Ferdinand

Thanks for that. Will edit the post.

Welcome. Nice to see another one from the East Midlands. My nugget: spend the time to build up your own knowledge so you know enough to direct your architect in fulfilling *your* expectations. Otherwise you can end up with your architect's vision, not your own.

Slightly OT, but I have just posted Wickes clearance Table Saws to the offers thread. Edit - shot down in flames by @PeterW and @Barney12. Ignore.

Deleted ... not a good offer. See comment from @PeterW and @Barney12.

This is what I am ending up using for this bathroom: Shower panels for 3 of 4 walls: Multipanel Classic range from AB Building Products. 4 x 4x8 Aqualock panels in Blue Eiger pattern, adhesive, corners, trims and profiles, and silicone. = £650 approx. (Actually £610) Bath 1600 x 850/700 L-Shower bath with Screen from Cheeky Bathrooms: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172603618735 = £265 Taps / Waste Wickes Kuban bath filler: http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Kuban-Bath-Filler-Tap-Chrome/p/209438 = £40 Bath swivel flip plug and overflow: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391493900884 = £22 Cube Chrome Bathroom Basin Sink Mono Mixer Tap & Slotted Sprung Pop Up Waste = £35 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cube-Chrome-Bathroom-Basin-Sink-Mono-Mixer-Tap-Slotted-Sprung-Pop-Up-Waste/332383435828 WHB / Loo Wickes Positano Loo, Cistern, WHB = approx £170 http://www.wickes.co.uk/Products/Bathrooms/Bathroom-Suites/Contemporary-Bathroom-Suites/Positano-Suite/c/1001012 Floor Square of Vinyl from B&Q = approx £25 Cabinet Budget £75 Radiator Budget £50 Actual £38 for 900 x 450mm. Screwfix. Shower Still to be chosen. Likely 9.5kw Electric. Budget £100-125. Actual twin head mixer £80. Other sundries, trims, plumbing bits, silicone etc. Budget = £60 Total = just under £1500 for all materials.

We have that covered. The bath is a little shorter than the room is wide so there will be a return where the taps /shower are, and the panel with the return is a standalone between the door and a corner joint so can be most easily be removed should that prove necessary. Cheers F

Thanks for all the comments on this. F

Wickes clearance for taps and other items. Various lines of tap are in clearance. And other bathroom bits. And other products. Link: http://www.wickes.co.uk/Products/Bathrooms/Bathroom-Clearance/c/1039004 I just picked up a "Kubik bath filler" (ie mixer tap no shower attachment) for £40, down from a previous price of £150+. 10 year guarantee, and hunky-chunky. It seems this has been on for some time and I missed it. What is left is what is left. Though there are a few deliverable, most are collect in store. Useful for cloakrooms utilities where you only need one item. At our local Wickes some bright spark has been through everything and picked out all the matching sets for their stock.

Thanks @Crofter. Interesting idea. I think that would be marketing / perception problem - able-bodied people do not like obviously adapted premises to buy or to rent. For me that would limit my market - which for this premises is likely to be people wanting to send their children to the local school, a young family, singles / dinkies, work from homers, or several kinds of retirees wanting a quiet life and access to services / countryside. I need to cater for potential changes, as it could avoid the £several k cost of a change of tenant. If they buy a disabled-adapted house, quite often the first thing that happens is that obvious adaptations are removed by the purchaser. Wider doors are fine, but an 'inappropriate' (for the non-disabled person's opinions) grab handle or loo could cause an entire bathroom to be redone. We have even flirted with it at the margins on BH with debates about how to hide access ramps or change them later etc. Wasn't there a Scandinavian chap on ebuild who was quite militant that he could ignore the building regs if he wanted to in this area? Plus I have already ordered the bath and it arrives tomorrow . I went for this one. Ferdinand

Cheers @Nickfromwales. Perhaps agree on spares. But this stuff is so pricey that I would prefer not to waste any of it at all. By the time the glue, trims, delivery etc have all been bought (add 40%) it is not far sort of £60 per sqm. Done properly it is worth it, but when I do the conversion I really want to leave what is already in place, in place. I can see a couple of options for my ceilings which are just over 2.4m high: 1 - Fit sheets horizontally (8x4 then an 8x2) and leave exactly the right amount to add an extra 8x2 sheet around the bottom - which would work either as a pattern match, or as (potentially) a contrast eg up to knee height in the shower in pure white or dark blue, or as the background tone from the rest. Not sure about fitting a single run of 8x4m above the bath to give a waterproof cover up to 1.85m. is that enough? 2 - Fit 8x4 or 8x2 sheets vertically, but cut very carefully, and keep the offcuts for fitting later should it need to turn into a shower. I will need to think carefully about interlocking and butt-joints, and which ones are more appropriate and reliable in that situation. Costs are interesting - I can find ways to cut that 60 per sqm to about 45-50 by playing with order volume and careful design, but not much below that as it is a commodity + trims product. But even on a tiny bathroom like this that is £100+ now and much more when converting to a shower. The 8x3 sheets are exactly the same price as the 8x4 sheets, and Hydolock adds just under 10% over flat edge and loses a smidge of board size. Ferdinand

OK have checked. The tech people at AB Building Products say that they can be installed horizontally. The Hydro Lock tongue and groove joint would need orientating so that the joint would tend to let water out into the shower rather than the other way. This is a cross-section, so it is not absolutely clear which way the orientation should go. Hmm. F

@Nickfromwales Could you elucidate on that, please, Nick? To you mean have the panels arranged horizontally and arrange the bath height such that an extra can be infilled at the bottom? Or have I got the other end of a different stick? The shower and bath would be identical footprints. AB Multipanels are available in a 2ft version and since it used a tongue and groove "Hydro-Lock" joint then provided the orientation is correct a horizontal joint should be effective. But I can see that being less effective than vertical joints. Ferdinand

Note these are Grant Westfield multipanels not AB Multipanels - AB Building Products are a large distributor in the South West. See this post. I am planning to use the AB Multipanels to line my bath alcove in the Little Brown Bungalow. So far, so good. However, I may want to adapt it to be a shower in say 10 years, and that the price of the panels is quite high at £145 or so for an 8x4 in the standard finishes before you even start getting into trims and fixings. I only need 3 but that will be perhaps 1/3 of the cost of the (reasonably posh) bathroom. Is there any reason why I cannot fit full height uncut panels such that later on the bath can simply be hoicked out and a suitably sized shower installed - eg if a tenant can no longer climb into the bath? Considerations are: Sealing the bath to the panels in a way which is suitable, and can be removed later. Given that both are rigid this should be possible. Installing the shower over the bath now in a way that will not require changes later. Detailing the bottom edge of the panels - probably involving having them a suitable distance off the floor now to allow for a shower tray later. Comments are welcome. Ferdinand

I do not think you have enough circulation space round the island in the kitchen. The walkways appear to be about 750-800mm wide - imo you really want enough for 2 people to go past each other carrying things, otherwise you end up playing roundabouts. Wider circulation also means that you have room to stand things without substantially blocking the route should you need eg kitchen bin or trolley. While considering flipping the stairs to the RHS, see what can be done by making the kitchen about 1m wider in the space created. For the island consider orienting it more square or "landscape" in those plans, with a breakfast bar or similar on the lounge side. Align the side of the island with the edge of the hall doorway, such that the stools are out of sight under an overhang while not in use and using the 'corridor' when pulled out. Use the space gained to get more circulation around the island - imo it needs an absolute min of 1m width, 1.2m is better and 1.5m is ideal. F

This is not a shed. It is an ONOFF shed, whatever that means. @Onoff Plan half-B may be to stand the ends in a bucket of 5star for an hour to protect the end grain, as that is where rot could start, and paint or spray the boards themselves. Ferdinand

If looking at uPVC one thing I would examine is the Frame Factor, and whether that will have an impact on the amount of light that comes in. Frame Factor = area of opening taken up by window frame and bars, which I have seen expressed as eg 0.75. If one is say 0.7 and the other 0.8 based on your size of windows, that is quite a difference. Mine at home are around 0.8, but I will post a piccie later of a house that I think has probably suffered from replacement windows with thick frames and window bars. It is dead easy to calculate. I think comparative prices may also be signficant. How much more will you spend on one over the other if they are comparable in performance? If you enviroment is noisy, then that *might* argue for Option 1. Ferdinand

Don't know. Checked with my Agricultural Merchant when I bought some fenceposts last w/e and he does stock creosote, so it is out there. F

Thanks. In the end I went for a bath from Cheeky Bathrooms, off Ebay, and the Positano range of loo / sink / cistern from Wickes, which are on discount.

Wickes currently have 3 for 2 deals on roll insulation. http://www.wickes.co.uk/Products/Building-Materials/Insulation/Loft-Insulation/c/1000270

it will swallow a *lot* of fivestar. I treated some CLS used as part of a shed in a bath made from a square of fenceposts and roll polythene, and the amount it sucked in in was amazing. Multiple 5 litre cans can vanish very quickly, and then you have spent perhaps £80-100 on preservative. F

Can he soak-treat them? That would use a lot of treatment, mind.

Good price. Last time I was thinking about poweflushing a very small house it would be 400-600, and it was less than 1k to replace all the pipes and rads so I did that instead.

I think that is probably weasel words to get out of some legal duty or other. My Wickes cashcard says for personal use only, but they have never stopped me stacking it with a Trade Discount.

Cheers. I tend to run a mile where my purchases have to pay for lots of TV adverts :-). Although Victoria Plum seem to specialise in baths of either 1500mm or 1700mm size.

So are Victoria Plum OK?