House & Home | Bathroom Wishlist

We recently had Ben’s sister living with us for a few weeks, so she was staying in our spare room which is in the attic. Our house is one of those new build ones which had only had one other set of owners before us and had the attic room already built into it with an en suite so made life much easier for us. When we moved in, everyone was surprised about the fact that we’d taken the bedroom on the second floor as the master bedroom rather than the top attic floor. This was mostly my idea since it had a little “walkway” area between the bedroom and en suite which was the perfect size to slot some wardrobes into, so we chose a combination from IKEA’s Pax range with sliding mirror doors and got those in there. I wanted my bedroom to have my clothes in so that I didn’t have to wander around in my underwear in the morning before work!
But when Beth was staying in our attic room, we realised just how much bigger that room was, and after being shown how our next door neighbour with the same layout home had installed a wardrobe under the eaves in her version of the room, Ben was sold. So last week (on a Monday night of all nights!), he decided we were moving up there. The only problem though? (Well, there are several including the fact that my clothes are now down a flight of stairs). The bathroom. Since we’d had an en suite in our old bedroom, we installed all the things like towel rails, toilet roll holders and a mirrored corner cabinet in there, thinking that since that was the only bathroom we’d be properly using, we’d sorted that one out first and do the other at some point in the future (ie. when we felt like spending money on it). So now, the bathroom we’re using has, um, nothing in it. Okay, fair enough, it has a toilet, a sink and a bath with a shower over it, so it’s not like it’s just a water spout. But we’re balancing toothbrushes on a (slanted!) windowsill (since it’s in the eaves), toilet rolls are having to sit on the cistern, and all other bathroom necessities are balanced around the edge of the bath. That’s not to mention the fact that it’s one of those reduced size baths because, as I’ve already said, the room is in the eaves! I’m not entirely sure why you’d bother with a bath up there to be honest – there’s one in the family bathroom which is average size (although smaller than my old one which was my big boooo when moving into this house), and the room just isn’t quite wide enough for one, so the only use it gets is for standing in to have a shower. So ideally, I want to replace that with a nice big(ish) walk in shower.
And now you see the need for my wishlist for a bathroom. Okay, it’s not the most interesting thing, but bathrooms can be exciting, promise?! It’s where you can keep all your Lush stuff if nothing else 😉

 

Starting with the “big” bit, as I said, I want to remove the bath and put in a big shower. Because the bathroom is kind of an odd shape since it’s in the attic, we’ve been looking at these shower enclosures to try to find one that will fit. It’ll have to be either an odd shape to begin with or something slightly custom made – Ben’s even been talking about putting in a stud wall on part of it as it is a really odd place to have a bath! I’m thinking as long as it’s a nice spacious open area, it’ll all be good with me.

 

The bathroom currently has absolutely no storage and no mirror either – I’m having to use the mirrored door from our old wardrobe propped up in our bedroom! I’d like something simple and uncluttered looking. In our old bathroom downstairs, we got a really cheap corner mirrored cabinet from Argos since we just needed something and went for one that would fit easily and was cheap, but I’d like something a bit more me for this one.

 

I’m obsessed with these towels – they’re honestly the best towels I’ve used. They’re made with Pima cotton which they claim gets fluffier with use, and they’re super soft and absorbent. Apparently I’m now a towel connoisseur as we went round touching and feeling every single towel we could find in every shop, but these are by the far the softest. I also like this charcoal colour as I’m very into grey right now, plus they not easy for me stain with hair dye and they don’t seem to be fading with washes either. So basically, I just want all my towels to be these instead of the random mish mash I currently have!

 

I’ve just spotted this range at Matalan of copper accessories including towel hooks, toilet roll holder and a bin and I’m ever so slightly tempted by them! It’s not something I would usually go for, but I can imagine this working really well.

 

This final one is annoying as it’s technically what was on my wishlist – IKEA used to do a floor decking thingy in this range and I really wanted one, just because they looked pretty and sauna-like in a bathroom (does that make sense?!). We already have this shelving unit in the family bathroom, but if I had the decking I could move the shelves upstairs (although I’m not entirely sure they’d fit) and match them with that. But it looks like they no longer sell them, so boooo.

The thing I’m struggling over is the floor – I just can’t decide whether I want real tiles (in grey or white) or vinyl flooring in a wood like effect, or something else. I’m all over these Pinterest style bathrooms with real wood floors, but I just can’t help but think I would ruin them with water everywhere. Then I love the Scandi minimalist style in grey which you can play up with dark wood and pops of yellow here and there, but I just don’t know! Ideally though, it will need a new floor as the current one isn’t brilliant, and if we take out the bath and replace it with a shower, the current flooring probably won’t fit right, therefore, new floor needed.
Basically, I just need someone from IKEA to come in and design and redo my bathroom for me to make all of this fit and look amazing. That’s the dream.