Filled with style ideas and expert advice, here is our step-by-step guide to prepping and planning your perfect retreat
Before you start
1. Think about who will be using the bathroom. It needs to be functional for all of them.
2. Do you like long bubble baths or do you always take a shower? Busy young professionals would often much prefer a high-end shower, but a bath is essential if you have a young family and if you only have one bathroom – buyers will expect one when you come to sell the house (although this philosophy is slowly changing). A shower-bath is a great compromise if space is tight.
3. Setting a budget is crucial. A typical bathroom will cost between £2000 and £4500 to install, depending on the products and the complexity of the job. If you’re moving fixtures to new positions, it will be more expensive. And don’t forget that on top of the installation cost, you still have to pay for your products. Budget for tiling, too – the bill will be dictated by the type and size of your tiles.
4. Safety should be a major consideration. If you want a tiled wetfloor, consider the non-slip properties of the tiles. If you want a steel bath that you’ll also use as a shower, think about getting a non-slip coating for the shower end of the bath – most manufacturers offer this as an extra.
5. Certain items can keep your bathroom more hygienic. Consider a wall-hung toilet, for example – it’s a lot easier to clean underneath it, and it also gives the illusion of more space, since more of the floor is visible. Large-format tiles have fewer grout lines to clean, while a low-profile tray will contain mess more easily than a tiled wetfloor.
6. Consider extraction units, shaver sockets and lighting. The latter, especially, is a crucial part of bathroom design. With a variety of new kinds of LED lighting on the market, even the simplest of bathroom designs can be illuminated in a way that adds real value to the aesthetics.
Fiora, www.fiora.es
