Someone once told me, if you can’t afford to renovate the bathroom and kitchen, don’t buy the place. These two rooms are the most costly to change as they involve electricity, plumbing and other labour costs. When considering renovating the bathroom, look around to see what you can live with or keep to reduce the budget. Unfortunately, our Berlin bathroom was strangely laid out, had poor cabinets and a classic European tiny bath/shower unit. We decided to renovate the whole lot.
Budget
Some key advice we received was to reduce the number of tiles where we could, try to not move the plumbing as this is a major expense, go for a mid-range for taps to ensure quality and look for bargains and discounts. Don’t forget to factor in the old bathroom removals and how/where to take the old furniture. Also, understand that a major cost is the actual labour – always add about a 1/4 of your total budget just to have some stretch money – you will need it!
Layout & Space
We chose to stick with our basic layout but to change the cabinets. The toilet is in a tiny separate room which is actually good Feng Shui and it is also behind the door. Feng Shui tip: ideally, you shouldn’t be able to see the toilet as soon as you walk in to a room as the feature. Not being bath people and with a shortage of space, we chose to go for a walk-in shower space. The sink remained as is but we budgeted for adding pipes through to the next wall where there was a strange storage area. This would become our laundry.
Electrician and Plumber
We booked both even before we started. With a shortage of tradespeople wherever we have lived, a lesson learnt was to schedule them in and work the rest of the renovation around them. Take their quotes with a pinch of salt – this is where your stretch money will be used as there is always an issue found along the way. We had quotes from both and, of course, discovered the walls were curved and the plumbing needed more pipes than they thought – but we did discover we have floor heating!
Bath or Shower, Shower or Bath or Both?
I have had baths and showers and the classic climb in bath/shower as well. I have always blessed the person who invented the shower, it has amazing effects after a long flight, for sore shoulder muscles and a feeling of washing everything away. I have friends who love sinking in to a bath and relaxing but this is not for us. With our Southern Hemisphere background, we are used to taking a quick shower and moving forward.
In Berlin, we chose to buy the largest shower base we could fit to have space to move. We wanted to reduce the glass cleaning as we live in a country with water that builds up calcification. A rainforest shower head was chosen with a second hand-held shower head which is great for cleaning.
Sinks and Vanity Unit
We spent far too many hours visiting every showroom we could find and were totally uninspired by the standard sinks and cabinets which also seemed to be incredibly expensive. I would have loved to put a vintage cabinet in there but the plumber advised against it as the wood and top are not prepped for mould, water and the humidity of a bathroom. I googled and surprisingly, found a vintage style vanity unit with drawers in IKEA of all places. We bought it, the large mirror, drawer inserts and vintage tap within 30 minutes. IKEA building tip: for some reason, I am not to bad at putting IKEA furniture together – give or take a bit of force needed, I had to help the plumber who seemed to become stupid when faced with the IKEA instructions even though in German. I am a diagram follower and literally check all the pieces before and follow the picture exactly.
Storage
Consider how many people are going to use the room and how often. If it is the main room, will children use it, does a shower seat need to be considered. In the past, I have used trolleys for towels, baskets, boxes, hooks and floating shelves for storage. The selected vanity unit has two big drawers and we also bought a vintage looking railway rack to put the towels on which adds a softness to the toilet area.
Toilet
Try to keep it behind the door. This can be expensive to replace but it was in the budget and a discounted unit was found in a local DIY store I feel we live in – Bahaus.
Heating & Ventilation
If the bathroom has windows, that is great but often within apartments the bathroom has internal walls. It is important to ensure the room is well ventilated to reduce the chance of mould. Heating is also important, we kept the original heating rail as they are costly. It keeps the bathroom warm and helps dry out any humidity.
Accessories & Mirrors
Choose accessories that soften the tiling and vanity unit. If you are interested in Feng Shui, check out the Bagua Map to select colours and elements for the area it is placed in.
