Design Details: The Family Bathroom

Part 4 of a midweek series where I plan to go through every room in my home to work out why the space works and explain what I've done.

Wherever we have lived, our family bathroom has always been a place of hell, a place where my family seem to forget the basic rules of how to hang a wet towel, the logistics of putting the toilet paper on the toilet roll holder or even how to manage a vague swish around of the sink after using. As my children have got older, this inability to treat the space as they should do has sunk even lower on the scale of cleanliness. Razors (and the ‘shavings’ left on the worktop), toothpaste debris, fake tan (both applicators and mitts) and discarded feminine hygiene plastic sleeves live comfortably alongside multiple discarded towels (why use it more than once when you can grab a clean one?), endless shampoo, conditioner and body wash bottles with the lids left off and a rattan washing basket. Which is not, of course, used. Because why would you put your dirty clothes INSIDE the wash basket when you can chuck them on the floor NEXT to it? Sigh.

One of the reasons that we bought our house was that it was perfectly laid out for our family. At the top of the staircase, the landing divides - to one side is the primary bedroom (ours) with en suite bathroom. Go the other way and the landing narrows leading to three bedrooms and a shared bathroom. I have never been one for en suites, as I’ve mentioned before. I would far rather a really good separate bathroom than squeezing in something cramped and taking space from a bedroom. The shared bathroom was a beige delight, with a double storage cupboard to the left and a bath with a shower over, a toilet and a sink to the right. It was perfectly fine, but my kids are shower fiends and it wasn’t really doing the job.