Appliance of bathroom science for that ideal room

In most houses the chance to create a ‘showroom’ bathroom is often limited by space, the majority of people only change this room because of it’s colour or the layout is not suitable to their daily needs.

An average bathroom will have a bath, basin, pedestal and toilet, the positioning of which can rarely be altered without additional expense.

So to create a bathroom with design and flair you have to use some of the new specialist products that manufacturers have introduced that can help homeowners make their bathrooms more adapted to their needs …….. often without great expense.

One of the most significant change has been with showers. Aqualisa, based in Westerham, Kent, are probably the market leaders in digital showers. Their introduction of exposed digital powered showers, which can be retro fitted over baths, has provided customers with a great showering experience without lots of additional pipework and labour. The beauty of digital showers is that compared to traditional showers where the valves are built into the wall, these digital showers have a processor, which controls the water temperature and flow rate, and they are installed either in the loft space or the airing cupboard, thereby reducing disruption to the bathroom and making any maintenance incredibly easy, and they come with a 5 year warranty, Aqualisa defiantly are standing by their products.

Another change has been the number of shower enclosures designed to replace a bath; you can have an enclosure that takes up the footprint of the existing bath. However, not every bathroom can accommodate this, so there are alternatives that provide you with plenty of space - from rectangular enclosures to P shaped enclosures that give you a large showering area but with small overall dimensions.

To add a little personal flair in bathrooms more companies are now offering bespoke tile solutions where you choose your field tile and then have the tile cut to take a mosaic insert thereby ensuring your tile finish is unique to you.

Also new to the market has been the arrival of shower bath. Originally developed by Ideal Standard the design has been modified and many manufacturers have created many different-shaped baths that double up as baths with a generous shower area. But do be careful there are a number of baths that are good shower areas but are not very comfortable baths. One of the best is the Arco by Pura, which offers you the best of both worlds.

So if you want to update your bathroom, visit a local showroom and talk to an adviser who understand your needs - and can solve your problems.

Save time on cleaning bathrooms

Dry-treat have introduced a water repellent which is suitable for use on bathroom grout and makes it easier to keep clean as it repels the water and so the grime that is in the water, making cleaning the bathrooms so much easier. The product is so adaptable that it can be used on a number of stone surfaces from outside patios to granite worktops enabling the cleaning of all these products to be so much easier. Dry-Treat-Sealer
In the 25 years I have been in business I have never been so impressed as I am with this product and we are using is as a standard feature on all our new projects. If applied by accredited applicators you will receive a 15 year warranty against staining, that is an unbelievable deal and one I will provide all my customers.Look at their website to see for yourself what this multinational company has achieved.World leaders in impregnating sealers

Technology and the Home Improvement business

Has the Internet killed the retail outlets? Are any of us able to compete with firms selling boxes on the Internet at stupid profit margins? At a time when money is very important and people want to achieve the best value of money for the goods they purchase, the Internet and all its selling sites; Internet traders and sites like Ebay have their place and we will never be able to compete on a like for like basis. But do we want to compete? I do not want to work for silly margins and rely on quantity sales to reach my break even figures. I, like many retailers, provide a service, I provide a place where people can touch the goods, where they get free face to face advice and where they only part with money when the goods are known to be in stock.
So back to my original question can we compete with the Internet, on price the answer is always no, but on service always, hands down. Support your local retailers buy locally and buy a local service.

Bathroom colours over the last 20 years

Having traded since 1987 MBK has a history of bathroom design in the suites sold to clients over those years. In the late eighties and early nineties, people were ripping out suites in the glorious colours of Penthouse Red, Avocado, Bahamas Beige, Pampas and Primrose and replacing them with the pastel shades of Pink, Ivory, peach and whisper cream, white was only sold with traditional suites. In the late nineties and early 21st century we rarely see a coloured suite, all the colour is in the accessories, the tiles, the flooring and designer radiators, gone are gold taps and chrome and white rule the roost. But we are advised Black is the colour, not sure I agree on my past experience with dark colours they are so difficult to keep clean, when did you last see a dirty white car? We will see but white is the colour available and now the interest is centred on the taps and more money is spent on the brassware than in some cases the pottery.