With settlement on our new home fast approaching, I’ve started thinking about the things I want to change before we move in, and the 20 year old bathrooms are high on my hit list!
I love a beautiful bathroom, and I’ve seen some gorgeous ones lately, but when it comes to designing my own, “easy to maintain” is going to be my top priority. Professionally cleaning homes for living has meant I’ve been lucky enough to work in various bathrooms over the last few years. I’ve been able to view bathroom design, beyond the design and I’ve seen, first-hand how certain choices and trends really hold up in the real world.
So, before I start ripping anything out, here’s the design choices I’ll be avoiding in my own bathroom design and what I’ll be doing instead.
The freestanding bath
This is such a trend right now,, and I’ll admit they look stunning, but after working in homes with freestanding baths, and actually having one in my current rental, there is absolutely no way I’ll be putting a full freestanding bath in my new bathroom. The average size of most bathrooms I have been in, in the UK and Australia simply don’t have the space to effectively clean around them.
Now don’t get me wrong, as I said, I love the look of them, so for my new bathroom I will be opting for either a back-to-wall bath that leaves no awkward gaps…
or a drop-in bath where no tiles are required between the bath and wall, because this area can also be tricky to keep clean, especially with young children!
Small tiles in the shower
If there’s more grout to clean, I don’t want to know! I love a feature tile just as much as the next person, but not in the shower. By far, some of the hardest bathrooms I’ve had to work in have had either a small feature tile on the walls or on the floor. This might work in an outdoor shower but not inside where dirt, product and water will sit between them making it a nightmare to keep clean.
In my new bathroom, I’ll be opting for a large format tile and preferably one with a matte finish to hide water marks.
Shower frames
If I can avoid ever having to clean a metal shower frame again, I will. It’s not that I think they look bad, it’s just that they seem to attract limescale, soap scum and general bathroom grime, and all those corners and edges make them so fiddly to clean. My last bathroom would have still looked brand new 10 years on, if we had not had the metal shower frame.
For me, a shower screen should be as simple as possible. I would much rather clean large panes of glass without the frame or tiled walls in an open shower concept.
Black Tapware
Similar to my reasoning for having no metal shower frame, I’m also saying no to black tapware.
Whilst they look great to begin with, I don’t think it ages particularly well. In every bathroom I have personally been in with black tapware, they seem to show everything, limescale, every water spot, every fingerprint and every bit of product left behind.
Whilst I’m happy to clean, and I actually love the look of black accents in the home, I’m not interested in fixtures that require constant attention to look clean.
For our bathroom, I’ll be opting for something a little more forgiving. Something that can handle everyday living and kids!
The gap between the shower and vanity
Last on my list is one of my biggest bathroom pet peeves, one that I don’t think people talk about enough, and that’s the gap between the shower glass/wall and the vanity.
You know, the awkward strip of floor between the shower and vanity that becomes a collection point for dust, water, hair and whatever else finds itself on the bathroom floor. Sometimes it’s not even wide enough to get your hand in the gap to clean, let alone a vacuum or mop.
In my new bathroom, I’d much rather avoid the gap altogether. If the layout means the shower and vanity sit close together, I’d prefer to have the vanity hard up against a pony wall than have a full-length glass panel.
It might not be the most obvious design consideration, but when thinking about the daily use of a bathroom, it can make a huge difference, and hey, the less glass there is to keep clean, the better!
For me, planning a bathroom design is much more than just a bathroom that looks good, it’s thinking about how it’s used daily, and more importantly, how much effort it’s going to take to keep it maintained and looking good.
I am still in the planning stage, so I’m sure there will be plenty more decisions I need to make, but for now these are the design choices are most definitely be avoiding.
What bathroom design choice drives you mad? Is there something you would never choose again?