Designing bathroom layouts can be tricky as the elements of a bathroom suite sometimes can’t be moved very easily. It’s important to get it right though, as having to change it half-way through or, even worse, once you’ve finished, is time-consuming and expensive.
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Take Care with Bathroom Design
The old adage ‘measure twice, cut once’, is never more apposite than for a bathroom design. Measure up the room and get the dimensions down on a piece of graph paper or in a computer program if you have access to one that will do the job. Then add in all the immovable objects like windows and doors, possibly radiators too, unless you are prepared to move them too.
Cardboard cut-outs of bathroom suite fittings can then be cut to the same scale and moved around on the plan until a design that fits is arrived at. Don’t forget to allow enough space around each fitting for people to use them though. This includes floor space areas for people to step onto from the bath or shower, or stand in front of a toilet or basin.
Take a New Look at the Layout
You might want to try starting with a completely blank sheet of paper before you start your bathroom design. Just put the walls of the room down in the right place, then play with all the options until you come up with a layout which looks like it will work for you and allows enough room for the bathroom suite and other furniture.
Once that’s done you can let reality back in and mark the positions of windows, doors and radiators in to see where you stand. All those items can be moved or changed, they just add to the time and cost of the bathroom re-design. But you may find that you can stick with the essentials of your favourite bathroom layout idea with just a few tweaks here and there.
Bathroom Showers
If you are installing a separate shower unit as part of the bathroom design make sure you cater for the door opening too. In fact there are a number of different door opening types and it would be as well to look at the space requirements of each one. Corner shower units with curved sliding doors that do not take up any extra space are an excellent idea for a bathroom where space is limited.
Bathroom Furniture and Storage Ideas
Bathroom furniture other than suite fittings need to be considered too. You’ll be a lucky person if you have enough room in your bathroom for an easy chair or a table, but wall-mounted cabinets and free standing cupboards can usually be fitted in. Wall mounting enables the space above the bathroom suite fittings to be used so consider double wall cabinets and perhaps shelves too.
Good bathroom design will include ideas for storage so look for places where cubby holes can be boxed in, perhaps at one end or the other of the bath. These can then be used for items that you might not want to have on show like cleaning materials or children’s toys. You might be able to build floor-to-ceiling cupboards in these corners rather than keeping them at bath height, it depends on the room layout and the overall bathroom design, but it’s an idea worth considering.
Take Bathroom Design Ideas from Everywhere – Good or Bad
It’s a good idea to look around at other bathroom designs as well. Start making mental notes of ideas you encounter in other peoples’ bathrooms, perhaps those in hotels, and go to all the bathroom showrooms in your area too. Look at bad bathroom design as well, as you can learn from that too.
For example, if you sit on a toilet in a friends’ house and discover that your knee clouts the bath, or you can’t easily bend round to reach the toilet roll, then you’ll have just learnt about two details that you’ll need to get right when planning your own bathroom design.
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