New bathroom, best place?!

My advice is to stick with quality brands on the suite as they aren't really a huge much more in price, but the quality will be way better and you'll likely get a far better guarantee and they'll likely last you longer and have replacements available for far longer. Twyford bathrooms do some good economy (alcona) and mid-range suites that won't cost you a great deal more than the rubbish from B&Q. Ideal Standard/Armitage shanks, Roca are meant to be good brands too i believe. Your plumber will thank you for not going to B&Q (assuming you can actually find one who is happy to fit B&Q junk! Happy being the operative word!).

To give you an example plumbers here have mentioned ceramica wc pans having oval waste outlets which is a fault in the casting and just wreaks of poor quality and poor quality control at the factory.

Another advantage of buying branded is you'll usually find all the technical details online with exact dimensions etc so it's easier to be sure what your buying is going to fit in the space available.

We went for Twyford Galerie range (just a toilet and basin though) - no probs other than a toilet seat that had slight damage on (not even convinced it was there fault TBH!) and was replaced very quickly by Twyford with no problems. Installed myself and found it straightforward with no problems. Ours came from Home Supply (delivered by PTS van) but you could goto PTS (a plumber's merchants - isn't just for trade anyone can walk in and buy - but don't expect a showroom!). If you goto PTS negotiate on price and you should get it for a fair chunk of retail price knocked off.

Same goes for the brassware..go for brands like Crosswater, Grohe, Bristan - longer guarantees, better quality that will last. Scour internet to get the best price and get a price from your plumber's merchants too - might not be much in it on price so long as you negotiate to get at trade price at the merchants!

Tiles...well you can save some money here by shopping around and there's a huge choice - too much of a choice we found! The tiles 33x25cm tiles we went for cost about £10 per sqm from homebase - think they were on offer at the time. I only tiled around our shower enclosure (no bath) and around the basin though which saves a fair whack in cost and gives scope for future colour changes of the wall paint - but may mean spending out to get a plasterer to make the walls good.

The more of the stripping out and of the refit you can do yourself the cheaper it will be. I've not quite finished our room but the final bill is still going to be just under £3k (that's everything right down to the toilet roll holder, blinds, bath mat!) as we've done all the work ourselves with the exception of the plastering (about £450 i think) and about £1k of that went on the shower valve, enclosure, and shower tray. It wasn't a straight swap as apart from the toilet waste pipe and pipes coming into the room for the basin the whole lot was completely replumbed including the heating so i've spent a fair amount on plumbing it in too. Incidentally on towel rail i'd recommend Abacus towel rails (available at homesupply).

Back to the tiles..A 3x2m rectangular room is 10m around the perimeter by around 2.5m tall for an average room height- so 25 square metres of [Edit] WALL [/EDIT] tiles if your tiling floor to ceiling - less the space occupied by the height and ends of a bath, less windows and less door. Floor tiles - you need 6sqm less the area of the bath. Also add on about 10% for breakages (though i've never come anywhere near that..maybe a few percent at most as i'm careful!) and check the policy on returns from where you buy from as Homebase for example you only have 30 days to return and will only take whole packs back. Don't forget to also account for the adhesive and grout as it soon adds up! All the little bits and pieces do quite quickly add up if your not careful!

Anyway hope that helps!

Andy

Was definitely another name that i thought was half decent guess it wasn't Roca then..vitra maybe?

Andy

Duravit and Vitra are decent brands