Remodelling Your Bathroom

Submitted By: Helen Davies

Remodelling your bathroom to improve your home’s saleability is totally different from redesigning it to brighten up the space for you and your family – so you need to decide which approach you want to take before you begin.

Among householders who wish to sell their home, but plan to remodel a couple of rooms before contacting an estate agent, the room at the top of the ‘to-do’ list is very often the bathroom. A beautiful bathroom will make an immediate impact on potential buyers as they view a property, not least because it’s a room where the majority of the fittings will remain when the current owners move out. Fitting out and decorating your bathroom well will therefore make it appeal more widely.

But what is a good style to choose?

Well, it’s generally accepted that fittings should be of good quality, and decor should be neutral. This makes sense, as potential buyers will need to be able to see themselves living in your house – and this is difficult if the current owner’s personality is stamped too heavily on a space.

Advocates of ‘home staging’ also tell us that creating a spacious and clutter-free feel (by removing a lot of your personal items, rearranging your furniture, or even buying or hiring new furniture to make the most of your space) helps to sell a house. People get to see how the house could look with its interior designed and laid out to perfect advantage – even if, from day to day, this ‘sale’ layout actually makes your home harder for you to live in!

Applying this idea to the bathroom leads me onto bathroom furniture. Bathroom cabinets and vanity units provide you with an unrivalled source of bathroom storage space; coordinated fitted or freestanding units bring a wonderfully harmonious look to a room.

So if your bathroom is due for a refit before you try to sell, think about replacing your sanitaryware with bathroom furniture, or adding some coordinated bathroom cabinets to provide storage space and clear your bathroom clutter.

Remember as well to keep your decor neutral. Nothing will let down a tidy and coordinated space like an over personal colour scheme. Maybe you’ve always loved lime green, but it’s not a colour that will appeal widely.

So repaint your walls with good quality bathroom paint in a neutral colour: brilliant white is the staple for bathrooms, as it goes with everything and looks fresh, bright and clean. If your tiled areas are looking a little dingy, give them a good scrub and apply a couple of coats of tile paint, re-establishing the grout lines afterwards with a grout pen.

Don’t spend too much, or you will certainly attract buyers but may not recoup your costs with your eventual selling price. Keeping your plumbing in place and shopping around for the best deals you can find on bathroom furniture will help you to minimise your expenditure.

Of course, if you plan to stay in your home and merely want to refresh your bathroom to suit you and your family, you’ve got much more freedom. Bathroom furniture is still a good idea, as it’s so easy to live with - but your decor can be as personal and imaginative as you wish, and if you have the cash to spend to design a room you’ll adore, there’s no reason to hold back.