A full bathroom renovation in Kirkcaldy

Getting a bath and a real shower into one room

Most bathrooms this size force a choice between a bath and a decent shower. Putting a thermostatic rainfall shower over the bath, behind a hinged glass screen, avoids that — you keep the bath for the kids and still get a shower worth standing under. The screen folds back against the wall so the bath is easy to clean round.

Thermostatic is the part that matters day to day. The temperature holds when a tap runs elsewhere in the house, which is the usual complaint with a shower fed off an older mixer.

Why the vanity is off the floor

The vanity is wall-hung, so the flooring runs underneath it unbroken. That is partly a look — the room reads wider when you can see the floor continue — and partly practical, because there is no plinth to trap water and nothing awkward to mop around.

It is a fluted wood-effect unit with a white countertop basin sat on top, and a tall mono mixer to clear the bowl. The drawer takes the clutter that would otherwise live on the bath edge.

The tiling and the timber ledge

The walls are large-format stone-effect tiles taken floor to ceiling, including into the window reveal, so there is no painted strip left to go patchy above the tiling. Fewer, bigger tiles mean fewer grout lines, which is less to clean and less to discolour.

The timber ledge running the length of the wall breaks up what would otherwise be a lot of tile, and gives somewhere to stand a candle or a plant without another shelf being drilled in later.

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