We weren’t planning on touching any of the bathrooms in our house any time soon, they were all functional, if not beautiful. If you’ve seen my post on how to give your bathroom a budget makeover, these were the kinds of ideas I was looking at to give the bathrooms a lift. However, it seems that life had other plans! The other day we discovered that the toilet in our family bathroom had been seeping water for some time and was in danger of soaking through the floor into the room below! Up came the lino and the toilet is now out of action…so I now need to come up with some family bathroom renovation ideas!
This is really exciting – not only because the current bathroom doesn’t reflect our style at all, but also it just doesn’t function very practically as a family bathroom for us, so I can’t wait to improve it.
The Current Family Bathroom Situation
It’s a fairly typical size bathroom in the UK, about 7ft wide by 6ft deep, so there’s not much scope for changing the layout. I will be following lots of the tips in my tiny bathroom ideas post! We currently have a showerbath, that we’re going to swap for a regular bath to save space. There is no storage at all in the bathroom as there is a pedestal sink and no bathroom cabinets, so everything is just littered across the shelf that runs across the room. The main thing I hate about the bathroom though, is the white shiny tiles that cover every surface. It makes it feel like a public convenience! Here is a picture of what the bathroom currently looks like:
Family Bathroom Functional Ideas
So first priority is to add some storage. I would really like to build up the wall at the end of the bath to include a couple of tiled niches where shampoo bottles etc. can stay. Something like this:
I’m also hoping to replace the current pedestal sink with a wall-hung vanity unit, to provide some out of sight storage for toiletries and loo rolls etc. I’m going for a wall-hung unit so that the floor is clear underneath it as this gives an illusion of space in the bathroom, it also makes it much easier to keep the floor clean! Finally I’d really like to build the toilet cistern into the wall behind – again to save a bit of space. I’d also like to have a toilet that it completely smooth in shape and goes all the way to the wall – again for cleaning purposes (can you tell I have 2 boys) -lol!
Family Bathroom Aesthetic Ideas
Now for the fun stuff! As I said I’m itching to get rid of the white shiny tiles. I want to go for something that will be really classic and enduring as once it’s done, we won’t be revisiting this bathroom in a good while. We’re going to keep it simple and have light grey marble effect tiles around the bath area, and behind the sink / toilet, with a marble effect window sill / shelf. I’m toying with the idea of having a mirrored wall next to the bath, to help make the space feel bigger and bounce the light around, but that’s still tbc. The remaining walls will be plastered and painted. We’re also going to have a tiled floor, maybe with wood effect planks to give a bit of warmth. So here’s the key ideas, hopefully it’ll be a really cool, calm and functional space:
Sources:
Watch this space to see how we get on!
