A Guide To Maximising Space In Your Small Bathroom
A Guide To Maximising Space In Your Small Bathroom - Bathroom Design Ideas
When it comes to designing a new bathroom, the first thing that most people do is go online and look at the bathroom suites on bathroom retailer’s websites for inspiration. But how can you recreate those looks in your own home? The beautifully mocked up rooms, with pristine white furniture, glossy tiling and large windows are designed to attract you to the items on show, but what most people forget is that they do not have the same sized bathroom as those in the photos! So when we place the same products in a small bathroom, space can often be a problem.
When it comes to designing a new bathroom, the first thing that most people do is go online and look at the bathroom suites on bathroom retailer’s websites for inspiration. But how can you recreate those looks in your own home? The beautifully mocked up rooms, with pristine white furniture, glossy tiling and large windows are designed to attract you to the items on show, but what most people forget is that they do not have the same sized bathroom as those in the photos! So when we place the same products in a small bathroom, space can often be a problem.
How To Get The Most Out Of Your Small Bathroom
Of course Bathshop321 uses lifestyle images to showcase products in their best light, but we also want to give you some genuine, helpful advice that you can use to really maximize the look and feel of your bathroom. Many people have small bathrooms in their homes that they want to renovate, whether it be an en-suite, cloakroom or family bathroom, and we are often asked what the best products are for small bathrooms. This in mind, we have put together this is our handy guide of tips and tricks that you can use to enhance the design of your small bathroom.
1. Create The Illusion Of Space
Maximizing the space in a small bathroom is all about trickery: how can you make it look and feel like there is more space? There are a number of ways that you can achieve this effect.
Wet Room Deflectors
Wet rooms are all the rage these days – due to our increasingly fast moving lives, the popularity of baths has decreased and more and more people are transforming their small bathrooms into wet rooms. However if you want to keep your bath but also create the illusion of a wet room style shower, then our wet room deflectors are a great compromise. Simply install a thin shower tray in the corner of your bathroom and use a glass panel wet room deflector as a shower screen to protect the rest of the room from water spray. This keeps your room open without the addition of an enclosed shower cubicle and the see through glass screen makes the bathroom look a lot bigger. Why get rid of your bath when you can have the best of both worlds? Check out our selection of wet room deflectors by clicking here.
Larger Tiles
Tiling is still one of the most popular ways to clad the walls and floors of bathrooms, mainly due to the fact that there is a huge variety of patterns and colours on offer. If you decide to tile your small bathroom, we would advise using larger format tiles to create the illusion of more space. The colours you choose are also very important, as in small bathrooms it is especially important to use lighter colours to bring more light into the room. If you do want to use darker colours, it is better to use them on the floor, not on the walls, as that can create an oppressive, claustrophobic effect. One of our favourite tiles around at the moment is the Living Bianco: a gloss white wall tile that has very thin silver grey stripes running through it. They are very popular with our customers and can be found at our Manchester and Cheshire showrooms.
2. Storage Solutions
It’s all very well making your small bathroom look nice by using glass screens and tiling your walls, but where are you going to store your toiletries, towels and other bathroom essentials? Thankfully, there are a number of space saving options you can go for.
Combined Vanity Units
Combining your toilet and basin into one simple, compact unit is the best way to save space and not have to sacrifice style over practicality. The beauty of a combined unit is that you can use the toilet, basin and store bathroom essentials all in the same space! The toilet cistern sits within the concealed cabinet behind the WC pan, with an integrated flush embedded into the paneling. On most models you have the option to tailor which side of the unit the toilet will be placed so you can make sure that it fits with the layout of your bathroom.
Bathshop321 offers plenty of different models of combined units, including the Sparkle, Venice, Sienna and Tavistock Courier collections. Choose from a huge variety of colours, designs and sizes so you can find the perfect unit for your bathroom. The great thing about these units is that they can be placed into alcoves of small bathrooms that do not have a conventional shape, and look modern and stylish at the same time! Check out more of our great furniture available by clicking here.
Hanging Shelves
It might be quite an obvious suggestion, but you would be amazed at just how much space you will save in a small bathroom simply by installing 1 or 2 shelves instead of using larger floor standing cabinets for storage. They increase your amount of free floor space and look great too! You might not have thought that a shelf could be high tech, but we also stock a shelf with a built in speaker for those of you who love to belt out a power ballad in the shower!
Click here to see our range of shelves.
Tall Units
If you want more storage space than a shelf provides but want to keep your floor space, then tall units are the storage solution for you. These long cabinets provide plenty of storage space and are hung on the wall. Again, these units are available in a range of different colours, models and sizes, so click here to see the full range that we stock.
3. Short Projection Items
There is no getting around the fact that you will need to install a toilet and basin to complete your small bathroom, and these bigger items unfortunately do take up a lot of space. However some clever manufacturers have sorted out this problem and created furniture and ceramics with shorter projections, so that you can still move around your small bathroom unrestricted!
Toilets
Bathshop321 is proud to stock the world’s shortest projection toilet – the Nano. It only projects 570mm away from the wall, making it the obvious choice for a small bathroom. But don’t be wary, the smaller design does not compromise on quality! A similar short projection toilet also available is the Primo, and both featured toilets come complete with soft close toilet seats and cisterns to complete the item.
If you don’t want the more chunky look of a close coupled toilet, you can instead opt for a wall hung toilet such as the Tavistock Micra. Wall hung toilets have hidden cisterns that are placed behind the wall using steel framework that drills into brick work and the floor, and then the WC pan is screwed into the wall. This may sound like a very precarious set up, but wall hung toilets can actually hold up to 25 stone of weight without any movement occurring.
Wall Hung Basins
Wall hung basins do not have a pedestal and the plumbing is hidden behind the wall to create a neat and tidy look for your bathroom. The fact that the basin is wall hung again means that you have more floor space and creates the illusion of a bigger room. There are plenty of models and sizes available at Bathshop321 so you can find the right style to suit your small bathroom design. Click here to browse through them.
Extra Tips
And our last little pearls of wisdom…
Large Mirrors
Mirrors are great at reflecting light and placing a large mirror opposite your bathroom window will do wonders at letting more natural light into the room and make the room look bigger.
White Ceiling Panels
Finally, white colours also bring lots of light into your room and a subtle way of incorporating this into your bathroom design is through ceiling or shower wall panels. They are waterproof, easy to wipe clean and easy to install! You can even incorporate ceiling lights into them so they seamlessly integrate with the rest of the room. See our best seller by clicking here.
