SWITCHING UP THE LAYOUT

By repurposing a former chill-out room into a spacious en suite, Vicki and David now have a relaxing retreat to call their own

With their daughter Katie starting university, Vicki and her husband David felt it was time for a switch-up of the layout of their bungalow to create a quiet sanctuary away from the hustle and bustle of family life — but how to do it? After toying with the idea of further loft work, the couple settled on a bedroom swap with Katie, giving them space towards the back of the house to create their dream suite. Alongside a bedroom and dressing room, the couple have created a stunning en suite that’s practical as well as pretty. Vicki explains how they achieved it.

ALL CHANGE

Once our daughter started university we thought about moving, but couldn’t find anything we liked. However, the layout wasn’t working for us any more. Our bedroom was next to the kitchen and didn’t give us the privacy we wanted. So we swapped with our daughter, giving her a sizeable room, more wardrobes and a bigger en suite. In return, we turned her old en suite into a dressing room and the adjacent room, built behind our garage as a chill-out room for our son, became our bathroom.

LOCKDOWN

The builder we chose was one we trusted, as he’d redone the family bathroom the year before. We went into lockdown just as the project started, which was stressful. Luckily our builder was able to carry on as the room is separate to the rest of the house and has its own external doors, but sourcing products was an issue. We had to swap a few things out — our original bath tap supplier shut down, for example, so we had to go for a different product. But we were lucky in some ways. We’d already chosen the tiles and the builder picked them up for us literally the day before they closed — so we got there in the nick of time.

SAVVY SHOPPER

To save money, we sussed out what we wanted ahead of time and made sure the items we chose were good quality. We shopped around for prices then presented them to our local bathroom showroom, who gave us a good discount on everything. All the extra storage we’ve added has been invaluable, too. Our builder made us a large cupboard, which stows away all the spare toiletries, medicine, cleaning products and the bin, and there’s storage in the sink unit, too — we haven’t actually managed to fill all the drawers!

PRACTICAL TIPS

I was really keen that this bathroom, as well as being beautiful and spacious, was also very practical and easy to keep clean, especially as we live in a hard water area. We have grey grout, which doesn’t discolour, wall-mounted taps, which prevents limescale build-up, and a large, flat piece of glass for the shower screen, which is easier to keep clean than our old cubicle. I opted for a black radiator so that the water marks wouldn’t show — that way I don’t have to polish it all the time!