Bathroom Design Ideas

As with kitchens, the bathroom sector of the market is very competitive and a new bathroom suite can cost anything from $200 to six figures. The secret is to make sure that the quality of the bathroom reflects the general value of the property. In cheap prop­erties, acrylic baths from the big DIY stores are perfectly adequate. With expensive bathroom suites, you are paying for the look and the finish. The innards of a budget loo are very similar to the innards of an expensive designer version.

Plumbing arrangements have to meet British standards and, more than any other room, the bathroom needs to be installed by a totally competent plumber. It is a false economy to stint on the plumber as bathrooms must work, not leak.

When developing or renovating a buy-to-let property, the bathroom suite should always be white and of the simplest design you can find. The watchwords are sleek, smart, easy to operate, efficient and warm.

If the new bathroom is for your own home, then you can go to town, but I would never have a really big bathroom. They can be difficult to heat sufficiently and waste a huge amount of space. If the room to be used as a bathroom is huge, why not consider hiving off some of it for a walk-in wardrobe, as they have in America?

Cast iron or acrylic?

More and more manufacturers are making acrylic baths and aban­doning steel and cast iron. Cast iron baths are extremely heavy and, in an apartment block, the floor may not be strong enough to cope. Acrylic baths used to be definitely second best, but the designs and stability have improved greatly in recent years. In fact, many reputable bath manufacturers are no longer producing metal baths at all. Acrylic baths can scratch and, if you go for acrylic, make sure that the bath is strong enough to cope with a 16-stone user, plus the weight of the water.

If your property has an old cast-iron bath, it may not need to be replaced, but can be re-enamelled instead so that it looks brand new. This process is expensive and puts the bath out of use for a week, but is still cheaper and easier than taking it out, for which you will require four strong men.

Money no object

Very high-spec bathroom options include baths, basins and shower trays made of teak, transparent baths and glass basins, shower curtains that come down at the touch of a button and all kinds of gimmicks. When designing a high-spec, ‘wow factor’ bathroom, ask yourself whether or not you will tire of the gimmicks in a few years’ time and if all the electronic controls will continue to work well as time goes on. Also, check which items are replaceable. Whirlpool baths and other complicated arrangements, for example, may just mean that there is more to go wrong, more to fiddle with.

Some simple rules of thumb

As with kitchens, do not order bathrooms over the phone or via the Internet. Do not let yourself be seduced by cold callers either. In general, bathrooms do not need as much design input as kitchens -there are fewer items to incorporate and, usually, not much choice as to where each can go. Whereas kitchen designers are a necessity, most ordinary builders can design perfecdy good bathrooms.

Whatever your needs and budget are, you can’t go wrong if you keep it plain and keep it simple. If you want to add drama and impact, you can do this with shower curtains, pictures, wonderful toiletries, lovely towels and soaps.

Tiling

All bathrooms need some areas to be tiled, but keep this to a minimum and, again, keep it simple. Complicated, handmade tiles can be very tempting, but they soon date and may be unob­tainable in a few years. Tile patterns have a very short shelflife indeed so, in any case, always buy more tiles than you need so that you have some ready as and when you need to replace them.

Tiling should never be amateurishly done as good tiling makes even cheap, simple bathrooms look smart and inviting.

Flooring

As with kitchens, a huge variety of bathroom flooring is available, from limestone to quarry tiles, ceramic tiles, vinyl, wood, lino, carpet. I would avoid both wood (or laminate) and carpet in bath­rooms and only go for ceramic tiles if the floor will never need to be taken up to adjust pipework and so on. Indeed, never bury pipework that may need to be reached at some point.

There are some lovely vinyl floorings available, particularly the expensive Amtico ranges (and similar) and, in my view, you can’t beat it. Old-fashioned lino is also a possibility, although this is not as malleable as vinyl and can be expensive.

Whatever you go for, choose a colour and design of flooring that is waterproof, easy to clean and hardwearing.

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