It’s no secret that replacing our horrible bathroom is one of the projects that’s right at the top of our to do list. When we moved in a lot of our rooms were in a less than desirable condition, but the bathroom was particularly yucky.
It was grimy, a shelf on the wall had rusted so much that the rust had run down the tiles, the lighting consisted of two 500 watt! bulbs and the floor was covered in a pee-soaked, faded red carpet.
Not exactly a room where you’d want to spend time getting naked!
When we first moved in, we of course did our best to give it a temporary refresh and update, but as temporary has now turned into 5 years it’s high time that we finally gave it a proper makeover.
We have previously shared some of our ideas for the bathroom, but now it’s time to get down to business and seriously get things done.
We’ve started to get into the more detailed planning stage and finally made decisions on a few items. We’ve already purchased the toilet and have decided on a washbasin. We still can’t make up our minds on the bath situation and can’t decide whether to opt for a free-standing cast iron bath or a built in modern one.
Another thing we have decided on are the bathroom tiles. We’d like white marble tiles – something like these from Tiles Porcelain would be great. Because our room is so small, we’ll be tiling the walls and the floor in the same tile. This should help blur the boundaries and make the room seem larger.
As we’ll be tiling a suspended timber floor (with a tile backer board on top) we’ll be opting for large format tiles. Because they’re larger they should be more robust and less likely to deflect than smaller tiles. Yes, I know the tiles in the drawing are smallish, but we had originally considered using smaller tiles. We still of course could on the walls, but using larger tiles means that room should feel calmer because the eye has less to process and isn’t distracted by a lot of grout lines.
Light coloured tiles should also give the bathroom a bright, clean and fresh feel. As much as we’ve come to realise that we like dark walls (you’ve probably already seen that we just crossed over to the dark side and painted our dining room a very dark blue-black), we feel that a bathroom has to be more neutral. Whilst it’s easy to paint your walls a new colour, changing your tiles is not quite as easy. We also know that we’re not going to be in this house forever, so it’s important to choose something that appeals to more people than just us.
The biggest thing that I’m concerned about at the moment is the actual floor construction. We have our original sanded floorboards in the hallway and any flooring that we lay in the bathroom will be installed on top of the floorboards in the bathroom. We will then inevitably end up with a finished floor level that’s higher than our hall.
A tile backer board is around 10 mm thick, the underfloor heating mat will add on another 2 mm and the tiles & glue about another 15 mm. All of this on top of the existing floor adds up to at least 25 mm thickness which would leave us with a fairly large step into the bathroom.
So, being super fussy, we’re going to make our lives a bit more difficult and change the floor construction. The plan is to take up and remove the existing floorboards (they’re about 24 mm thick) and then add noggings and a new plywood floor between the joists which will finish flush with the top of the joists. When we then add the tile backer board, underfloor heating and tiles on top of the new construction the finished floor level of the bathroom should be almost identical to the floor level of the rest of the first floor.
We’ll only know if this is all possible when we actually take up the floor and see what’s beneath, but in theory it should be doable. It will be more work, but I think that having a lower floor finish will be worth it.
Do you think we should install a modern bath or a cast iron free-standing one? Do you think we’re mad to lower the floor just to save a few centimetre? What kind of tiles would you choose?
*Disclosure: This post is in collaboration with Tiles Porcelain. All opinions, thoughts and words are of course our own! Thank you for supporting the brands that make it possible for us to keep creating and sharing content here at Little House On The Corner.
Free standing always sounds lovely, but I think they take up more room. Will a free standing bath dwarf the room?
That’s exactly what I’m worried about, too , Kerrie. The bath in the drawing is to scale and you can see that it takes up a huge chunk of the bathroom. Having said that you can see more floor area with a freestanding bath which should then make the room feel bigger again. At this point I honestly have no idea what’s best.
Cx
We live in a similar house to yours, we just did our bathroom took our time and bought the best we could afford, we actually put a wet room shower in, used KUDOS products to make it waterproof then tiled floor to ceiling, put a false wall in for the shower and used glass blocks in the wall as a feature instead of just the tiles. Got a unit that the sink could be semi recessed, the toilet cistern hidden in it too and a granite top in black, black. Tall radiator and really good chrome wear that will last. It’s unbelievably small (the room) but it honestly all fits in, 3/4 double ended cast iron bath too. Good luck
Sounds like you have a fab bathroom Pam & Mark! I totally admit to being a bit jealous.
We are planning a wet room with walk in shower in our loft conversion (if building work actually ever starts). I guess it’s really important to get all of the planning right in such a small space.
Cx
It’s a small room, so your option to drop the floor level is quite practical and I would say; Go for it. You won’t regret it.
As far as the bath is concerned, this is a very subjective decision. I find the appearance of most free-standing baths to be far uglier than built-in types. But to be a little more objective about this, your consideration of seeing more floor, for an illusion of more space, is very heavily outweighed by the commitment to having to clean a very inconveniently shaped area. My advice; don’t even go near a free-standing bath, Christine! There you go, decision made! ;)
I agree with you about the floor Gabriel. I know that we’d regret not doing it, it just seems like a lot of work! ;)
I personally love the look of free standing baths and it would be in keeping with the period of our house. Having said that you’re totally right about the cleaning aspect. There’s probably just not enough space to make a freestanding bath work as well as it should.
Cx
Oops! What about the tiles!
You can’t go wrong sticking with white. Go as large as possible – this looks beautiful and massively reduces the cleaning and maintenance of grout. For this reason, ditch the mosaic idea as well. Mosaic looks nice but is impractical in anything else than a showroom. If you like them, textured white tiles can look stunning for decades. Again, choose, light textures (stick to white on white, though) for easy cleaning. The glossier they are, the cleaner the room will look after you invest all that energy on your chores.
You always add color to bathrooms with the accessories, NEVER with the finishes – because you’re locked in to them.
We had originally though about smaller tiles but had already discounted the idea. In terms of colour we’ll also be choosing somehting light like the marble tiles in the post. I think they’re beautiful and as long as they’re easy to maintain (and I can get Jan to sign them off, too) they’ll be what we opt for.
Cx
If your bathroom is small how are you for storage space?
A built in bath would allow for hidden storage underneath.
This would also keep the bathroom tidy, be less distracting
for the eyes and as this is a family house, would be useful
feature when you sell.
I love free standing baths but to do them justice you need
a room that’s big enough not to be dwarfed. I think this should
be on the wish list for the next house and then when you’re looking
you say “will this take our free standing bath?”
I think it’s worth doing the floor, again it’s a plus point in the future.
If bathroom is neutral (good idea, mines black & white (prev owner’s choice)
great at first but boring over time and to expensive to change) you could
implement dark colours in window dressing, towels, accessories, shelving.
That’s a really good point Caitlyn! We do have some hidden storage planned, but you can never have enough – especially in a bathroom!
I guess I already knew that built in bath would be more practical, fit better and probably be cheaper, but I know that you’re right and we should save it for the next house.
Cx
Christine,
I think that it will be worth it on the floor to go to all that work. 25mm, is a pretty big difference, too much to try to use the threshold at an angle to help with the transition. As for the bath question, the most important question is are you going to be taking showers in this bath? It looks like you will based on your temporary arrangement. I would say no to the clawfoot – they’re a pain to shower in. Here’s an idea – why not put in glass and just make it a shower? You’re tiling the walls already, this will keep it open looking. The only argument I know against that is if you need a tub for kids (future or selling purposes). And on tile, I used a large format 4×12 subway tile on my walls with a glass accent and then a 12×24 on the floor in a small bath and it looked great. Good luck!
I also think it’ll be worth lowering the floor – it’s just a lot more work, but I know I’ll regret it if we don’t do it.
I completely agree with you about showering in the bath. We are still planning on converting our loft with will have a walk-in shower and this bathroom will ultimately be a guest bathroom. The only reason we’re installing a bath is because of the future selling issue that you mentioned. It it was just down to us, we’d install a shower!
Cx
Can I just say “noggings”? What an amazing word, I haven’t come across it before.
Well I’m sure you know my views on lowering the floor, it’s definitely the right thing to do and I’m sure you’re just like me – you’d spend all that effort and money in getting the bathroom just right but the floor would always be weighing on your mind if you didn’t lower it.
As for the bath, oh such a tough decision. Interestingly my Mum has just had their bathroom redone-ish – they had a reasonable sized room but it had a massive two person bath in it which was just never used. They’ve replaced that now with a normal bath and it’s made such a difference to the space in the bathroom. Granted we don’t need to be ballroom dancing in our bathrooms but I guess enough space to feel comfortable is best. We’ve got baths with showers over in both our bathrooms and are going turn the loft en-suite one into a wet room too with a big walk in shower. One bath is more than enough for us!!
X
You’re totally right about the floor Lins. I know that I would feel like I let down the whole project if we didn’t do it.
My parents also used to have a huge bath (we’re talking at least 1.20m wide) and have recently replaced it. The whole room looks completely different!
We also only want one bath. For day to day life we’ll hopefully have a walk-in shower in the loft conversion, but feel that we should have a bath somewhere in the house for when it comes to selling it further down the line.
Cx
Beautiful plan! We just did the tile backer/floor heat thing with self-leveling concrete. After we took out the original floorboards and slapped all that stuff on, we are now about 10mm up from the other floor. That’s really not noticeable, but I think it would get noticeable in a big hurry after 12 or 15mm. Good luck!
Thanks Stacey! It looks like we’ll definitely be lowering the floor – it’s going to be a fun project, especially as it’s the only toilet we have in the house!
Cx