We were asked to convert an old bedroom into a new bathroom to a wing of a house that had three bedrooms and no bathroom close by.  Our clients asked us to look at which was the best room to convert into a bathroom and kit it out.  Our budget was not huge, but we had to consider getting new waste and water to and from the room and connect to existing drainage and waste, the property has its own septic tank.

In the end the decision to use the smallest room was the right decision as not only was it the smallest room, but it was closest to all the existing pipe work.  We worked closely with our plumbers and builders to achieve this and assessed suitable layouts so that we could get a four-piece bathroom suite into the space.  In the end we were dictated by the toilet which had to go near to the outside front wall, anywhere else meant it would have had to travel a long way, too many bends and we couldn’t get the fall required.

This bathroom is not over looked so there was no requirement to have privacy glass and the window is of a height and size that is modest.  The room has a beautiful original marble fireplace with a stone hearth and exceptionally high ceilings, 3.5m to be exact.  We therefore decided to add a suspended ceiling with spot lights because we had the height and the loss of 200mm had little or no impact to the overall feel of the space.

We decided to add a freestanding bath with floor filler along with a pedestal basin, shower enclosure and toilet with a traditional towel radiator.

The existing floorboards were painted off white and the walls were painted in a soft blue with contrasting skirting and architrave colours from Fired Earth.  We’ve tried to achieve a Martha’s Vineyard kind of feel without being too cliched.