The emphasis of having a single bathroom in a home has been eroded by the presence of en-suite bathrooms and showers in the master bedroom and perhaps many other bedrooms in the typical Irish home. Now a large common bathroom can serve as a relaxation room in which you spend downtime, almost like having home spa indeed. Luxury fittings and therapeutic aids can transform your plain old bathroom to a distinct leisure area in the home.

Bathrooms and kitchens are the two most significant areas of the house because they are the work places of the home. The common denominator in the importance of getting it right in these two rooms is water. You cannot change the layout of a bathroom like you can, say, a living room, which can be totally altered by changing, or moving the furniture and painting the wall a new colour.

When you design your bathroom at the outset considerable thought must be put into it as moving things around in it is not an option. Water inlet and outlet positioning will have to be considered as part of the overall structure of the house. Therefore, it is not practical to move the fixed contents of a bathroom unless you are doing a radical overhaul of the entire house.

If you are building your own home, you, of course, are in a position to design a bespoke bathroom to reflect your own tastes and lifestyle. You can research what is new on the market, what the current design trends are, what is the latest technology that can be incorporated into the bathroom and by dint of hard work and exposure to different ideas come up with a concept that should be your dream bathroom. If you get it wrong, then you have nobody but yourself to blame.

If you are buying a house in a new development you may have some input with the builder during the course of construction as to the layout of your bathroom within the limited parameters that the plan of the house will allow and of course the flexibility of the builder. If you are buying an existing house, you are stuck with the confines of the existing bathroom, but you can replace the bath and the other fixtures with more modern designs should you feel it is necessary.

Most houses built in Ireland now have en-suites of the master bedroom (and in many cases a number, or all, of the bedrooms). In many cases, there is no stand-alone bathroom in modern homes. Where there is, this trend has given rise to the concept of viewing the bathroom as that of leisure and relaxation, rather than one that serves a basic functional hygienic area of the home.

There is a host of luxury items that are available on the market to add a completely new dimension to what was once considered the dullest room in the house. Jacuzzi and whirlpool baths, saunas, steam rooms, music, TV, mood lighting and plants are but some of the accessories and equipment that can turn the experience of visiting your own bathroom akin to that of visiting a spa room in a luxury hotel. Moreover, the journey is only to the top of the stairs!

A creatively designed bathroom can provide a wonderful escape from the hassles and stress of the daily work/living routine and add priceless assets in quality of living and value to your home. It is worth doing the homework in the design of your bathroom.