Be Excellent To Each Other

I’m finding it hard to imagine but I am going to have a look on the websites she gave me (Checkatrade, Need Help and Bikbbi) and will show them your post and sketch and ask if they can do that. It’d mean moving where the shower is mounted to the opposite wall. There must be plumbing there, for the sink, but I don’t know how the electrics would work. That’d then give us the option of a longer shower or a shower with the storage on the other side (the end where the shower is in the sketch).

Sorry Gaz, I didn’t see your post earlier. Yes please, that’d be great. It’s worth asking even if it’s likely he’s a bit far from us. Thank you

This is what ours looked like before (from the Rightmove listing, our mirror wasn't quite so posh)



This is what it looks like now:



And facing the end where the false wall is (you can see on the ceiling where the old shower cubicle was attached, still):



I'll send you his number in a PM

Is it a power shower where there's a button to switch it on or is it fed from the boiler where you just turn a tap on and hot water happens?
Either way it can use the existing bath/sink plumbing pretty easily I'd expect.
It might mean a pretty dinky sinky but I'd prioritise shower over sink any day. Also I've found you can squidge sinks right up to toilets with great success, it's not recommended officially but I can't see the issue really

Yeah, that doesn’t sound a million miles away from the amount of work that we want doing. That’s brilliant, thank you for the number. I’ll give him a call in a few days once we’ve thrown ideas around a bit.

Well… we’re a bit confused about this. There is no button to turn it on, but we’re pretty sure it uses an electric pump somewhere along the line. It doesn’t heat the water, so once the hot water is run out the shower is cold, but there’s tbe sound of a motor pushing the water through somewhere.

There are two dials, one that sets the temperature and one that sets the pressure.

There have been times when something has happened to the water pressure or the water feed (like if the shower head has been left in the bath and the shower turned off) and when you turn it back on you can hear the motor try to pump the water through but the water doesn’t arrive, and you can hear it straining.

The water pressure itself is really good, so it’s not that. The gas bloke we had in before Christmas said it was a really good system and there was plenty of water pressure for if we wanted to fit extra stuff (not sure what extra stuff).

Could be an in line pump, I had one in the previous house. It comes on when it sees water going past and goes off when it stops... Most of the time.
So that's good if so because it means you don't need an electrician.
Salamander in line pump was what we had for the googlings

That sounds like what we might have going on. We can’t see ours as it is boxed into the wall somewhere, but certainly when we turn the water for the shower on a pump starts up somewhere.

I like the plans. I really need to get my bathroom done.

The window was an issue in our shower room too, so we had a smaller one put in. Worth it to be able to have what we want long term. Just something you might want to consider. I can't remember the exact cost, but it was well below £1k, maybe £700 ish.

Partially inspired by this thread, I've spent a good chunk of the last few days teaching myself how to use Blender (I used to do all my 3d work in 3DS Max, but Blender is FREE!) so I can visualise the plans we're getting drawn up for our future extension. It's been steep as Blender works on very different principles to 3DS Max. Might have something to show by the end of the week

Exciting. I keep on telling myself I could do with learning how to use Blender but there's a ton of other things I need to get my head around first. I'd be interested to see how you get on.

All of my uni 3d work was Low-Poly for games, so this is all very familiar and also, so alien!

When you're done, do you want to do our kitchen?

See how this turns out first

and my bathroom?

And my axe

In might-be-interesting-to-one-other-person news, Blender is OpenXR compliant, so you can launch your models in VR! It's really going to help with visualising

So people with a VR headset could walk around our bathroom and get to experience how small it is?

Indeed

We’ve hit a bit of a pause point with what we’re looking for. I’m sort of stuck between two minds now. There are two (technically three*) options I can see viable to us right now.

1: something similar to the design the B&Q bod knocked up for us. This gives us more floor discs but pre joys little in extra actual storage. Relatively easy to do and looks tidy and like it fits.

2: after seeing GazChap and Jem’s bathroom Ive been looking at their style of bathtub. We had planned to sacrifice a tub for a shower to gain storage space, but if we aren’t ACTUALLY gaining that storage space maybe we’d be better off with a better bath/shower combo. I saw that you guys had a funky shaped bath to accommodate a wider shower area, which would work in our bathroom as there is extra space by the door. Either an L shape bath like you gave or the P shaped ones which I REALLY LOVE. A bit of a hitch in that I can’t find a P or even l shaped one that is the right length (our current tub is 1650, and most I’ve seen appear to be 1675, or 1700mm). If I could find the right tub with a nice half-length screen that would be nice, and we’d have to just accept that storage is a no go.

3: we could move the shower to the far wall as per Wookiee’s suggestion, and put storage at the current door side. The access to the shower might be compromised by the storage, or tucked behind the sink. I’m still trying to think of sizes, but I think this would mean more work in wiring and/or plumbing, and maybe part-screening the windows would look goofy, or we could shrink the windows and lose the light as Jazzy did, but that’s a bigger time/cost thing that I’m not sure if it’s worth either for the gain.

I think if I found a 1650 P shaped tub my mind would probably make itself up, because I love them, especially with the curved screen.

Main bathroom in our previous house had a small space between the shower screen and the vanity unit (that's what the sink and cupboard-y bit underneath is called out here, I have no idea what its called back home) which I think I saw in one of the drawings/pictures posted here. While it was a bit annoying to clean in that gap, it wasn't terrible.

Pretty basic geometry, but the dimensions are all spot on. Aint technology grand?

I’d always try and keep a bath in there if you can. Partly as baths are great, and partly as the absence could put off future house buyers.

Maybe, thoigh our house is (currently) in Oldsville, so unless the market changes and attracts younger families I don’t know that baths are the most useful things for some people. Also, I think we need to get what’s most useful to us because keeping things inconvenient to ourselves in case we decide to sell and move on in 5/10 years time wouldn’t us being making changes for our own lives.

Not to play "pile on the zoidberg" but I agree with this, we always go for making where we live now comfortable for us now. If it comes time to sell up then do the stuff the estate agents want at that time IMO

We got rid of the bath in Manchester and had no problems selling it.

I still miss the bathroom and kitchen we left behind, especially as 5 years in we're still struggling with what we've moved in to.

I'm a strong believer in doing what makes your house right for you, not the next person. Leave that nonsense to property developers. If and when you come to sell you'll find people who like it as is or can see what they want.