A Quick and Easy Guide to Shopping for Cloakroom Bathroom Furniture
If you’re on the lookout for items to refurbish your cloakroom bathroom, chances are you don’t need me to tell you that the items you buy have to be small. The one defining feature of most cloakrooms is size – or lack of it. There’s a wide range of bathroom furniture out there that could be perfect for your cloakroom refit, though, so you don’t have to be stuck in a world of tiny wall hung basins and corner toilets unless you want to be.
So, my top tips when shopping for cloakroom furniture are…
1. Measure carefully: The items you buy have to fit in your space, so make sure that the furniture measurements and the bathroom measurements match up. Remember as well that you need sufficient ‘user access space’ for each item you buy. Ideally this is 60cm in front of a basin and toilet; if you opt for less you’ll find you do feel cramped in. Better to buy smaller bathroom furniture and enhance the space you have in between items than to squeeze bigger items in and have them feel cramped up.
2. Think about functionality: Ideally, you want all your bathroom furniture to serve at least two functions. This is something that most bathroom furniture does pretty well – vanity units support a basin and work surface and provide under basin storage space, a mirrored cabinet will provide storage and light and space enhancing reflective properties. Look out of items that offer you a solution to more than one of your bathroom ‘asks’, so that you really get your money’s worth from the pieces you buy.
3. Employ trickery: If you don’t believe a range of bathroom furniture can work magic, just try this. Look at two equally sized bathroom displays in your local bathroom showroom. One display should have floor standing bathroom furniture, the other wall hung pieces. You’ll find, every time, that the wall hung bathroom furniture tricks you into believing that the space you’re looking at is bigger – just because your eye can see a slightly larger floor area. Doesn’t matter if it’s a marginal difference – this is a trick you want to employ in your cloakroom.
4. Employ trickery part two: To further enhance a small space, think about opting for a mirrored cabinet or two, as it’s both surprising and gratifying to see how great an effect a mirror can have on the apparent size of a room. Place your mirrored cabinet at one end of the room where it can reflect the full length of the room, making the space feel huge, or put it opposite a window where it will reflect light around the room and bring some of the natural world from outside to inside.
Once all of your essential bathroom paraphernalia is cleared away from surfaces and tidied into your new cupboards and drawers, you’ll find that your bathroom furniture has helped to make your cloakroom bathroom both look and feel significantly more spacious.
