The days of bathroom suites being restricted to ‘any colour you like as long as it’s white’ are now long gone, and to most people’s relief so are the avocado and peach colours that were popular in the Seventies and Eighties. Colours other than white are still available but bathroom suites have progressed in other ways in recent years.
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Basic Bathroom Planning is Still the Same
Of course the main constituents of the bathroom suite are still largely the same, bath, basin and toilet, often these days with an over-bath shower or a separate shower unit if there’s enough room. If you aren’t sure if you can shoe-horn a separate shower unit into your bathroom you could do worse than see the bathroom planner at a local DIY store. In most cases you don’t have to buy from them to go through a planning session and they might have ideas that would not occur to the rest of us.
In some bathrooms, if the scale of the bathroom can take it, a bidet might be installed. But, to be honest, people in the United Kingdom haven’t really taken to them in the same way as people on the continent so they don’t appear in many bathroom designs.
Bathroom suites are now available in many different styles, from Victorian through to smooth, contoured minimalist suites for dramatic contemporary bathroom designs. Our article ‘Deciding on a Bathroom Style’ will help you if you are undecided as to which style of bathroom suite will fit in with, and complement, your bathroom design.
Check Out Different Tap Locations
There are numerous practical options to think about too. With baths, it’s now quite common to have the taps in the middle of one side of the bath rather than at one end. This means that there’s no tap end, so people who like sharing baths can both recline in comfort.
This method works better if the bath can be set away from the wall, as otherwise the pipes can be a nightmare to access when plumbing work is required. There’s also a risk of scalded legs if the water is too hot, whereas it’s easier to draw your feet up to avoid this when the taps are at one end. This arrangement might be best avoided if there are very young or elderly people in the household.
Bathroom Suites with Shower Baths and Spa Baths
Baths with extended sides at one end, usually circular, are popular at the moment as they allow more room at the tap end to work with an over-bath shower. In fact these are usually referred to as ‘shower baths’ and will often come with a dedicated transparent shower screen to fit the curve of the shower end.
Jacuzzi and whirlpool baths are also cheaper these days which makes them more attainable. They need pumps installed to make all the whizzy bits work so they are a little more complex, and an electrician should really be employed to do all that work, for safety’s sake.
Bathroom Planners: Beware of New-Style Baths
One final point that bathroom planners need to be aware of, particularly with regard to shower baths and spa-type baths, is that you need to check that there’s room to get them up the stairs and into the bathroom before you buy.
There’s nothing more frustrating than having to send your pride and joy back to the show room to swap it for something smaller!
