fitting costs than others as they are more difficult to do and take longer to install.

Grout

Using the same colour grout as the tiles doesn’t make ‘different’ tile bonds stand out as much, so the impact is more subtle.

There’s many more choices than just plain white when it comes to grout and silicone.

Take advantage of this and be bold!

Here, plain white ceramic tiles (probably £10/m2 from B&Q!) have been laid in an interesting bond and paired with an anthracite / black grout and it takes the design to the next level for no added expense.

5. Consider storage

OK, so storage is not generally considered sexy.

However…

Neither is this:

So make provisions to store all your stuff out of sight!

It’s no use if your brand new bathroom looks great when the installer leaves but then 6 months later your stuff is everywhere, thus ruining your intended Zen like spa space!

Basin vanity units and colour matched tall cabinets such as this can take care of this problem if you’re not going down the fitted furniture route.

What we do

Project managed bathroom installation in Leeds from start to finish with all the bits in between taken care of:

  • No having to find all the different trades required:
    window fitter, plumber, then a tiler, a separate electrician and joiner, oh and also a plasterer / painter…..
  • No having to manage & communicate with all these trades to bring your plan to fruition
    (as well as liaising with local building control)
  • No need to find all the independent suppliers required:
    waste disposal, scaffolding company, bathroom suite retailer, tile supplier, UPVC supplier, joinery supplier, underfloor heating store, glass supplier……
  • Ability to pick suite items from a local showroom
    (for personal choice without overwhelm)

Get in touch

If you have a similar project in mind, please feel free to contact me for a free site survey.

Chris