CrossTeam Properties Offers Advice on Home and Garden Improvements

It would be fair to say that the majority of people fitting en-suite bathrooms have not got much room to play with. Most semi-detached homes will have limited space for an en-suite and you may be surprised how much space even the smallest of layouts can actually use.

The most important factor when designing your en-suite bathroom is economy of size. Fortunately there are many bathroom sinks, toilets and shower cubicles on the market that will make designing the layout of your en-suite a lot easier.

For your shower cubicle, a curved fronted shower tray and sliding door will be the best option. These convenient and space-friendly bathroom instalments will free up the extra area taken up by swinging-door cubicles and also add a nice curved design to your shower. Naturally, the shower tray would fit into the corner, against both walls. There is a wide range of bathroom sinks that can also be fitted into a corner of the room, but you will find that the majority of options available will be quite small.

However, as much as you think you may have free reign over the layout of your en-suite bathroom, where the pipe work is located will be the main deciding factor over where each unit is placed. Toilets should be put on an external wall, or as close to the main waste system as possible, while shower cubicles and bathroom sinks will be slightly easier to place, especially if you are confined to a small area.

Since many bathrooms are built adjacent to another room in the house, most often the bedroom,  it is a good idea to design it proportionally. The bathroom should ideally be smaller than the room that it is connected to. Bathrooms that are bigger than the room that leads into it will give an unbalanced feel to both rooms and may lessen the prominence of the connected room.

For this reason, you will need to take careful consideration about how the bathroom design will affect the room adjacent to it. If you determine that you will need to increase the size of the shower area in the bathroom for example, see if you can take the space from another area of the house instead of taking up more of the bedroom floor space.

You should also plan for your expansion needs accordingly. This can be quite hard to do with a family that is still growing, with more potential family members coming along later on. Planning things out so you can expand without compromising the rest of the house however will ensure that your bathroom does not take up too much prominence yet is large and spacious enough to meet your needs for the future.

The elements in the bathroom present another challenge. If you have to reduce space even further in the interests of having a proportionally sized bathroom, consider building a combination bath and shower in one space, and opt for bathroom furniture that fits neatly into the wall or with each other.

The days of staid, plain and merely functional bathrooms are long gone. More and more, today’s bathrooms are designed with increasing attention to detail, with comfort and style taking top priority. Below we offer you some tips on how you can make your bathroom stylish as well as comfortable.

•    Make sure that you have enough space for the doors, windows, fixtures and bathroom accessories, and that people are able to stand and sit in the bath, get in and out and move comfortably.

•    If you have a bathroom that is a bit dated but do not wish to change the room itself, use newer bathroom furniture that work well with each other.

•    If you find that you are a bit short of space, you can create the illusion of more space with bathroom mirrors and shelves that are either made of glass, or use glass extensively.

•    A common problem that many designers have with bathrooms is that the ceiling is usually too high and the walls too narrow. This can be remedied by using strategically placed lights and decorations that will give the illusion of more horizontal space. You can also use a false ceiling with a slatted design. This will help enhance the effect of a lower ceiling.

•    Consider changing the fixtures in a style that is more appropriate with your overall design. Even if they work fine, replacing bathroom accessories and fixtures with new ones that reflect the theme you are going for will work wonders for changing the look of your bathroom.

Have you ever spent a few hours in a spa and dreamed of having the same relaxing and soothing experience in your own bathroom? If so, you have probably just as quickly discarded such notions, thinking it too expensive and impractical to implement. You may be pleasantly surprised to find however that it isn’t as unrealistic as you may think.

One of the most important elements in a bathroom spa is of course the bathtub. While we would all like the luxury of an Olympic-sized bathtub that we can cavort in freely, space considerations often force us into a more realistic scenario. Even with a more modestly sized bathtub however, you can still design it in such a way that you are assured of maximum comfort and style. Make sure that there is adequate space around for soap bars, bath oils and anything else that you may want to have around you while you are soaking in the suds. If there is simply no space around the tub for all your bathroom accessories, you may consider installing shelves nearby or even building shelves that fit into the walls.

Since relaxation is your primary goal in designing a bathroom spa in the first place, you should strive to impart a feeling of relaxation and peace of mind with the other elements as well. Your colour scheme, the bathroom furniture that you eventually bring in, the bathroom fixtures that you install, and of course the bathroom lights … all of these will have an effect on the overall look and feel of your bathroom spa.

In a large number of houses today, the bathroom is one of the rooms that more often than not has seen better years. Most people seem to be content to leave the bathroom in the same condition it has been for the past several years, leaving the bulk of their renovation and beautification efforts to the rest of the house. If you are redoing or redecorating the rest of your house however, there is simply no reason why you should not do a bathroom makeover. The bathroom is someplace that you go to on a regular basis after all, so you really should strive to keep it updated in relation to the rest of the house.

Colour is a great way to liven up any room, and it is a great way to bring your bathroom up to speed in the modern age. Of course you are free to choose any colour scheme that you want but if you are going after a contemporary look, you might want to check out current trends in colour schemes in home design magazines or on the Internet. If a certain look or motif grabs you, you can copy it as closely as you want but feel free to adapt them to your own personal tastes and preferences as well.

A good rule of thumb to follow is less is more. Resist the temptation to slather on more than two colours that belong to different colour families. While the effect may be novel for a time, seeing it day in and day out may make it less appealing.

Before you even start to lay the groundwork for your bathroom, it is important to visualize how it will fit in relation to the other rooms in the house. Most people prefer that the bathroom be easily accessible from the master bedroom, therefore you should plan with this thought in mind. In addition, you will also want the bathroom to be located in such a way that people can get to the dressing room – if there is one – easily. You may want to look at samples of existing bedroom and bathroom designs to give you an idea of how other designers plan out these rooms, and to give you a starting point for your own creation.

One thing that you will also want to consider is privacy. If the bathroom is not inside the bedroom itself, you should ensure that people have enough privacy to get to the dressing room from the bathroom. This is commonly done by building the bathroom adjacent to the dressing room, which then connects to the bedroom, placing the bathroom farthest from the door into the bedroom. This ensures the bathroom users maximum privacy.

Since most people typically leave the door into the dressing room open, you will want to design the elements in this “hallway” to be as attractive and inviting as possible. There is a unique design opportunity to be had here, with elements that can really serve to tie the look of both rooms together. Feel free then to let your imagination take control, but keep the overall theme in mind.

The master bedroom is by its very nature one of the most important rooms in the entire house. A lot of planning and forethought typically goes into this particular room, and since many well thought out master bedrooms have a bathroom built right into it, it stands to reason that a good deal of planning has to go into designing the master bathroom as well.

But you do not have to design your master bathroom from scratch. In fact, it might help tie in the two rooms together if you plan your bathroom design to conform to the existing look of the bedroom. Whether your master bedroom follows a traditional design or if it is more contemporary in feel, the bathroom should reflect this theme as well. It wouldn’t do at all to have a cosy and intimate bedroom that leads into an ultra modern almost minimalist bathroom! The effect would simply be too jarring. Of course in this day and age of the anything-goes design aesthetic, you are free to do as you please. Just keep in mind that your decision is borne out of intent rather than a case of simply not knowing what to do.

Stand outside the bathroom and look at what you see through the door into the bathroom. Do you see an inviting foyer that is attractive to look at or do you see a pile of clothes on the floor and an unflattering toilet? Always strive for a total overall look whether you are in the bathroom or the bedroom. It might be best to situate less appealing visual elements further into the bathroom where they cannot be seen from the outside.

White bathroom furniture used to be the only colour that most people could afford. It was utilitarian, cheap and the DIY stores shelves were lined with it.

As more and more colours became available, people started to choose wooden veneer and wood effect furniture. White, as the colour choice for bathroom furniture, became less popular and for a while it came to be associated with cheapness.

However, over recent years, white furniture has experienced something of a renaissance and to some extent, in design or fashion terms, ‘white is the new black’, or to put it more accurately, white is the new beech.

This turnaround has come about as a result of our current obsession with minimalist and crisp bathrooms, which are very white and uncluttered. White also has the amazing capacity to bounce light straight off, so if you have a bathroom that is not blessed with too much natural light, then you should seriously consider installing some white furniture. This will really help to maximise the light levels and give your bathroom a look that is both modern and stylish. It is a trick used by many of the top designers, who also like the very clean look which white gives to a bathroom.

So don’t ignore white furniture or just dismiss it, for the latest design innovations have created products that are neither overly priced nor cheap. The style has ultra modern fixtures and fittings, which taken as a complete package, has led to it becoming ever more popular, especially at the discerning end of the market.

Bathrooms can often be very damp and humid and unfortunately mould loves to grow in these types of conditions. As a result, it is very easy to end up with a mould infection, even if you do clean your bathroom regularly. Mould can be a real problem, since the spores, which are carried in the air, can lead to allergic reactions in people, who may find that they sneeze and cough more than normal after being in the room.

There are a number of simple ways to keep mould down and ensure that it doesn’t gain a foothold. One of the best ways of doing this is to keep the bathroom door open whenever possible. This allows fresh air to circulate around the room and will prevent mould from forming.

You should also make sure that any damp towels are hung on rails and not left lying around the floor or on the side of the bath. If you have a bathmat or a bath rug, then hang this up after use.

The shower curtain can often be the first place that mould strikes, so ensure that you wipe it down on a regular basis, using soapy water or by adding little bit of bleach to the water.

Don’t leave wet clothes lying around in the bathroom and also ensure that you either use your extractor fan, or that you have a window slightly open, security permitting.  In this way you will find that your bathroom remains clean, mould free and also smells fresh and welcoming.

Themed bathrooms are really only limited by your imagination. Yes, the Princess’s Playground, New England Beach House, Starfish or Sea Horse themed bathroom is available to everyone. However, before you rip everything out you need to think things through carefully.

If you live alone, then obviously it is entirely up to you, but if you have others in the household, then they may not be too happy about their bathroom ending up looking like a shrine to Arsenal, so some discussion and dialogue needs to take place with everyone in the home.

It may also be a good idea to keep things fairly flexible. For example, you may want to sell your home or your tastes may actually change, so if things aren’t too drastic, you can soon revert to a more conventional look. Try to keep the bath panel neutral, but the toilet seat, curtains or blinds can all be replaced quite quickly and cheaply.

A themed bathroom will also say quite a bit about you and will give away a lot about your personality. It will subject your personal design tastes to outside scrutiny and people will perhaps make comments that may not always be positive. If you are something of a shrinking violet and don’t take criticism well, then it is perhaps best to stick to a more neutral design. On the other hand, if you really don’t care what people think of your bathroom and you are dedicated to your own particular style, then a themed bathroom could be right up your street.