Bathroom Style
One of the first decisions you'll need to make when looking to buy a bathroom suite is which style to choose. Our style guide will give you an idea of what might be best for your bathroom
Your chosen bathroom style should reflect your tastes, your property, your room size and your budget. The basic bathroom styles will feature :
- contemporary bathroom suites
- traditional bathroom suites
- traditional/contemporary combinations
These classifications are not cast in stone - and you can always choose to start your own trend with something different!
Contemporary Bathroom Suite
Most bathroom suites in this style take their lead from what is happening in the world of luxury, designer bathrooms. At present this is typified by clean geometric shapes, with little or no detailing, push button toilet flushes and monoblock basin mixer tap.
The lack of detail does make a contemporary suite easy to clean, but does mean that a lot of contemporary suites are beginning look the same. For this reason many new products are creeping into the mainstream in a an attempt to distinguish one bathroom from every other - such as glass bathroom sinks, which can provide a visual contrast to the rest of the components that are almost entirely chrome and white.
Traditional Bathroom Suites
Traditional bathrooms suite designs are mainly installed in older properties or if you are attempting to incorporate as many period features as possible. For modern properties (from the 60's onward) the bathroom market has moved away from traditional styles toward a more contemporary look. The traditional or Victorian style is typified by a large basin, cross-head taps, wood or wood effect toilet seat, wood or wood effect bath panel and a plain bath with little or no detail. This is one of the only styles where gold effect taps are still used as most modern suites now utilise chrome alone.
Victorian bathroom suites can still be found with high level or low level cisterns (as well as close coupled) and there are some suites available in an Art Deco style.
Traditional/Contemporary Combinations
The normal way the for combining these styles would be to have traditional taps on a contemporary suite, together with a wood effect bath panel and seat. Traditional/contemporary combinations are now less popular than they once were, as most people opt for the clean lines of the contemporary suites.
Be careful if you are mixing and matching in this bathroom style because certain products do no blend well together (e.g a traditional suite with modern taps)
Bathroom Furniture
Built-in bathroom furniture is nearly always used with contemporary baths and pottery. There are very few semi-recessed basins or back to wall pans available in a traditional style.
Stand alone vanity units and vanity bowls are still readily available in a traditional or Victorian style.