STYLE AND SUBSTANCE
With its bold scheme and clever space-saving ideas, Barbara’s award-winning bathroom is proof that good things come in small packages
Combining her separate bathroom and WC after 20 years of living in cramped conditions was no easy feat for homeowner Barbara, especially when she was so determined to fit in everything she wanted — but she’s managed to create a quirky sanctuary that nods to her love of maximalism while feeling calm, too. Barbara explains how she managed it …
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The bathroom was at the back of the flat and split into two rooms. The loo was poky with a tiny sink, and the only thing in the “main” bathroom was a giant hexagonal spa bathtub right in the middle. I lived with this for nearly 20 years until my uncle sadly died in 2018 and left me some money, which allowed me to overhaul the space. The rooms were strangely shaped, with angled walls. I asked my friend Jeremy, a builder who later worked on the project with me, to take a look. He told me not to move the loo as it would cost a fortune, and encouraged me to close up a window, but I loved the idea of having two windows.
DESIGN DECISIONS
I’m very much a bath person, but struggled when people told me I had to pick between that or a shower — I wanted both!
On Pinterest I’d seen people were having wetroom-style showers next to their baths and it seemed a good solution. I’d also seen an image of a gorgeous black bath with copper tiles — a real extravagance. The rim is really thin, which helps save space. I was a few millimetres short of having room for it but I ordered it anyway. Jeremy made it fit by removing a row of bricks to make a little alcove.
PROBLEM SOLVED
The lighting is the most successful thing about the whole bathroom. In the daytime, the two windows bring in so much natural light. In the evening, because I planned in lighting at different levels and put everything on dimmers, there’s such a lovely ambience in here.
The budget ended up going a little over what I expected. We needed to overhaul the electrics for the entire flat to work with the lighting scheme. And when we pulled the flooring up, all the joists were rotten, so the whole thing needed replacing. When the wall was taken down, the remaining beam was supposed to go into the ceiling, but to save money, we boxed it in. It’s become a bit of a feature — I hang plants from it.
BEST LAYOUT
In the end, I had to move the loo — there was no way around it and I didn’t want it to be the first thing you saw when you walked in. Once I did that, things fell into place. I spent a lot of time working out how much space I needed to leave between this and that, but once the wall came down, I realised there was so much more room than I thought.