As part of the big renovation plans for early next year we will go from a household with one tiny bathroom, where you can sit on the toilet while you vomit into the bath (yes it has been done before) to a two bathroom (one with separate toilet even) household… and it can’t happen a moment too soon for my liking!
There is already a considerable amount of hopping from one foot to the other and ‘hurrryuuupppp I gotta pee’ going on in this household. Why is it that both girls always suddenly need to pee right at the same moment? Add Muski into the toilet mix in a year or so’s time and I see disaster brewing if we stay a one toilet household for much longer.
Plus our current bathroom is old… usable, quirky, charming… but old.
The bath is cast iron with an enamelled finish which is wearing thing in places. Being cast iron, and considering that it gets a little cold up here in the winter, you barely fill it with hot water before it goes cold again. The shower is over the bath, which is ok, but not ideal. The sink is the old pedestal type, with separate hot and cold taps. Yep… if you want to wash your hands in warm water you need to find a plug (that never seems to be where you left it) and actually fill the sink – otherwise your option is washing in freezing cold or scalding hot water… or trying to dance your hands under both taps to get some kind of crazy mix. So really, we deserve a nice new bathroom, or two, don’t we?
We are still trying to work out exactly how we’ll configure both bathrooms. One will be a large family bathroom, and one a smaller shower room with separate toilet – effectively the en-suite off the main bedroom, but also accessible from a hall way.
One thing we are sure about is that we are not into the current trend in bathroom fittings. Huge clunky basins and bowels that sit on top of cabinets are definitely not our thing. ‘Wet rooms’ where you just have a shower up one end of the bathroom, no curtain or glass wall or doors? A bath that is set into a HUGE tiled base or is free-standing but an odd shape? So not for us. We are much more traditional when it comes to bathrooms… simple, usable, kid friendly and easy to keep clean is much more us.
So we’ll go for basic fittings, most likely all white and have boring but usable bathrooms. Though there are a few indulgences we’d like, if we can afford them….
The family bathroom will have a nice big bath in it – not a spa bath, just reasonably deep and long. Something you can lie in and sink up to your neck and really soak in. We had a bath like this in our last house, a super cheap, plastic bath, but the perfect size and shape and I am hoping we can find something similar for this house.
We’d like to add a heated towel rail to each bathroom that is connected to the hydronics, because I am getting that oven… somehow.. someway.. I know I am.
We’re also looking at some water saving devices. A decent water saving shower head – oh how I’d love one of those duel shower heads but I am not sure we can afford (we’re on tanks so we don’t have to actually pay for it but it will run out and then we’d be in trouble) the water we’d use if we had one of those. I have had my eye on one of these toilets for the separate toilet – with the basin built in over the cistern so the water you use to wash your hands is then used for the next flush. They’ve always been a bit clunky looking in the past but this new version is very sleek and sophisticated… just not sure how much it will cost!
So there you have our current plans for the bathroom part of the renovations. It’s your turn now… If you were renovating your bathroom what would you do??
Angie says
That toilet looks great…wish I’d seen it when we replaced ours!
We did our bathroom a year ago. We still have a little room but it feels SO much bigger, lighter, more usable. We had similar ideas to you – I’m not a fan of the bowl on a bench sink either. We ended up with:
a big family bath (soaker bath bought cheap at auction….I’ve seen the same one in reece…no spa jets…soaking is enough for us, plus could you imagine the stuff the kids would shove down the jets!)
A seperate shower, just a kit one, no tiles….much easier for cleaning. We have a GREAT water saving shower head – the satinjet (model was the escape I think) – you still feel like you’re having a shower, it’s on a rail so you can easily adjust the height plus take it off the hook so the kids can hold it
A small handbasin from Blue Australia (they have a website, we got the vaucluse). The top is not exactly what we wanted but they had the best draw opening we saw. Having it wall hung means the bathroom looks bigger, a step can easily fit under & we have some storage in the bathroom (without fossicking in the back of a cupboard).
We also had a basic 2 door shaving cabinet (mirror doors) set into the wall, we needed to save as much space as possible. We had a power point put in the shaving cabinet so that the electric toothbrush is out of the way.
Heated towel rails sound nice. We opted for maximum towel hanging so installed 2 wide double rung towel rails, which has worked brilliantly, even with guests staying.
Whew…what a long comment, hope you find something useful in amongst it all.
Bettina says
The sink over the cistern idea is a good one. And I’m with you on the big deep bath that you can sink into. Though I would make mine a spa bath……
I would actually have the toilet seperate to the main bathroom though.
And I don’t know how I managed without my ensuite before! lol
Sandi Garrett :) says
http://www.burdens.com.au/productdetails.html?pid=12&itemid=126
what a great idea.
hth.
Sandi :)
Sif says
OMG!!!
I just aboug laughed this baby out just now, and I’m sorry but I haven’t even read past the following sentence…
“Huge clunky basins and bowels that sit on top of cabinets”
Spot the typo??? Here’s a clue, I think you probably meant “bowls”, not “bowels”…
PMSL, sorry, I’ve got go wee now…
tiff says
Wow, that sounds like a great bathroom.
I would just burn our (one) bathroom down wnad start from scratch. I hate it. When I’m finished I might just duplicate… I’m dreaming of an ensuite.
Lightening says
I think it’s wise to avoid the “trends” – otherwise you only end up with an out of date bathroom when they change again.
I’m someone who went from 2 bathrooms to 1 by choice when we built our home. I LOVE not having to clean 2 bathrooms. :) It was a bit more complicated than simply not wanting to clean them though – we had a set size home we could get in transportable so I chose to use the space in other ways. What we have is a bathroom (with spa bath with shower over it, separate shower in a cubicle and basin). That has a toilet next to it (and is all close to our bedroom). Up the other end of the house we have a toilet with a basin in it.
granma Jill says
One of the best thing we did was put insulation all around the base of the bath. Amazing it takes hours to get cold. I always feel guilty if I drain the bath of perfectly good warm water.