TEMZA LONDON'S EXPERTISE ON BATHROOM REFURBISHMENT MISTAKES
Watch out for these bathroom refurbishment mistakes and learn how to avoid them.
Every homeowner wants the same thing from their interior refurbishment: outstanding quality from start to finish. But how can you tell a poor job from quality workmanship if you haven’t done any refurbishment work before? It’s understandable why people find it stressful to give clear directions of the standards you want to achieve when you might not be familiar with the construction jargon. You have to speak to plumbers and tilers who have been in the industry for a long time, and they might have their set ways of doing things.
That’s why Temza Design Studio decided to come to the rescue and collate a list of details to watch out for to ensure your bathroom interior design is redone to the highest standards. Watching out for these details will give you high-end results, so make sure you discuss these with your contractor before starting any works!
Trim that trim
Using metal trim profiles on edges of the tiling is a tell-tale sign of one of two things. Either cheap ceramic tiles were used instead of high-quality porcelain ones since ceramic cannot be mitred. Or simply the tilers didn’t take the time to cut the angled edges. Using a tile trim the lazy way to connect two tiled walls, and in our interior designers opinion, it doesn’t look particularly sophisticated.
It’s all right to use trim profiles in specific applications! High traffic areas, such as communal corridors can benefit from the durability of this solution. However, in a domestic bathroom setting, we wouldn’t recommend this.
Why the white grout?
The case all too often in interior design is that one defaults to white colour when unsure or overwhelmed. White walls, white ceiling, white doors, white tiling… A tone that once had the connotation of cleanliness and purity slowly became of the official banner of ‘I couldn’t be bothered to come up with anything better.’
We discuss choosing your perfect grout colour in detail in our ultimate step-by-step bathroom interior design guide (clue: step 7!), and our interior design team can’t stress how important this small detail is for your refurbishment. Grout, is the filler between the wall and floor tiles that ensures the surface is completely waterproof, and it’s not a detail that can be avoided, in other words, every tiled surface will have to have grout lines. In some cases, this can provide a great design feature. Colourful or contrasting grout can be used creatively to enhance the design scheme, but in most cases, it’s something that you want to notice as little as possible.
Having a grout that matches the tiles perfectly creates a seamless looking wall surface and an effect of larger, more expensive tiles being used. It’s especially important with off-white, light grey or light beige tiles that you choose the grout colour carefully and don’t break up the surface with visible white grout lines. Not to mention another advantage, white grout stains faster than any other colour.
Source: Temza, Netherhall Gardens Project. The tiles blend seamlessly with perfectly coordinated grout.
Another type of diffuser
Mood lighting is a big trend in bathroom interior design, and it’s easy to see why. Nowadays the bathroom isn’t just for keeping yourself presentable. It’s a place to start and end your day, a place for relaxation and unwinding. Having options for different types of lighting enhances the multiple uses, and LED tapes are one of the most popular choices for secondary lighting.
However, with every design feature the essential thing is that once you do it, you must do it right! And when it comes to LED strips, the biggest shortfall is a simple one: not using a diffuser profile. LED tapes are made up of tiny dots of light, and the more dots per meter, the better the quality and the more even the lighting is. To make the light source look even more seamless; however, you need to apply a diffuser profile that helps to diminish the dotted effect further.
So a scent diffuser is not the only type you need for a successful bathroom scheme and refurbishment!
Source . The dotted light effect is due to the lack of diffuser profile
Source: Temza, Exchange House project. Seamless light source in the niches
In line with your expectations
One of our pet peeves at Temza Interior Design Studio (only we call it attention to detail) is misaligned tiling layouts. When specifying tiling for your bathroom interior design, always consider the sizes and imagine how to wall and floor tile will look together. If they happen to be completely different size or format, you won’t be able to align them anyhow properly. In this case, it’s still worth to consider one line in the bathroom that’s significant in terms of the space and have them aligned in at least that line.
However, the problem arises when you do have the same format on the floor and the wall, but for some strange reason, your tiler thought it’s best to forget about how these two surfaces will meet completely. An equally bad practice – in our opinion – is choosing wall and floor tiles that are almost the same size – but not entirely. If these are laid to align, they will eventually become misaligned. Our interior design team are all about the details and proud to say that most of our clients appreciate our approach!
The easiest way to get a good idea of the refurbishment and outcome is by creating detailed bathroom plans and elevations. This way, we can orchestrate all the details and can make sure that we communicate these clearly to the tiler. Our interior designers suggest you do the same on your project!
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