Guide to Designing and Buying a Bathroom

A Professional Designers Guide

Your Bathroom Design Objectives

What are you looking to achieve with your bathroom project ? Are you confident enough to convey these ideas or do you need good advise ? I have provided a number of catagories to help you widen your search for that individual look. I have provided links to useful information and photos, with most sections. Please click headfings below to visit links

Space

Creating that "open plan look" can be difficult for most people without major building works and disruption, especially in England with the demand to squeeze smaller and smaller houses onto smaller and smaller plots (local planners take note!). This has led to a small boom in extension work recently, and one that has kept many bathroom companies in business. Without any original thought about how to allocate more land to good individual builders , self builders, or architect designed houses ( the top 100 plc builders need not apply ), then we will continue to fill up our gardens and basements. Hopefully wall to wall glass and outward looking statements to more modern design will prevail. I am quite excited by this buiding developement, and have had much more room internally to play with recently to try out new ideas. If you need more space and are are staying-put for a while, then extensions are sometimes the best option in a difficult housing market. They can be worth the effort, even though the mess and hassle may make you think otherwise!

Home

How do you describe that feeling of "home". It can be : warm and cosy with dog by open fire; minimalist and hard edged; style concious, and ordered; or informal and untidy; and many other things to many people. No one style is right, so do not covet your neighbours bathroom! look for your own identity if possible. They will not take kindly to your tribute to their quite often hard-earnt style statement. Even in the smallest bathroom I have managed to find common ground, which leads to a design solution and personal statement. This does not always mean bespoke and hand built solutions, but sometimes it makes my life easier to start with a clean slate.

Minimalism

There appears to be a revolution in the bathroom industry at last that has pushed out the old and brought in the new. The British bathroom buyer has in particular really started to embrace good well-made modern design. Will this be a passing fad, like so many others? or stand the test of time? I believe certain aspects of it will stand the test of time. Clean uncluttered lines with good quality products and finishes will always win out if their is a personal element to the process. If you love orange a lot then you will still love orange when the crowd loves aubergine. But If you are indecisive and easily lead, then stear clear and leave it to the more adventurous.

Glorious colour

Colour has become quite a style statement recently, with white and strong coloured laquer finishes strong in the medium to upper price brackets, and in vinyl form at a cheaper level. White or cream are quite safe colours and have always been a fall back position for many. I will never push strong colours unless there is a will to change and general desire to follow through with other aspects of the house. Infact quite often the bathroom and kitchen are a final statement after a gradual evolution of the house interior style. Probably because freestanding furniture is easier to sell on and change at will !

Period piece

It is quite hard to ignore your house style and age in any decision to replace a bathroom. Many people have used it as a basis for their design decisions for decades. Unfortunately some have totally ignored it!(what has been our preoccupation with Georgian and Tudor details for the last 40 years? I will never work that out!). If for instance you have a listed art deco house then I would suggest you work with the style of the house. It may cost more money to get it right, but it is important to not loose sight of the design objective, and let budget get in the way of it. Your house period style should not be a chain around your neck though. If your house exterior styling does not reflect your interior tastes and you are heading towards modern styling, you can safely ignore the structure without losing real estate value. You will be joining an ever increasing public desire to move forwards rather than backwards. I would still advise discussing your design objectives with an experienced designer, if you are looking towards a more radical approach.

Variety is good ?

My opinion is that a well designed house can be organic and multi facetted, and this is historically typical at the highest level. Stately homes are full of style statements that were considered bold and new and the height of fashion at the time, The fashion for oriental design for instance is a recurring theme and very strong throughout the last 4 Centuries. It is difficult to explore this without a fair amount of space and conviction. Most people settle for 1 or 2 contrasting themes in an average sized house. The older I get the more certain I am of what I like and want. So settling on an uncluttered and strong single statement can be both invigorating, but to others one dimensional . Who cares I am old enough to make my own decisions (that is after the teenage kids, the wife, 2 dogs and the bank manager, and not necessarily in that order)!

  

Fashion statement

If you have money to indulge yourself and a desire to change rooms wholesale when bored, then what the heck, go for it! People around me seem more home centred, and treat it more like a refuge from the noisy, dirty and agressive world we live in. We work harder and harder in target centred work enviroments, where people we share half our lives with, at work, become more complicated and insecure. So why shouldn't we splash out and enjoy the spoils of that hard labour a little more often. Where best to treat ourselves than that new bathroom, kitchen, car, home cinema, indoor pool, etc ( I will stop salivating now.)

Style icons

If you are making a statement with your bathroom should you try out an accepted theme based on strong style statements from the past? I think that if you want to explore minimalist design, then spend enough money to do it with conviction, ie with a good designer and a clean slate, not an Argos brochure pick list. Bauhaus steel tubing furniture for instance is still collectable and worth vast amounts of money but is copied relentlessly. Good design will always be copied, but how you complete the whole look with all of its parts is much more important, this will separate your ideas from the obvious.

Form and function

Should form follow function? my tutors at design school used to say. Well life would be very dull for many if that was essential. It has been perfectly acceptable for decades to look backwards and use whatever comes to mind, like a smorgusboard with little care often for historical context. Bathrooms have reflected that taste and tried to marry easy production techniques with period style. I believe this pastiche of traditional styles has been a blind alley in the bathroom and kitchen industry, often over-used and exploited.

Having to deal with function can easily take over in most bathrooms because of space constraints. Can you get everything into that space and add a little excitement and individuality? Well I think there is always room for a good designer to have a try. At the moment it is not "following the crowd" to keep it simple and functional as long as a good combination of interesting materials equipment and colours are used. I have provided links to furniture designs that break the mould and show that simple small items can be exciting and individual aswell as functional.

Relaxation area

Bathrooms are looked on as a sanctuary away from the noise and clutter of your typical family home. A place to relax and contemplate or sort out a few problems without being disturbed. it is much more enjoyable to do this in a light clean and well designed small space. The demand for busy tiles, and elaborate tiled to the cieling bordered styles has gone thankfully.

wellness

Lifestyle statement

This is a heavily used phrase and reflects our embrace of the desire to rationalise our outside life and interior tastes into a coherant style statement. If you are sporty and active and have little time for clutter and no children planned then you will reflect this with your choice of furniture and interior decor and have more choices towards the inpractical end of the scale( I have for sale 2 kids, 2 dogs, 3 cats, and wife who loves clutter). I have noticed a shift of the" kids left home" generation towards a more individual and modern statement. I wondered why antiques were so cheap at auction these days (my brothers comment, he collects I don't). There also appears to be a desire to display our credentuals to visitors and appear to fit in to a distinct group. if you drive around with ski racks on your car in the summer then you have probably gone to far.

Gadget show!

Probably a blokes trait, but a female friend recently said she was lost without her fully functioning cappuccino maker in the mornings. I think that most gadgets and appliances are boxes of components waiting to let us down and quite often they perform that function with great flair and imagination. Infact, manufacturers spend an immense amount of time working out how quickly they can get us to throw them away, with punitive callout and parts charges it doesn't take long!(yes after 25 years I am cynical). It is possible to narrow down the potential for problems with good equipment choices, so if what you want is available in solid brass then don't buy plastic if you see what I mean ( shower pumps. )

Transitional styles

If you have one eye on modern styling and one eye on traditional design where do you draw the line ? I think that there are lots of doorstyles that cover this category but not many that excite me. I have noticed a more clearer desire to not sit on the fence and commit more towards modern design . I still seem to be providing 2 totally different schemes for the less decisive . One scheme is high gloss flat doors, and the other is painted wood or hardwood in a shaker style for security!

Temporary solution

A difficult area with right and wrong paths. I think that if you are replacing a bathroom that has failed, and need a temporary solution, or you are installing a temporary bathroom because your money has run out to get what you really want then tread lightly. If you want the expertise without the headaches then use my design service and buy the bathroom yourself over the counter. It is then possible to get a recommended local fitter to install your scheme. Ok some specialist bathroom companies can compete and may be worth a shot for a complete installation ,but will probably offer a better deal for supply only if your fitter is cheaper.

Holiday home

Holiday homes are an opportunity to play, without having to worry about trying a more individual design. If you are generally more conservative then run free and unshackled and embrace that clean chic modern white bathroom with silestone aquamarine tops and to hell with the voices in your head, the sea will drown out the noise!

House value constraints

Should there be a threshold to your budget to limit your design decisions. The short answer is sometimes. Yes if you want a 20k bathroom in your mobile home and your thinking of selling it. I think that the biggest factor in budget decisions is timescale. If you are staying put for the next 20 years then relax and play a little. If you have itchy feet and need to anticipate future house purchasers then good professional advise will stear you towards the right choice but don't assume buyers will be happy with cheap solutions and that is the same if you spend £5k or £50k . I have seen too many cheap over-tiled Italianesque make-overs in large houses that are £20k plus mistakes waiting for the vote of no confidence.

House future sale constraints

Can you predict who is going to buy your house when you move? Yes if you live next to a good nursery and primary school in a 3 bed semi-detached house with park opposite. I would probably be confident . The market is more open and exciting, and safety is not always safe if you see what I mean . I am more confident than ever that customers are getting more demanding, and are put-off by bland safe choices. They may not tell you to your face that it is boring , but will think it, and pass judgement with their feet. (Am I on my own cloud here?)

Sustainable or recycled option

Its hard to talk about any purchase without considering the enviromental issues, and most good bathroom companies have information about their products origins and sustainability. Recycling our bathrooms is a good area for debate. I think we throw much too many bathrooms into skips and there is a ready market for almost anything. My empty garage is testament to my desire to save money and recycle, thank you Ebay! (alright , half empty and heading in the right direction, But don't mention the loft!).