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With a blank canvas at our disposal, we set to work planning our new bathroom.
Well, when I say blank canvas, think more along the lines of painting by numbers, with a wide choice of colours and paintbrushes, but a limited choice of where and how to use them.
With our bathroom being the size it is, a radical alteration of the layout simply wasn't a realistic option. With a standard size 1700x700 bath taking up nearly half the room, and all the pipework involved, everything would need to stay in virtually the same position.
Essentials v Desirables
Bath & Basin - gone!
Before finding out about the leak, we had first considered the very basic option of simply re-tiling and adding a new shower screen to the bath. However, when the bath panel was removed, a chunk of the bath came away with it, thanks to our predecessor’s overzealous tiling! This convinced us that a new bath was going to be an essential requirement.
So, despite the size and layout of the room helping to keep the budget low, we still wanted the whole bathroom to be “as we wanted it” which would mean spending extra on new elements – but what these new elements would be was still up for debate.
We drew up a priority list:
Key Considerations • Replace leaking waste on bath • Re-tile & new flooring • Foldaway bath screen • More storage
Secondary Considerations • Replace basin for smaller model • Replace or fix whistling toilet cistern & poor seat • Remove boxed off section of pipework behind toilet & basin
Further Possibilities • New shower • New window blind • Replace radiator for heated towel rail
The Final Decision
Tiling & Flooring As one of the main concerns was the tiling, we made this one of our top priorities and started searching online for something a little more on-trend. The shenanigans with our leak had convinced us that floor tiles weren’t the best option for us. These would be ripped up and replaced with vinyl flooring.
BathWe could have simply replaced the waste, which would have solved the leak, but with the current bath a little damaged and a new foldaway screen coming onboard, we decided to replace with a brand new bath, waste & taps.
What the bath conceals!
Toilet & Basin Our current basin was pretty big and dominated the room. So replacing this would allow us to not only gain back some space, but also provide us with some much needed storage in the form of a vanity unit with cupboard - the ideal place for all those bath toys you can see dotted around. We decided to look for a much smaller basin. Despite the toilet being fairly modern, the whistling cistern was getting to me (imagine an old-fashioned kettle going off in the middle of the night)! Combine that with a seat which would only stay upright at the fifth attempt and you have one very unfriendly WC indeed (at least for the men of the house)! So we decided to replace this too. We could also claw back a bit of space with a more slimline design.
Shower After much deliberation, we decided NOT to upgrade the shower. The original shower hadn’t been brilliantly powerful, but the replacement head had certainly given it a boost. We decided to go along the lines of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and leave it as it was. This may backfire on us in years (or even months) to come – but fingers crossed it will last us well into the future!
So with our plan in mind, it was now time to turn our shopping list into a reality.
