‘we wanted to add drama’
Emma dared to go dark when it came to revamping her bathroom, and even had space for a luxe walk-in shower
Emma proves it’s best not to be faint-hearted if you want to create a bathroom that makes a statement
Discovering the house had a freestanding bath was one of the things I really liked about it – I’d always wanted one,’ says Emma. ‘The downside was that it didn’t have a shower, despite the fact that the room is a good size. The cupboard housing the water tank was the perfect place to squeeze one in, but doing away with that meant replacing the boiler, too. It made sense to crack on and tackle the job, as the house needed a new boiler because the old system couldn’t heat enough water to fill our lovely big bath.
Keeping costs down
Our budget was around £5,000 so we got quotes for the labour – we used Checkatrade to find our builder – and then had to make the rest of the budget work for the fixtures and fittings. We shopped around (a lot!) and waited for sales. In fact that saved us around 20% on the toilet and sink. We were lucky that we didn’t need to factor in the cost of a new bath because we were keeping the existing one and we didn’t need to move any other plumbing in the room, which would have been expensive.
Deciding on colour
The one thing I wasn’t prepared to compromise on was the colour of the bathroom. I wanted at least one room in the house to be dramatically dark and the bathroom seemed like the perfect space to really go for it. I’m a massive Instagram and Pinterest fan so I trawled through them both looking for inspiring dark-coloured bathrooms, mainly to convince my husband that an inky blue was the way to go! I think that if you’re nervous about using strong colours the bathroom is a good place to start as you can make a real statement,
particularly with the great selection of tiles and paint colours out there.
Choosing surfaces
the floor tiles were the first thing i chose – i love them. But we didn’t want to tile the walls fully, as this would’ve pushed up the budget and once tiles are there it’s expensive and difficult to change them. i was keen to find a solution that would last us a good few years.
Having looked at lots of ideas we settled on timber panelling, as it was cost-effective and we can change the colour easily with a lick of paint if we want to. it’s also a good way to hide the exposed pipework in the room. we shopped around and sourced it from a local timber merchant, as it had the best prices and we saved a lot on delivery costs – it can pay to buy local! i was really tempted by wallpaper, too, as there are some fabulous statement designs around, but it wouldn’t have been practical with the steam from the shower.
The finer details
one issue we had to address was storage in the bathroom once the water tank cupboard became a shower, as we had nowhere to hide our clutter. a basin with a cupboard beneath solved the problem and we found there was a huge range to choose from in the shops.
keeping to a budget meant we had to wait a while for the finishing touches like the artwork and a light we bought. now everything’s finished there’s nothing i would do differently. the best bit of the project was seeing the floor tiles go down, but bargain hunting for all the fittings was satisfying as well. in the end i think we've managed to strike a balance between style and function, without blowing the budget.’