Sweet suite baby

When planning a new bathroom or revamping an old one, choosing a suite can be a daunting challenge. Space is at a premium and having established the workload of the bathroom you may be forced to consider what you can’t have as surely as what you can. Suites are generally the best buy, but highly individual sinks and baths have developed a whole new single life of their own.

The highly coloured suites of yesterday have all but disappeared into stylistic oblivion in favour of white and off-white shades, an intelligent choice if you have an eye to ever selling your home.

Therefore a contemporary bathroom no longer takes its colour lead from the suite and is free to change with the shifting fashions of décor and accessories. Bathrooms are currently hailed as the ‘new kitchen’ worthy of lavish furnishing to the same level of quality, form and function. Stick to white and you can compose your own tuneful suite from Art Deco to contemporary in one or more ranges simply by keeping to one shade, a clean line and coordinating other versatile elements.

A plain white steel or acrylic bath can be picked up for a song or can run to well over a thousand Euro. The variations in their design tend to be minor size differences and detailing in the shower standing area and arm rests, so shop around. A rectangular wall mounted design remains popular as it fits well into a niche in the bathroom and there is plenty of room for a good stretch out. You should double-check the bath for strength, the positioning of the taps and the design of the any panel. Air jets can transform an outwardly ordinary bath into a personal hydrotherapy experience. Price will depend on the brand and the number of functions the bath performs including massage programs, digitally controlled thermostats, and the ergonomic internal detailing of the bath itself. It is more economic to buy integrated air jets with the bath than have them installed later, a process than can cost as much as 1,500Euro.

Most luxury baths fit within the 700-1700mm range but they can be as large as 2000mm in length. Consider not only whether the bath will fit comfortably into the bathroom but whether you will have to deconstruct the house to get it to the bathroom at all! Short-sided corner baths are a great buy as they fit in the same area as a standard length bath with the minimum of intrusion into the room. Look out for offset corner models like the Broadway from Armitage Shanks that can utilise seemingly dead space. A double-ended bath can be created by placing the taps on the sides of a suitable bath either on the bath itself or on the wall above. A bath with a bowed front provides more bathing room, and modern high-tech acrylics have allowed the casting of baths in just about any shape, with steep sides and plenty of room for total immersion. If you want to see how your prospective bath feels, kick off your shoes and step inside to judge its true level of horizontal comfort.

No one can have failed to notice the metamorphosis of the humble vitreous china sink in Irish bathrooms. New shapes in bowls of various splayed and shallow shapes are now widely available in a number of new materials including glass, chrome, copper, stone and composite materials like duPont’s Corian. Designer pieces by Avante, Artica and Villeroy & Boch are now competing with less expensive interesting sinks by all the major manufacturers, so ignore the allure of the brand and follow your eye.

Wall mounted plumbing allow sinks to be positioned where they virtually float on air. The plumbing that does remain on view can be proudly encased in chrome or brass. A surface mounted bowl can raise the plumbing well out of sight under a slender vanity area. It is worth investigating the possibility of buying matching tailored furniture with your suite or sink system as this can solve a myriad of storage problems and eliminate the need for bespoke carpenter-made units.

Shallow sculpted basins though eye-catching are not ideal for a busy family bathroom, where a deeper vitreous basin enhanced by interesting taps can look just as good and perform better.

Who ever thought the toilet would become a status symbol? Well the seat that dare not speak its name is now available in a vast range of shameless designs in oval and round pans. The soil stack will dictate the position of the toilet. This only becomes an issue if you want a wall mounted floating loo with an invisible cistern that requires a horizontal mount. One compromise is to build a unit around the toilet to hide the cistern and plumbing from view but this ‘back to the wall’ unit will take up some potentially valuable space.

Period bathrooms can enjoy the architectural edge and nostalgic splendour of a high level cisterns by modern manufacturers including Heritage bathrooms (01-8128200). Close-coupled toilets appear as one unit rather than the two pieces of old and have a more contemporary edge, which excuses their expense. Ask for a box rim flushing system over a standard rim flush for superior performance in a close coupled unit. Depress the flush mechanism in the showroom if you are not familiar with its design, as some are easier to handle than others, and look out for infra red models that flush when you place your hand across an infra red panel-sleek, hygienic and clever.