Start with the plumbing you already have

Most bathroom design advice is written by people who have never had to take one apart. We fit them, and we also get called back to the ones that went wrong, so this is design advice with the failures left in. Nothing here needs a big budget. Most of it is about deciding things in the right order and not fighting the room you have.

The single most expensive decision in a bathroom is moving the toilet. The soil pipe is 100mm, it needs a proper fall, and in most houses it exits through one wall in one place. Move the pan more than a short distance from that point and you are into boxing, a raised floor, or a macerator, and a macerator is a compromise you will hear every time it runs.

Basins and showers are far more forgiving because their waste pipes are 32mm or 40mm and can be routed under a floor or behind a bath panel. So the honest starting point for any layout is: the toilet stays roughly where it is, and everything else is arranged around it. If you are set on moving it, get that priced first, before you fall in love with a layout.

Layout by the room you actually have

A small bathroom, under about 2m by 2m. The mistake is trying to fit a bath, a separate shower and a big vanity. Pick a shower over the bath or a walk-in shower, not both. A wall-hung toilet and a wall-hung basin free the floor visually and make the room feel bigger than it is. A sliding shower door or a fixed glass screen saves the swing space a hinged door eats.

A family bathroom. The bath earns its place here. A shower over the bath with a fixed glass screen is the practical answer in most three-bed houses. Put the towel rail where a wet child can reach it, not where it looks tidy on a plan. Storage matters more than in any other bathroom in the house, because it will be shared.

An en-suite. Usually narrow, usually stolen from a bedroom. A walk-in shower along the short wall with a wall-hung basin and toilet along the long wall is the layout that works most often. Resist a bath here unless the room is genuinely big enough; a short bath in a small en-suite pleases nobody.

A cloakroom or downstairs toilet. Corner basins and short-projection toilets exist for exactly this room. Measure the door swing before you buy anything.

Wet rooms and walk-in showers

A walk-in shower with a glass screen is a fitted tray with a low threshold. A true wet room has no tray at all, the whole floor is waterproofed and falls to a drain. The second one is a bigger job, because the entire floor and the lower walls have to be tanked before a single tile goes on, and the floor has to be built with a fall in the right direction. Done well it is the best-feeling bathroom there is. Done badly it leaks into the room below and you will not know for a year.

If you are looking at a wet room, read our wet rooms page before you decide, because the floor build-up is the part nobody explains until it is too late.

Storage that gets used

Most bathroom storage on a mood board is decorative. The storage that actually gets used is:

• A mirrored cabinet over the basin, recessed into the wall if the wall is a stud partition. This is the single most useful item in any bathroom.
• A niche in the shower wall for bottles, built in before tiling. It costs almost nothing at the time and cannot be added afterwards.
• A vanity unit with drawers rather than doors. Things at the back of a cupboard under a basin are never seen again.
• Somewhere for towels that is not the floor. A rail, a hook per person, a shelf above the door.

If the room is small, storage goes up the wall, not across the floor.

Lighting in zones, not one light in the middle

One ceiling light in the centre of a bathroom puts your own head in shadow at the mirror. The layout that works is three layers: a general ceiling light, a light either side of or above the mirror at face height, and, if you want it, a low-level light for the night.

On colour temperature this is preference rather than a rule: we find warm white, somewhere around 2700 to 3000K, is kinder on skin and on most tiles than the cold white that often gets fitted by default. Look at it against your own tiles before committing the whole room to it.

Bathroom electrics are governed by zones under the wiring regulations. Anything within reach of the bath or shower needs the correct rating, and the work should be done by someone who can certify it. Do not let a decorator “just move the light”. Our electrical team does this as part of a fit if you want it under one contract.

Ventilation is a design decision

The extractor fan is the item most often chosen last and sized wrong. A weak fan in a tiled room is why grout goes black and paint peels. Fit one that actually moves air, run it on the light switch with an overrun timer, and put it where the steam is, near the shower, not by the door. If the bathroom has no window, the fan is doing all the work and it has to be a decent one.

Materials: what still looks right in ten years

Porcelain tiles over ceramic, for floors especially. Harder, less porous, and the colour goes all the way through so a chip shows less.

Large-format tiles mean fewer grout lines, which is the part of any bathroom that ages first. Fewer lines, less cleaning, and a calmer-looking room. They need a flat wall or floor, so ask your fitter whether the substrate is up to it before ordering.

Grout is not an afterthought. An epoxy or a good-quality cement grout with a sealer will still be the right colour in five years. Cheap grout in a shower will not.

Natural stone looks superb and needs maintenance. Marble and limestone stain, they etch with anything acidic, and they must be sealed and re-sealed. If you will not do that, porcelain that looks like stone is the honest choice and nobody will know.

Brassware. Buy taps and showers with a proper guarantee from a brand that still sells the spares in ten years. The cheapest chrome mixer on the internet is the one we are asked to replace first.

Wood and warm materials work in a bathroom if they are kept out of the splash zone and the room is ventilated. A timber vanity next to a bath that gets used every night, in a room with a poor fan, is a timber vanity with a short life.

If you are interested in low-water fixtures and longer-lasting materials specifically, we cover that in sustainable design choices for a bathroom.

Fixtures that earn their price

• A thermostatic shower valve holds the temperature when someone runs a tap elsewhere in the house. Once you have had one you will not go back.
• Wall-hung toilets with a concealed cistern look cleaner and are easier to mop under. The frame goes in at first fix, so decide early.
• A basin mixer with a decent flow rate rather than the tallest, thinnest one on the shelf.
• Heated towel rails are a heating decision as much as a design one. Size it for the room if it is the only heat source, or add underfloor heating and let the rail just do towels.

Accessibility is a design idea, not an afterthought

A level-access shower, a fold-down seat, a thermostatic valve and a grab rail that is actually fixed into something solid are good design in any bathroom, and they are essential in some. If you or someone in the house will need the bathroom to work for them in ten years, design it in now. It costs a fraction of retrofitting. We cover the options on our accessible bathrooms page.

The mistakes we get called back to

1. A wet room floor with the fall going the wrong way, or no fall at all.
2. Tiling straight onto plasterboard in a shower with no tanking behind it.
3. A shower waste with too little fall, so it never quite drains and always smells.
4. A fan that is too small, or none at all, in a room with no window.
5. A bath filler on a supply that cannot deliver the flow, so the bath takes twenty minutes.
6. Pale grout in a shower, because it looked nice on the sample.
7. A layout that ignored where the soil pipe was, and cost a raised floor to make it work.

When to stop and get someone in

Design is yours. The parts that need a professional are anything involving the soil pipe, anything involving tanking a wet area, the electrical zones, and any change to the hot water supply. Getting those four right is the difference between a bathroom that looks good on day one and one that still works in year ten.

If you want a second opinion on a layout before you commit to it, the design consultation and survey we offer is free and it is exactly for this. Details on our bathroom renovation page, and there are finished rooms in the gallery if you want to see what these decisions look like built.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most expensive thing to change in a bathroom?

Moving the toilet. The soil pipe dictates where it can sensibly go. Basins and showers are much cheaper to reposition.

Are large tiles better than small ones?

For most rooms, yes. Fewer grout lines means less cleaning and a calmer look. They do need a flat substrate.

Do I need a wet room or a walk-in shower?

A walk-in shower on a low tray is simpler and cheaper and suits most homes. A true wet room is a bigger build because the whole floor is waterproofed, and it makes sense where level access matters or the room is designed around it.

Can I put wood in a bathroom?

Yes, out of the splash zone and with a fan that works. Ventilation decides whether timber lasts.

Is natural stone worth it?

If you will seal it and look after it, it is beautiful. If not, a good stone-effect porcelain is the more honest choice.

Need a bathroom fitted in Herts, Beds or Cambs?

We design, supply and fit complete bathrooms, wet rooms and en-suites across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire, with our own plumbers, electricians and tilers. Call 01462 506 374 or book a free design consultation. Gas Safe registered, 2 year labour guarantee on our work.