Bathroom interior design

Bathroom design: the decisions you can't see in the images

Sanitaryware and furniture follow the plumbing, not the other way round

A bathroom project reverses the usual order: the water and drainage connection points are worked out first, and the sanitaryware and furniture are placed within those limits. Inside them, the final position is decided by how the room is used: we shift a basin and tap a few centimetres if that lets two people stand comfortably in front of the mirror at once, rather than putting them wherever the riser happens to sit. A walk-in shower without a tray is designed with the floor sloping towards the drain at the screed stage; once the tiling is laid, the gradient can't be corrected without taking the floor up again.

The mirror and the lighting decide how your face looks in the morning

In a bathroom, mirror lighting is always planned separately from the main lighting: light from the sides removes the shadows under the eyes and on the chin that overhead light inevitably creates. The mirror itself often has lighting around its edge or an integrated light strip behind the glass, so the light falls on your face rather than just on the wall reflected behind you. The main lighting is split between the dry and wet zones: moisture-rated light fittings by the shower and bath, standard fittings with high colour rendering by the basin, so your face looks the same for make-up or shaving as it does in daylight.

Storage and equipment disappear behind the cabinetry

In our projects the washing machine, water heater, water meters and access panels are usually hidden behind a single flush front finished to match the wall, so the technical side of the room doesn't stand out. A heated towel rail is built in with the furniture rather than hung as a separate item: its height and position are chosen together with the mirror and basin, so a towel is one step from the shower, not across the room.

Ventilation that keeps smells and mould away

A bathroom is an enclosed room with constant humidity, and without extract ventilation, condensation settles on cold surfaces and joints, not only on the shower screen. The extract duct is sized to the volume of the room, and the air it removes has to be replaced: usually through a gap under the door, and through a separate air inlet if the door closes tight to the floor. Without that supply, the extractor fan runs but moves very little air. This is settled when the building services are designed, before the tiles or furniture colours are chosen, which is why our bathroom designs start with the building services drawings, not with a picture.