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Lock-In: Glorious Bathroom Design

Lock-In: Series 2 Webinar Library

Series 2, Episode 3

Hosted: 16/09/2020 07:00:00 pm

On our 3rd webinar of the series, we took a look at Glorious Bathroom Design with Wolseley’s Bathroom showroom experts.

You can view the full webinar above, but if you only have 5 minutes, scroll down for some of the key talking points.

Substance Over Style

There’s no doubt about it, bathrooms are a key selling point for landlords and tenants alike, but it’s not all about how it looks. Before you begin to worry about the aesthetics, functionality and practicality need to be taken care of first. Think Steve Jobs rather than Salvador Dali: a beautiful bathroom that doesn’t function properly may be great to look at, but it’s not so good for much else.

As an example, where the wastes run out of your bathroom is not a particularly aesthetic consideration but a very necessary step in the design process. The soil pipe in your bathroom dictates where you can position your toilet and dictates where your wastes are running through the building. The waste from your toilet, and the waste from your shower system need to be able to meet at the soil stack. Drawing a plan of what the bathroom looks like, like the one shown in the webinar, with or without measurements can make the design process much more efficient.

Apply Some Pressure

Even those who have refurbed more bathrooms than they’ve had hot dinners know they need to consult their installer before putting pen to paper on their bathroom designs. Your product wish list is going to change drastically depending on what heating system you have installed in your property. The majority of households use a combi boiler system, which will do the job in everything apart from exceptional circumstances (we’re looking at you, HMOs), but some older households may use a gravity–fed system which can become a problem when it comes to building up sufficient water pressure. For households with several bathrooms, unvented plumbing systems are more suitable – these types of systems can work efficiently with several taps, showers, and toilets flushing merrily away simultaneously – perfect for HMO landlords.

The Toil of the Tile

Whilst tiles can help to provide that finishing flourish to a bathroom design, a statement look can be made whilst saving time and money by going with a more contemporary wall panelling, which require much less ongoing maintenance. Installations are put on fast-forward too, as the wall panels simply click into place and you don’t need to mess around with grouting.  Purchased and distributed through Wolseley, LNPG have partnered with Multipanel to help you save even more – let us know what you think!

Expensively Cheap

An acrylic shower tray may cost you only a few quid, but a broken acrylic shower tray, a flooded bathroom, and an angry tenant will cost you a hell of a lot more. Make sure you consider investing in the more hardwearing alternatives like the stone–resin trays suggested in the webinar. The heavy and hardy stone resin means it can withstand more pressure. For baths, steel is the strongest way to go, but you can get creative by framing the bathtub first, or as some members suggested, reinforcing the showering end of the tub with a bag of sand or additional leg underneath.

Continuity is Key

With all the technical stuff taken care of, you can finally think about the stylistic elements. Wolseley contract-priced Nabis range of bathrooms has all styles of bathroom covered. The best advice is always to aim for continuity between your bathroom and the rest of your property: a modern, high-end HMO may not always the place for traditional columns, as beautiful as they may be, and freestanding baths will only make a statement when there’s room to stand freely in. Demographic considerations must be made across the property as a whole, not independently from room to room. The rest of it is down to you, just please when it comes to your bathroom, don’t ask for avocado…

And that’s your lot! You can learn more about Wolseley here.

 

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