At just 2.3 metres square, Kay Pritchard’s bathroom could hardly be described as spacious, and the addition of a huge built-in cupboard certainly didn’t help matters. ‘I can only assume it had originally housed a water heater, but as this was long gone, and I’m definitely a shower person, it made sense to ditch it, in favour of a walk-in enclosure,’ she says.
However, this did nothing to solve the issue of the existing cramped layout. In fact, it actually made things worse, as Kay’s proposed shower now seriously encroached on the surrounding area making a standard replacement bath out of the question. ‘I did try moving things around, but soon realised the bath had to stay on the back wall so, rather than lose the shower, I decided to simply opt for a shorter bath and move the WC along under the window, in order to make room for a useful storage vanity on the opposite wall,’ explains Kay. She then teamed a smart space-saving free-standing bath, with a modern wall-hung WC and cleverly gained valuable extra floor space by fitting the enclosed cistern within the void of the exterior cavity wall. ‘Being wall-mounted, I felt it helped enhance the feeling of space, as did my choice of a minimalist glass shower screen and streamline ceiling mounted shower,’ says Kay.
Luckily for Kay, she didn’t have to worry about installation costs, as her brother, Brendan, runs his own plumbing company, Plumbcare Plus. The work also proved pretty straightforward, as apart from fitting the cistern, which meant ensuring the structural wall was not compromised, the only additional plumbing work involved running a few new pipes under the floor and overhead in the loft space. ‘Brendan also supplied the under tile shower tray and tanking kit, for £350, and made the wash stand and removable window sill from oak, left over from a previous job,’ she smiles.