Bathroom query. Sizes/ratios etc.

aliasojo

Ok after months (and months :rolleyes:) of deliberating, we pretty much know at last what we are doing with our bathroom. (We're kinda like the tortoise rather than the hare when it comes to house things )

Only thing we can't decide on it whether it's best to have a slightly smaller bath and more floorspace...or have a bigger bath and less floorspace.

Bathroom is only 2 mtrs x 2mtrs and we've shoehorned in slimline units as we desperately need storage space.

I dont have a plan or a pic to upload but if you can imagine the wall facing you would be like this....


200mm area of boxed in pipework / 250mm unit / 500mm wc unit / 250mm unit / 800mm wide bath

And the wall down the left side would be.......

200mm boxed in pipework /
500mm double door unit (so each door is 250mm and will open at the side of the loo ok)
600mm basin unit (with slimline basin - unit and basin will project 380mm into the room)
500 double door unit

So if the bath was an 1800 x 800 then the space between the bath edge and the edge of the basin would be 820mm. The space between the edge of the bath and the wc would be around 300mm.

If we put in a 700 wide bath then obviously we'd have an extra 100mm between basin and bath and loo and bath, making the space 920mm and 400mm respectively.

Don't know what to do. I know it's only 100mm but in a small space that can make a difference. We all want a roomy bath as we (well me and the kids at least ) are bath people (and the eldest are 6' tall and I'm 6' wide ) but I dont want to feel the room just looks stupid and out of proportion.

Any thoughts?

cally1_2

All I can say is that my bath is 1700 long and 800 wide and is very comfy for me, but I am 5 foot 7.... so 1800 length bath sounds a good fit for taller people.
Not sure about the floor space!

aliasojo

Thanks cally. The length isn't a problem really, it's just the width I'm unsure about. Why oh why can't I have a bathroom designer brother in law or an aunt with a good eye.

Mind you, the bathroom design place that we did get out were less than useless and came up with something that was going to cost £11K and only had 1 cupboard. :rolleyes: Needless to say we thanked them for their time and moved on.

TomsMom

We have an 800 wide bath and everyone says "Crikey, that's a big bath!".

I've not sat in it - I'm a shower person - but hubby uses the bath. He has more than enough room but he's only 11st 7lbs and 5'7" so it's fine. Our old bath was 700 wide and the difference is quite noticeable.

What size is your present bath? If it's 700 and you are comfortable enough in it you could go for that again. If you're uncomfortable then you might prefer the 800. Comfort over looks?

aliasojo

Our present bath is 1700 x 700 but it's one of those shaped jobs so the internal width is really much narrower. It was a spur of the moment buy as a family relative who is a plumber was coming to visit and we thought we'd jump on the bandwagon so to speak. It was the only one we could buy off the merchant's floor in a hurry. We hated it from the first time we used it and was a huge mistake.

Personally I think a bathroom should be functional and if that means there's not much room to stand about in because the things you need to use are large, then so be it. As long as there's enough floorspace to stand at the basin and sit on the loo then I dont see a problem. OH isn't so sure and is hesitant and has got me concerned now too. :rolleyes:

Doozergirl

I'm trying but I cannot picture what you've described at all.

Is it actually utilisable floor space - ie. where you stand in front of a basin or legroom when you sit on the loo? If it's not then ultimately 100mm is not going to make that much difference if the correct spacings are still there in front of the things where it's needed.

I'm sure they do 750mm baths as well?

Doozergirl

andrew-b wrote: »

It does sound like alot of units to me..do you really need them all? My gut feel is it's going to be quite tight.

I do agree. Walls are as handy for storage as floors. I'd be looking to try and incorporate wall units and reduce the number of base units, or in fact full height, glossy units to reflect the light. I'd be happy to chop up some kitchen units to suit me exactly.

Personally, I restrict bathroom storage to stuff that is needed constantly and the rest go in the bedroom in the storage there. What has been good in the past when we had a storage unit in the bathroom was those 99p boxes from Ikea on the shelves. Because you can pull them out and look at what is inside, you get a better use of space.

Bit like using drawers in the kitchen instead of cupboards. I don't know why more people don't do it, it's infinitely practical - pull it out and look down at everything in there - better organised and you get more storage out of the same space.

aliasojo

Ok....this is a stonkingly bad quickly drawn pic to give an idea of what I'm talking about. It's obviously not to scale. There's a window that takes up almost all of the loo wall.

The units are reduced depth slimline ones at 200mm deep. We really do need a lot of storage. There's 5 of us here and 2 of us have skin problems that require particular washes and creams etc as well as the rest of the toiletries etc we use. Bedrooms are crammed as it is, we really need to build storage in elsewhere.

Now don't laugh, art was never my strong point. Andy...will have a go at the Sketch up thing tomorrow, thanks.

Btw...the bath somes in 1700 x 700 too but I just really wanted a big one to soak in. I'm not exactly Twiggy. :D

aliasojo

We do need a 2nd bathroom, without doubt. However the house is small and there is no room to put one. We even considered doing away with the airing cupboard on the landing to put a shower in there but it wouldn't really have been practical in reality.

We had an architect up to the house when other work was going on downstairs and we queried our bathroom needs with him......his best suggestion was to build an extension, so that'll show you how little we have to work with.

The bedrooms are small, there really isn't any space to include washing facilities. Not if I want to hang up my clothes anyway. I live for the day when we can afford to move but until then we need to make the best of what we have.

The units are definitely tiny, no doubt about that. However they will accomodate all manner of bottles and personal bits quite successfully...I just need to remember to not stockpile toilet rolls.

We have never had fitted type units before and our bathroom is always cluttered. I'm thinking that even although I am literally shoehorning the units in, they should help to make the place look more streamlined if there is nothing left on show.

As for moving things, our shower is over the bath so we wouldn't be able to put the bath along the window wall. The toilet could get moved, I did consider having it on the same wall as the basin but there was only about 400mm ish between the front of the loo and the bath side so I thought that might have been even tighter. Especially for 6' sons. I dont particularly like it where I have it in the pic, it does seem a bit central but I'm at a loss to know where else to put it.

Everything can get moved, even the door (although it has to stay on that wall somewhere).

The whole doorway (door and architrave) takes up 830mm ish so there isn't much to work with on that wall even if it did get moved.

Appreciate your thoughts. Always helpful to have another eye. :beer:

Canucklehead

Good morning: Excellent advice in these guides from the Bathroom Manufacturers Association. It is very difficult to give advice about a bathroom installation over the internet as many variables only become evident when on site. Are you DIYing or GSI?

HTH

Canucklehead

aliasojo

I'll be buying the materials and putting in the units etc. A plumber friend of my son will be doing the actual plumbing. The room is getting ripped out completely, new plasterboard, new floor etc so almost anything is possible at this stage.