Great Bathroom Ideas

Archive for November, 2009

If you are installing a new cloakroom, you will very quickly find yourself wondering how on earth you ever managed without it.  If you are renovating an existing cloakroom, you already know what a useful addition to your home this usually very tiny room can be. Whichever of these categories you fall within, however, you might well find that there is now so much choice out there that you don’t know where to start.  The purpose of this article is to give you a push in the right direction.

How can it be so confusing, you ask, when all you’re really looking for is a washbasin and toilet?  You just wait and see!  Also, don’t forget that, if you have enough space, you can add to the value of your property by installing a shower and some storage facilities to the cloakroom too.

Before you think about extras, however, let’s get down to brass tacks and think about the basics.

The basics are, of course, budget and dimensions.  You can find cloakroom suites for rooms of almost any dimension but it won’t harm to abide by that old rule to ‘measure twice and cut once.’  When it comes to budget, don’t forget the cost of installation; if you can fit the cloakroom suite yourself, then you’ll just have that much more money to play with when it comes to choosing the suite itself.

Style is such a personal thing but the truth of the matter is that your choices really boil down to traditional or contemporary.  Whichever side of the traditionalist fence you fall, there will be something out there to suit.

If you’re a traditionalist, you will be drawn to bathroom furniture with curves and rounded edges.  Toilets and basins will be supported by pedestals and white or cream will probably be the order of the day.

Contemporary, modern styled cloakroom suites can be something of an eye-opener, and they can also be particularly useful where space is limited, which is probably why they sell so well. Toilets and hand basins forgo the pedestal and are hung from the wall, placed on existing surfaces, or on suitable pieces of furniture.  Taps are either lever style or also wall mounted.  Shapes tend towards the angular, although there are some beautiful cloakroom suites available that combine curves with minimalism to great effect.

Whatever your style choice, be it contemporary or strictly classical, the major point to remember is that the room you are styling must, above all, be functional.  This is the time to strive for that most elusive of blends – the combination of form with function.

There was a time when having a corner bath in your bathroom was seen as the height of luxury; in a way, it still is.  Nowadays, however, they are a more accessible and affordable option.  Apart from the style factor, a corner bath is also the ultimate in convenience because it provides a deep bath in a fraction of the space taken up by a traditional bath. 

Our top-of-the-range Phoenix Rosa Corner Bath is even more convenient and stylish – it also features both whirlpool and airpool jets!  If finances don’t quite run to this, Phoenix offer another model that comes with just the airpool feature, so this is a corner bath that will still enhance your lifestyle.  For an even more reasonable price, less than £150, you can have the Universal Acrylic Corner Bath, which even has a built in seat – wonderful for drying the kids before getting them out of the bath. 

What happens, though, if one member of the family prefers showering to bathing?  Well, we have that angle covered too, with a 1500mm x 1500mm corner bath that has a dedicated shower area and comes complete with screen. 

You could say that, here at Great Bathroom Ideas, we have all corners covered!

There’s no doubt about it, bathrooms are a shrinking commodity and small baths can seem hard to come by.  At Great Bathroom Ideas we have specifically scoured the market for smaller sized baths so that you don’t have to.  In doing so, we’ve proved, to ourselves at least, that there is a definite gap in the bath market for more compact bathroom furniture. 

It’s a well-documented fact that corner baths take up less space than traditional baths but some of today’s bathrooms are too small even for those.  Which is why we are delighted to bring you the Macaw Corner Bath with its neat 1500mm x 1000mm dimensions.  This bath also comes with a seat area for extra comfort. 

The smallest bath we could find is the Gem Small Bath, which comes in at an efficient 1200mm x 700mm.  This shorter length is gained by omitting the traditional tap ledge at the top of the bath, which means that the bath is every bit as comfortable as a traditionally sized model.  Taps will need to be wall-mounted or mounted on the corner of the bath. 

If cost is an issue, we recommend the 1500mm long acrylic bath, which, at less than £150, even comes complete with the side panel. 

If you thought your bathroom was too small for a bath, the selection of smaller baths at Great Bathroom Ideas will make you think again.