The thought of planning a new bathroom installation can be off-putting for a lot of people, but if the correct planning sequence is employed, it can be exciting and a fun exprerience as your plans all come together.

In many UK homes, it's common for the bathroom to be the 'littlest' room in the house or flat, so careful planning at the outset will pay dividends when it comes to fitting everything you need into the space available.

Here are some handy hints which may look obvious, but which are often overlooked at the beginning of a new bathroom project and which can prove costly to overcome halfway through:

• Allow for enough space for everything including the doors, cupboards and windows to open.
• Allow enough headroom for standing and sitting, getting into and out of the bath or shower, especially wherer a sloping roof is involved.
• If you're planning to replace an outdated bathroom suite but don't intend to change the basic layout, try and replace the original items with new sanitaryware of the same dimensions. It will save a lot of time and money if the new basin, bath, bidet, shower and lavatory can be easlily connected to the existing plumbing systems. Pilkington's can help you at every stage.

• Consider how space-saving storage areas can be built into your new bathroom, with shelving, niches, under/over storage or cupboards fitted into new stud walling hiding a cistern for example.
• As bathrooms are often the smallest room within a property, many in old houses have very high ceilings in relation to the floor area. This can give the feeling of being in a tall box. A lower false ceiling with subtle lighting fitted, can make the whole room feel much more inviting and cosy.
• If you have an existing good quality bathroom with a suite in good condition, but looking dated, perhaps a change of fixtures and fittings, could be the answer, new taps, handrails, tiling, ligthing and flooring can make a tired but sound bathroom, look like it's brand new.
• Most bathroom ventilation is provided by opening windows in an external wall thus allowing natural ventilation. However, more and more bathrooms such as en suite's don't have access to an external wall. Under these circumstances, it is essential the adequate forced ventilation is installed normally using an extractor fan system.
• Make sure your ventilation system is adequate for the size of your bathroom or toilet. Ventilation systems have to be capable of performing a specific number of air-changes within an hour. 20 air-changes per hour for a bathroom and 15 changes per hour for a lavatory or toilet are the standard. Calculating the cubic volumn of your bathroom (height x width x length) will enable you to choose the ventilation system correctly.
• Fitting grab-handles or hand-rails to walls and fixtures will make bathrooms safer for disabled or elderly people. Bathroom floors should be non-slip even when wet. For example, fixtures and fittings such as mirrors, shelving and towel rails should be useable from a wheelchair if the bathroom is to be used by a disabled person. For the elderly, grab-rails close to the W.C. and a walk-in bath or shower with a shower-chair can make using the bathroom must easier and safer them.

Decorating & Fixtures & Fittings

• The modern choice nowadays is to use neutral colour schemes, thus making the updating of a bathroom easier.
• The tiling in a bathroom offers an attractive, durable, easy to clean and maintain surface. Whether it's just a simple splash back for a basin or bath, part tiling, or full floor to ceiling tiling, the range of ceramic and porcelain tile designs on the market is mind-boggling. Also, coloured tile grout can give your new bathroom a stylish and individual look instead of just using plain white grouting.
• Using the correct tile adhesive is an important factor to remember, so as to ensure that the tiles remain securely fixed to the wall and stay water-proof. Using the correct grout is also important in not allowing ingress of water and leaks into walls and floors.
• Only tile onto clean, properly sealed and dry plaster & ciment render, or existing soundly fixed ceramic or porcelain tiles. Never tile onto papered or painted surfaces - the tiles may well fall off!
• When tiling use tile spacers to achieve a uniform grouting joint between each tile. Use a grout rubbing in tool or a stick to achieve an even and consisten grouting finish.
• Remember, electricity in the bathroom can be dangerous. Use pull cords for lights and safety sockets designed for bathroom use inside the bathroom itself. If using a mobile electric convection or fan-heater in a bathroom to take the chill off in early spring or late autumn, make sure it's suitable for bathroom use.

Plumbing & Lighting

• Allow sufficient space for hot & cold water feeds to the bath, basin or sink, bidet, WC and shower.
• Allow sufficient space for soil pipes to have the correct angle of fall to allow waste water to drain at an adequate rate.
• If installing a lavatory, toilet or W.C., but space is tight for a full-bore waste pipe, consider installing a maceration system. It will allow the use of small-bore waste pipes thus saving valuable space.
• A cold bathroom isn't a very inviting prospect! So, it's important to consider how you intend to heat it. If there's not enough room for both a radiator and a heated towel-rail, a larger heated towel rail should provide enough warmth to make the bathroom comfortable - and dry the towels too. Alternatively, electric heating (often hidden) specifically for a bathroom can be a good alternative.
• When deciding where to place a radiator or heated towel rail to an existing central heating system, make sure that it's postion can actually be physically connected to the system. Also, make sure the heating system can handle the extra load (bearing in mind that a new bathroom will place an additional load on a boiler - just for the extra hot water demanded).
• If boxing in unsightly hot & cold water and soil waste pipes, don't forget to allow a method of accessing them for maintenance or additional connections in the future. It could save you a lot of time and money in making good.
• Don't forget to insulate your new plumbing - particularly if boxed-in on an external wall!