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Bathroom Suite Options

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.

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!

Reproduced courtesy of www.KitchenBathroomIdeas.co.uk - great advice and ideas for your kitchen and bathroom

Bathroom Plumbing Basics

Although there's no doubt that there's a lot of skill and training required to be a good plumber, when it comes to doing the plumbing for a bathroom, there's a lot of general building skills required too.

For this reason, if you are contemplating a bathroom makeover it makes sense to keep the bathroom fittings in the same place as much as possible, then the knock-on building work is kept to a minimum. If you are able to do this then the plumbing changes will be confined to removing the old fittings then attaching the new ones.

Hot and Cold Supplies to the Bathroom

Basically each bathroom suite fitment will need water supplied to it and an outlet to take the waster and other stuff away. For all the components a cold water supply will come in from a header tank in relatively small bore copper piping (15mm usually). The hot water for baths, basins, bidets and some showers (see below) will use the same kind of pipe but come in from a hot tank or, in the case of a combination boiler, directly from the boiler.

Bathroom shower inlet requirements depend on where the hot water is coming from. An electric bathroom shower heats up the water instantaneously from cold so it only needs a cold inlet pipe. This is one of the reasons why they are so popular with plumbers, it makes them significantly easier to install.

On the other hand, if you have a mixer shower in the bathroom then it will require both hot and cold supplies. Mixer showers use the hot water from the house's main central heating boiler and, as the name suggests, mix it with cold before sending the water out through the shower attachment. This means running both hot and cold pipework to the shower, the difficulty of which is compounded if the shower is fixed halfway up the wall.

This is just one of the areas where the building skills referred to earlier come in, as pipes need to be chased into walls and the plaster work made good afterward, unless you are a fan of the surface mounted pipe look.

Working with Bathroom Suite Outlets

The waste outlets are much easier to deal with. Although they are larger, 110mm in the case of toilet soil pipes and 32 or 40mm for all the other bathroom suite fittings, there's not so much pressure in waste plumbing so the joints are easier to do, push-fit in some cases. They tend to be plastic so they can be cut easily with a hacksaw and various joints and junctions are available to take the pipe wherever it needs to go.

The Advent of Plastic Pipe

Copper piping was referred to earlier in this article but anyone who's investigated the plumbing in a house built in the last ten to twenty years may well have come across plastic piping being used to supply hot and cold water to bathroom suites. The plastic pipe is flexible so it can go round corners and odd angles (but not too tight or it will crack) and the junctions and connections to the various pipes, taps and so on are pressed together with a solvent around the joint which welds the joint tight.

This means there's no need to solder the connections, as there was with copper pipe. As the plastic pipe is quicker to cut and more forgiving when being connected up, it's faster than non-solder copper systems which use compression rings (or 'olives' in the trade).

This has made plumbing in new build houses far faster for plumbers and these fittings are now on the DIY market. Switching the bathroom over to plastic piping might make it a good deal easier to move components of the bathroom suite around if that's what you'd prefer to do.

Don't Forget Overflows in the Bathroom

A final point about plumbing in the bathroom is not to forget about overflow outlets. These are usually 21mm in diameter and need to be positions such that if there is an accidental overflow, a bath tap left running, perhaps, or a broken ballcock in a toilet cistern, then the water will find an exit route before too much damage is done.

Reproduced courtesy of www.KitchenBathroomIdeas.co.uk - great advice and ideas for your kitchen and bathroom

How to Create a Beautiful Luxury Bathroom

Taking inspiration from stylish hotels, creating a luxury bathroom makes for a fantastic project. Whatever a luxury bathroom means to you, be it large and light or dark and sensual, this is a time to let your imagination run free. We’ll give you a few ideas to help make your perfect bathroom space.

Wall to Wall

The walls of your luxury bathroom are no place for peeling paper or dingy paint. For a really opulent, expensive look, why not opt for marble tiles? Polished marble’s depth and texture will bring a sparkling, grand look to the room and you could choose to extend the same material to your floor or counter tops, too. If you seek to reproduce the style of a luxury hotel bathroom, polished marble will help to get you halfway to your goal.

Under Foot

Heated bathroom flooring is a decadent must for cold winter mornings. Ditch that worn out bathroom carpet and think smooth, reflective materials, like sumptuous black granite or textured limestone. Adding light-reflecting surfaces in your bathroom will give the space a real sense of extravagance. Lighter colours will help to enlarge the room while darker shades will create a feeling of sanctuary and warmth.

Water Baby

Out with the conventional, cramped shower tray and in with a spacious open cubicle complete with recessed shower head. If you share your bathroom with a partner opt for twin vanity areas that give you a sink all to yourself. A luxury bathroom is not about queuing up to brush your teeth. Baths are capacious and don’t have to be traditionally shaped. Whether yours is a stone island or a stylish spa, you’ll never again want to rush bath time.

Finishing Touch

Your luxury bathroom deserves perfect accessories, so don’t even think about throwing in that greying old robe or threadbare towels. This high-end haven requires the finest attention to detail, so take a look at the huge range of bathroom accessories available and choose those that complement the colours and materials throughout the room. Sumptuous fabrics and warm, glossy woods spring to mind.

Technical Toys

Aside from the standard fixtures and fittings you’ll need in your luxury bathroom, there are some optional extras that will add the wow factor you seek. Think home entertainment, perhaps an LCD television that appears at the touch of a button as if from nowhere; or mood-enhancing lighting that you can change to suit the tone of your day.

Design Your Dream

Hopefully we’ve given you some food for thought. When you’re ready to put your luxury bathroom plan into action it’s a great idea to consult an architect or designer to ensure you get just the look you want. An expert will be able to tell you what will work, and more importantly what won’t. It’s so easy to make simple mistakes or overlook details with the DIY approach, so unless you know you have the skill and the eye for design, leave it to the professionals.

Some say a bathroom can sell a property by itself but we think you’ll want to keep your luxury bathroom all to yourself.

Reproduced courtesy of www.KitchenBathroomIdeas.co.uk - great advice and ideas for your kitchen and bathroom

Bathroom Clearance Store Opening

Total Bathrooms are pleased to announce that our NEW Bathroom Clearance Store is Opening for business this Saturday 15th August 2009 in Trowbridge Wiltshire.

We have managed to turn a previous eyesore into a wonderful emporium of bathroom clearance goods for instance, excess stock taps and showers, factory seconds in bathroom furniture, bathroom mirrors and bathroom cabinets etc, and other end of line products that we source from our suppliers.

Two of our friendly staff - who just happen to be local to Trowbridge, will be running the store and will be there to help you whatever your requirements.