#1

Sure there is an old thread on this but wth.

So my partner’s mother just moved into a new place. It’s a small 1960s house and hasn’t had any significant work done since it was built. Priority is to get the bathroom sorted. There’s a downstairs toilet, which is just big enough for a shower, so we are trying to make the case for getting that done first so that when the main bathroom gets done it will be less of a pain.

She’s lucky to have some local friends who are in the building trade so can organise the job and not rip her off so all I’m really looking for advice on is where is generally a good place for bathroom fixtures, fittings, tiles and so on. She isn’t good at visualising or making decisions so she needs to see stuff and to be able to say to the builders ‘make it like that’, otherwise she just endlessly goes round in circles on tiny details.

I literally have no idea - bathstore.com? I don’t know what her budget will be but not fired earth or designer Italian, just needs to be decent quality that will last rather than cheap fittings that start to look rubbish after a few months.

Cheers everyone!

All encompassing furniture thread
#2

Depends on your budget.
People spend on taps what I spent on my full bathroom

#3

we went to bathstore and they do a nice VR render of your bathroom if you’ve got a vr thing for your phone.

not sure if we’ll use them or not like.

#4

screwfix for suite and fittings. tilestorefor tiles.

#5

Cheers.

She’ll need major work done - a wall removed, door replaced, new wall built, plumbing sorted etc so i think the cost of the fittings will be a relatively small proportion of the overall cost. This will be one and only time it gets done so needs to be good quality, that will last, but she won’t want fancy stuff. basically mid-range and if that works out too much we’ll work down or pare back.

#6

good to hear. she has a bathstore on her local high street so it’s the obvious place to start. No VR but I guess the’t mock up designs if you take the plans.

#7

We will have to get our bathroom done after the kitchen.

I would like someone to explain to me how my hot water system works, though. We’ve no gas (not sure whether to get the supply re-instated) so the hot water is supplied through a hot water cylinder (+ electric immersion heater) which is taking up a fucking massive bit of the bathroom. I dunno what we’re gonna do about gas, cos it costs fucking loads to get reconnected and then central heating also costs fucking loads. If we just stick with everything electric, what are our options for hot water? And what about heating? The current storage heaters look fucking rank and cost millions of pounds to run.

SORRY TO HIJACK YOUR THREAD @zanimos

#8

why have a shower downstairs though :confused:

#9

I was actually wondering if you might put up a bathroom renovation thread I could spy on…

#10

It can be useful if you’re not the most mobile or able to climb stairs.

Or if you want to hose your dog down after a walk.

#11

she’s in her 70s - might come in handy.

also the other bathroom is going to take weeks rather than days so it means she wouldn’t be without a bathroom in the meantime

might not bother though, depends on cost and yep whether it is worth it

#12

she could just move in with you for a few weeks! :grinning:

#13

:smiley:

I’ll use this one now.

The builder who’s doing our kitchen also does bathrooms, so we might stick with him.

Our bathroom could be massive if we managed to address the water heater issue. My plan, when we’re ready, is to use the internet for some ideas, like:

white-subway-tile-Bathroom-Contemporary-with-belfast-sink-compact-bathroom.jpg844×990 171 KB

Obvs that doesn’t help your partner’s mother, but going to B&Q, Wickes, Bathstore etc will help. They’ll sit down with her and spec it out using software on a computer and tell you how much it’ll cost. You can then use the images you get from shops like this and get builders to come in and use the pictures to show they what you want done. That’s basically what we did with the kitchen. Our builder let us get stuff like flooring and tiles ourselves so we could get exactly what we wanted, and we were able to control the price a bit more. I guess you could do this with everything tbh.

1 Like
#14

Some of it will depend upon the plumber: are they expecting you to source all of the materials, or will they be doing that?

The latter can offer savings as they will have trade suppliers and rates.

#15

:joy: it looks like a square bath/shower with a huge bath sized sink along side it…

#16

I know :smiley:

Also, I really just want to rip the bath out and have a massive wonderful shower, but mr pn is well against this.

#17

Not certain on the maths as working out the tariffs is a nightmare but I think gas still works out about 60% of the cost per unit as electricity, hence why people still go with gas central heating.

#18

yeah, id love to just have a huge shower/wet room. use my bath about once a year :confused:

#19

pretty sure we can get the builders to buy trade. What is the general way of doing this - can you specify anything and they get trade rates or will they have suppliers they are used to/are tied to for deals. It’s really useful to know this stuff as it can make a massive difference to cost.

#20

luckily we don’t live in the same country…