Bathroom Regrets
Discussion
Poor extraction. Luckily it was easy to fit an uprated fan.
Not enough storage. Had to have it all put in later.
Cheap plumbing - but expensive taps and valves etc, rather than fix broken things.
Not checking the electric UFH worked before laying the pricey stone tiles in the guest bathroom. It didn't.
Failing to wire the heated mirror to light circuit.
Only having ceiling lighting. Do mirror and atmospheric lighting as well.
Failing to fit decent towel radiators.
Failing to fit wall hung WCs.
We are doing 4 new bathrooms in the new house, and I will not be repeating these mistakes!
Not enough storage. Had to have it all put in later.
Cheap plumbing - but expensive taps and valves etc, rather than fix broken things.
Not checking the electric UFH worked before laying the pricey stone tiles in the guest bathroom. It didn't.
Failing to wire the heated mirror to light circuit.
Only having ceiling lighting. Do mirror and atmospheric lighting as well.
Failing to fit decent towel radiators.
Failing to fit wall hung WCs.
We are doing 4 new bathrooms in the new house, and I will not be repeating these mistakes!
Fitted wetroom tray but trusted the plumbers judgement over my own, he didn't brace it sufficiently (despite me pointing it out) so I had to take down the ceiling below to rectify it weeks after bathroom was "finished". Even after retiling it twice he refused to accept his failure. f
king ass hole.
Tiler used dark grey grout for the beige /sandstone tiles. fking useless tt, I ended up regrouting it all with the colour matched grout.
I hate pissing useless tradesmen!
king ass hole.Tiler used dark grey grout for the beige /sandstone tiles. f
king useless tt, I ended up regrouting it all with the colour matched grout. I hate pissing useless tradesmen!
Regret not spelling out to all involved that giving easy access to plumbing for future fixes and repairs was an absolute requirement. E.g. bath attached to walls at both ends and along one side, with taps and overflow halfway along the side of the bath next to the wall. If anything goes wrong I'm going to either have to remove the bath or somehow go through the ceiling below and up through the floor boards. The current arrangement looks nice, and was a last minute workaround agreed in my absence. Arrrggghhhh.
ATG said:
Regret not spelling out to all involved that giving easy access to plumbing for future fixes and repairs was an absolute requirement. E.g. bath attached to walls at both ends and along one side, with taps and overflow halfway along the side of the bath next to the wall. If anything goes wrong I'm going to either have to remove the bath or somehow go through the ceiling below and up through the floor boards. The current arrangement looks nice, and was a last minute workaround agreed in my absence. Arrrggghhhh.
Should have used these 
http://www.notjusttaps.co.uk/spares-bath-taps-fixi...
Not having a shower head mixer thing on the bath taps. Have to rinse my hair after washing it using the container meant for topping up the steam iron.
Not having a mains shaver socket.
Maybe the extractor fan in the roof space with the grill in the ceiling rather than the wall mounted one I've got. Probably would be quieter.
Not buying a fresh bag of multi finish for the ceiling rather than using the one to hand, which was so full of crap the ceiling looks like a ploughed field.
Get a heated mirror though!
Not having a mains shaver socket.
Maybe the extractor fan in the roof space with the grill in the ceiling rather than the wall mounted one I've got. Probably would be quieter.
Not buying a fresh bag of multi finish for the ceiling rather than using the one to hand, which was so full of crap the ceiling looks like a ploughed field.
Get a heated mirror though!
Mains shaver socket not thought about initially but thankfully we have a spot on electrician who sorted with no drama.
As has been mentioned only ceiling lighting fitted but again a clever fix thought of which is LED lighting at the base of the skirting board which is going to be fitted this week. Perfect as its the bathroom our daughter will use most often so night lighting is really useful.
Not measuring accurately enough the height of the shower screen when we have a bathroom in the eves ... Yes you guessed it, it doesn't fit! Again not a problem as we will either fit a sail shaped alternative or bifold option instead.
One thing I've learnt is even with the best laid plans something will throw you a swerve ball but also there a s solution for almost every problem out there (it usually just costs you though!).
As has been mentioned only ceiling lighting fitted but again a clever fix thought of which is LED lighting at the base of the skirting board which is going to be fitted this week. Perfect as its the bathroom our daughter will use most often so night lighting is really useful.
Not measuring accurately enough the height of the shower screen when we have a bathroom in the eves ... Yes you guessed it, it doesn't fit! Again not a problem as we will either fit a sail shaped alternative or bifold option instead.
One thing I've learnt is even with the best laid plans something will throw you a swerve ball but also there a s solution for almost every problem out there (it usually just costs you though!).
Little Lofty said:
That's quite cool! I like that. 
Not getting an overflow bath filler (i.e. water to fill the bath comes out of the overflow / no taps). When I suggested it to our builder at the time it was almost as if he'd never heard of the concept and then muttered something about it being complex so I left it and we went with a mixer tap mounted on the side of the bath in the middle. For us it wasn't a major issue but since having the kids I've lost count of the number of times one or other of them has cracked their head on the tap resulting in many tears. You'd think they'd learn after doing it a couple of times but no.
Using honed limestone tiles. We have quite hard water and it's a pain to try and get limescale off and they take a lot of maintenance and regular sealing to keep looking good.
A decent tiler would also have helped - ours came recommended but was rubbish.
I would actually wire a heated mirror into a separate circuit rather than tie it into the lights. Ours is quite large and it pumps out a fair bit of heat when it's been on a while. Great in winter, but very annoying in summer when it's already too hot in the house.
As others have said - easy access to all fittings for future maintenance and stop-valves on all fittings so you can isolate thigs easily.
Oh - and don't buy cheap free-standing bath mixer taps off eBay. They are useless, but if you didn't do the above when fitting, you tend to just have to live with it...
A decent tiler would also have helped - ours came recommended but was rubbish.
I would actually wire a heated mirror into a separate circuit rather than tie it into the lights. Ours is quite large and it pumps out a fair bit of heat when it's been on a while. Great in winter, but very annoying in summer when it's already too hot in the house.
As others have said - easy access to all fittings for future maintenance and stop-valves on all fittings so you can isolate thigs easily.
Oh - and don't buy cheap free-standing bath mixer taps off eBay. They are useless, but if you didn't do the above when fitting, you tend to just have to live with it...
The bathrooms in my house were put in by the previous owner about 5 or so years back. It frustrates me(crap workmanship aside) they didnt put ANY storage in, didnt heat the floors, did the floor and tile nearly but not quite the same colour, didnt put in any extraction(there is a window) didnt hide the pipe work in one.
ATG said:
Regret not spelling out to all involved that giving easy access to plumbing for future fixes and repairs was an absolute requirement. E.g. bath attached to walls at both ends and along one side, with taps and overflow halfway along the side of the bath next to the wall. If anything goes wrong I'm going to either have to remove the bath or somehow go through the ceiling below and up through the floor boards. The current arrangement looks nice, and was a last minute workaround agreed in my absence. Arrrggghhhh.
This is huge. I did do this last time (and am doing so this time), and it proved to be massively helpful. Each bathroom has its own stopcocks for hot and cold water feeds. Meaning that if I have had problems, I could just shut off the relevant feed to the relevant room, rather than shut down the whole house. Meaning if you have an issue in the morning, you can shut it down and go to work, and deal with it later in your own time, with no need for emergency plumbers.Big win. Big.
LeadFarmer said:
Not having an illuminated heated mirror. I did though have one installed in my following new bathroom. I think they are great, no steaming up when having a shower and a soft light when using bathroom at night.
This 100 times over.I forgot in my last house. Didn't make the mistake again in this one.
In this house in one bathroom I have a wall hung illuminated/heated mirror cabinet that could and really should have been sunk a further couple of inches into the wall. But other than that, I'm happy with them.
Consider building alcoves into the walls if boarding up pipework etc. But take note of the access comment above.
Also take note of the accent lighting suggestion.
I put the extractor on the light switch - royal pain when you pop into the bathroom and the fan coems on - especially when it overruns. The fna is basically coming on multiple times a day for no reason. Also it doesnt come on if you have a shwoer i nthe day unless you put the light on - I had it changed to work on its own swtich.
I goto ne of thsoe fodlable glass shower screens - problem is that its about 1 panel too short so water still gets out - I wish I have just stuck to a shower pople/curtain set up - which is what I may go back to.
Mixer taps have their advantages- one downside is that often depending on the way the tap has been left you will draw hot water/make boiler come on when maybe all you wanted was cold water - having seperate taps avoids that.
I goto ne of thsoe fodlable glass shower screens - problem is that its about 1 panel too short so water still gets out - I wish I have just stuck to a shower pople/curtain set up - which is what I may go back to.
Mixer taps have their advantages- one downside is that often depending on the way the tap has been left you will draw hot water/make boiler come on when maybe all you wanted was cold water - having seperate taps avoids that.
Harry Flashman said:
heated mirror
Annoyingly I've also always forgotten to get at least one towel rail that's both hot water and leccie so's I can dry towels in the summer when the CH is off.
Both of these things are a source of irritation.
AC43 said:
Annoyingly I've also always forgotten to get at least one towel rail that's both hot water and leccie so's I can dry towels in the summer when the CH is off.
Both of these things are a source of irritation.
Is that really an issue though? Seems more like a 1st world problem Both of these things are a source of irritation.
. I have never once thought about electrically drying my towels in the summer and I imagine most other people wouldn't either. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but I have separate towels for drying hands/face and drying self after a shower. The former won't see that much water so would dry out fast enough without help in the summer anyway and the bath towel realistically isn't going to be used more than once a day, so ample time to dry out on its own unless you leave it on a heap on the floor 
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