Most bathrooms in this part of the country are between five and seven square metres, and almost every refit starts with the same argument: do we keep the bath?
Bath or shower
The usual advice is to keep a bath for resale. That is worth less than people think, an estate agent will tell you a house needs a bath, not that every bathroom needs one. If you have a second bathroom or a downstairs WC with room for one, the main bathroom is free to be whatever suits you.
What actually decides it:
- Do you use one? Be honest. A bath used twice a year takes up a third of the room every day.
- Small children? Then keep it, and revisit in ten years.
- Is it your only bathroom? Keep a bath, or a shower over a short bath. Removing the last one in the house does affect a sale.
A walk-in shower in a small room almost always feels bigger than a bath does, because the floor reads as continuous rather than interrupted.
Where the WC goes
This is the hardest decision to change later, and the one that gets the least thought. The soil pipe is fixed, and moving a WC any real distance means new pipework with the right fall, which is a day of work and sometimes a lifted floor.
If the existing position is workable, leaving it there frees up days for things you will actually notice, like better tiling or underfloor heating.
The things that matter more than people expect
Door swing
An inward-opening door eats a square metre you cannot use. Rehanging it to open outwards, or fitting a sliding door, transforms a small bathroom and is often the single best change available.
Where the light lands
A mirror opposite the window is worth more than any light fitting. A mirror on the same wall as the window is close to useless.
Storage before it is a problem
A vanity unit rather than a pedestal basin is the difference between a tidy bathroom and one with bottles round the edge of the bath. It is the thing people are most glad of afterwards.
The things that matter less
Tile size. Large tiles do make a small room look bigger, but not as much as the internet suggests. Fewer grout lines is the real benefit, less cleaning.
Colour. A dark bathroom with good lighting looks better than a pale one with bad lighting. Do not talk yourself out of the darker tile because the room is small.
Matching everything. A suite where every piece is the same brand looks no better than a well-chosen mix.
What to do before you commit
Mark the layout on the floor with masking tape and live with it for a couple of days. Open the door. Stand where the basin will be. It sounds daft and it catches more problems than a drawing ever does.
Then get someone who fits bathrooms to look at it, rather than someone who sells them. The two are not the same job, and the answers are different.