Designing & Planning Your Bathroom

The bathroom is now seen as an integral part of any home, similar to the kitchen in that it should speak volumes about the house by providing comfort along with style and practicality. When deciding to update your bathroom furniture, the choices are endless from adding a few bathroom accessories, changing the taps, switching the bath and pottery for newer versions or in fully redesigning the layout by adding furniture, changing the style of bath, washbasin etc.

The options for this room are now endless with a market worth well over £600 million per annum and therefore any decision requires careful planning and precision, to ensure that everything matches and more importantly, fits.

There are numerous high street bathroom retailers, the majority of which moving towards computer aided design (CAD) that allow for a full 3D design perspective of your bathroom and allow you to play with different ideas to see what the best option would be, without the need for a tape measure and pieces of newspaper. When you are happy with the layout and design of your bathroom the next stage is to find the right products making sure that the sizes used in the CAD design are adhered to.

The cheapest option in any new bathroom is to maintain the current layout so that plumbing points do not need to be moved around the room, which can be costly, and so that the new products can be fitted with relative ease, leaving you with less time without your bathroom and more money in your back pocket.

Baths, washbasins and toilets come in array of designs and therefore can be quite time consuming finding a style that suits. The large industry manufacturers like Ideal Standard hold a portfolio that would take you days to look through and if you are looking to integrate furniture into your bathroom you have another set of decisions to contend with in terms of style, placement and product integration.

Your decision of baths and washbasins is also influenced by your decision on brassware and whether you want a single mixer tap, pillar taps, or even a wall mounted tap. Brassware is now seen as one of the main focal points of bathroom suites with consumers opting for unbranded pottery and spending more money on stylish taps for a modern and sleek look to impress.

Once you have decided on what products you want in your bathroom you now have to decide on the flooring and the walls and not to mention the window decorations. It is always essential that you verify your ideas with your plumber to ensure that they are viable and that you order all the materials you require. With regard to the window simply make sure that any blind or curtain has blackout lining so that you maintain your privacy amongst neighbours and passers by. Whatever materials you choose for your walls ensure that they are fully waterproof and that the grouting being used is equally waterproof as problems here will lead to damp patches appearing in the ceiling of the room below the bathroom. In terms of flooring you have the option of tiles, wood, lineal or carpet though if you're looking to go fancy you could add under floor heating to some tiles as there is nothing worse than cold tiles under foot in the morning.

Overall, the decision to redesign your bathroom cannot be taken lightly and whatever you decide it must be perfect for you as well as being practical.

By Michael Core