Designing your bathroom

Whether you lean towards the classic or contemporary in interior design, when it comes to planning your bathroom it pays to really consider every detail required of the space before parting with any of your hard-earned cash.

A bathroom is a space that needs to work hard, look great, and make you feel great too. It’s a first thing in the morning, and last thing at night, space and intimacy is paramount. Get this room right and you’ll head out of the door with a spring in your step, or go to sleep relaxed.

A piece of paper is always the best start, a simple scale floorplan and a scale ruler to hand and you can tinker all you like with different layouts until you nail the final plan. Take your time, it’s part of the journey that will cost you nothing.

Who will be using your bathroom?

A big consideration, often overlooked is how many people are using the space. Are you a multi-generational, or a single person household? All important when thinking about bath sizes, position of shower cubicles, possible seating and ease of towel drying. Look after the people using the space, it makes a big difference to their enjoyment of this personal space. Cooling off.

Whatever the priorities of the household you don’t want a cluttered space either so ensure there is great storage and unobtrusive cupboards to hold the plethora of products we all seem to accumulate, including all the cleaning products that need to be here not in the kitchen.

Storage

One of my favourite storage solutions in a bathroom is to build a shallow but tall wall mounted cupboard about 150mm deep that’s all (and anything up to 1.5m tall). This is enough to hold all sorts bottles, potions and packets in a single layer, all easy to see and retrieve without rummaging. Often, I’ll put in mirrored doors with minimal, discreet handles and in effect this useful cupboard looks and serves as a tall mirror.

And whilst we’re on the subject of cleaning, minimal grout lines make for an efficient bathroom space which require minimal maintenance. Increasingly popular are the wonderful, waterproof panels, like my own collection with Multipanel, that look and feel just like the large format tiles that seem to be all the rage at the moment.

With these shower panels, you won’t need to raid a bank to achieve the fantastic look and feel of real marble, stone or wood.

Tech in the bathroom

Technology is available for the bathroom as well as every other space at home, I’d be content with a portable radio on a neat low freestanding table next to a freestanding bath but you have options here too including phone apps that could even turn the shower on to your required temperature before stepping into the bathroom, so it depends on your preferences and priorities. But spend time getting the lighting exactly right and you’ll feel nurtured or energised with the twist of a dimmer switch - no one ever looks great with a blast of cold white LEDs 

Go for it – give your bathroom the love it deserves

We all have heavy demands on our bathroom spaces and there are lots of beautiful and affordable products on the market to help you get your perfect bathroom sanctuary just how you want it, like my collection of bathroom wall panels.

PS: I’d love to hear how you get on with your bathroom refurb – so do drop me a line and maybe a photo or two showing your fantastic bathroom transformation.