I would bet that most people have a dream bathroom, by which I mean a wish list in their head. Nobody I know actually has their dream bathroom. At best they probably have one they quite like but wish it was a little bit bigger.
My dream bathroom would be large (obviously – whose wouldn’t) and feel very natural and outdoorsy. It would have a heated stone floor and an amazing completely private view of water; ocean, river, lake, large stream…..I’m not fussy. I’d have an enormous freestanding bath and walk in shower, and bifold doors which I could open when it was warm enough. There’d be hidden storage for all my towels and toiletries so the bathroom would always look spotless. I’d have lots of different lighting all of it dimmable and it would always be warm. Oh and there’d be a big chaise by the window for me to lounge on admiring the view and painting my nails. FYI my dream bathroom also comes with a dream life where I have time to lounge on a chaise painting my nails. This bathroom would do….
Image from ‘Top 10 Beautiful Bathroom Views’ by Maison Valentina
Or this one…
Image from ‘Top 10 Beautiful Bathroom Views’ by Maison Valentina
Thankfully most of my customers have simpler needs so I’m sorry if I’ve lured you here under false pretences but this post isn’t about dream bathrooms, it’s about reality and meeting a brief.
The Brief
I recently completed a project for lovely couple who had a short but clear list of requirements. Like most bathrooms I work on their old one was very dated. If it had been longer it could have doubled as a bowling alley as the floor was a good 2 inches lower on one side, and it creaked like my dodgy runners knees. It also had a wonky flimsy partition wall at one end, poor lighting, old fixtures, and dated decor. My customers wanted a bathroom that was:
- Easy to clean
- Had good storage
- Was light but not sterile looking
- Was simple in style, nothing fussy
It is only a small bathroom and we needed to avoid layout changes because we couldn’t move the waste pipes. I won’t bore you with why – just trust me everything had to stay put. They wanted to keep a bath and a bidet, but we could lose the electric shower over the bath as they had a separate shower room downstairs. Their only other request was for a vinyl floor as like many of my older customers they find it warmer underfoot than tiles. The rest was up to me.
The plan
Bathrooms are hard to clean because of the nooks and crannies behind the sink and toilet. The easiest way to deal with this issue is to house your fittings in furniture. So my plan included a vanity unit with integrated sink, and back to wall toilet and bidet with the cisterns housed in units to match the vanity. To make the bathroom feel bigger I suggested that we re-hang the door to open the opposite way so that you didn’t have to step around it when you entered the bathroom. The old bathroom suite was a very 80’s shade of peach and the new bath, toilet and bidet were going to be white so to keep it warm looking I chose a colour scheme of pale greys and soft pinks.
The Final Reveal
Before I show you any pics I’m going to apologise for the photo quality, it’s a small room with limited natural light and I’m an interior designer not David Bailey so bear with me. Now get ready for a before pic of the worlds smallest sink and some ugly exposed pipework…..
and after…
Moving the radiator created space for a vanity with a larger sink than they had before. Their house is actually two houses knocked together so there is a chimney breast at the end of the bath which can’t be moved. Boxing this in gave us a ledge behind the bath for shampoo bottles, and increased the counter space next to the sink – ideal for toothbrushes etc. Please ignore the reflection from the mirror, I couldn’t for the life of me take a photo without this or edit it out….
Their bathroom is roughly 2m x 2m and their old corner bath took up about a quarter of the space.
My customers are concerned about their future mobility so their new bath has grip handles to help them get in and out when they start needing a little help. They have a handheld shower for rinsing the bath out, and we used large white tiles around the bath and sink and up over the windowsill which would be easy to keep clean.
The old layout had more nooks and crannies than should have been physically possible in such a compact bathroom.
To solve the problem we filled the space between the bath and the wall with additional cupboards which also increased the storage space. They have a new Aquablade rimless toilet which practically cleans itself. The rimless design pushes water all around the bowl to just below seat level and uses less water so is more efficient than a regular toilet.
We replaced the old radiator with a large dual fuel heated towel radiator so they can dry towels in the summer when the heating is off. The vertical column style meant it would fit between the toilet and the door which gave us the space needed for the vanity unit. We replaced the ceiling spotlights with LED’s and added an additional spotlight over the vanity unit.
The furniture colour is ‘cashmere’ which is pale grey with a hint of pink. It works really well with the pale grey vinyl flooring which is called Lisbon and is from the Ultragrip Buzz range by Beauflor. To lift the colour in the room the walls are painted ‘Cashmere Blush’ by Valspar, and dusky pink towels add a splash more colour and warmth.
It’s a very bijou bathroom room so I’d be kidding myself if I thought this was actually their dream bathroom, but it does everything they asked for and more, and they’re very happy with the look. So that’s good enough for them and good enough for me. So what would be in your dream bathroom?
