Small Bathroom Planning Preparation Checklist

Sketch the room roughly and mark every visible pipe, waste outlet, window, door, switch and radiator before you think about a new arrangement.

This is usually the first thing a designer or installer asks for, and an owner sketch made while the room is intact often captures details that disappear once it is stripped.

Note where the floor is visibly uneven and where walls look out of square, because a tight room shows those faults far more than a generous one.

Panels, screens and units are made square, so an out-of-square room usually means scribing, packing or a filler piece that changes how a layout is set out.

Measure the room in rough terms yourself and record which measurement you are least confident about, so a professional knows what to check first.

Owners often measure the widest point and miss a pipe boxing or a plaster build-up, and flagging your own uncertainty saves an assumption being carried into a drawing.

Write down the ceiling height at its lowest point and note where any slope, beam or boxing eats into the usable space.

Headroom over a bath or shower tray decides whether an enclosure is even worth discussing, and it is easy to overlook when standing in the middle of the room.

Ask a qualified professional what sits inside any boxing or bulkhead before you assume it can be reduced or removed.

Photograph each wall straight on and keep the images with your notes, including the wall behind the open door that people routinely forget.

Photographs answer questions a designer would otherwise have to visit for, and the wall behind the door is often the only place a tall unit could go.

Note which walls are shared with another room, which face outside and which sit against a stair or cupboard, then keep that note with your sketch.

What is on the other side of a wall shapes almost every later discussion about moving a fitting, extracting air or running new pipework.

Ask a qualified professional to establish what role each wall plays before any removal or opening is planned.

Write down which way the door swings and what it touches or blocks when open, including a towel rail, the basin corner or the front of the pan.

A door that clears the room only when nothing is in its arc is the most common reason a small layout has to be redrawn late.

Consider whether an inward door leaves you room to step aside and close it, and note honestly how that feels when you try it now.

Standing space behind a door is rarely shown on a plan, yet it is the first thing an owner notices in daily use.

Note whether the door could be rehung on the other side, and ask what the light switch, wall finish and landing would need if it were.

Rehanging is often raised as a simple fix, but it moves the switch, exposes an unfinished reveal and can block something outside the room.

Ask a qualified electrician what would be involved in relocating a switch before you assume a door can simply be reversed.

Decide and record whether a sliding or outward-opening door is worth discussing, and what it would take away from the landing or corridor outside.

Gaining floor space inside usually takes usable wall away from the space outside, and that trade is easier to accept when it is named early.

Check what happens when the bathroom door and a neighbouring bedroom or cupboard door are open at the same time, and note any clash.

Clashing doors are invisible on a room plan because the neighbouring room is usually drawn on a different sheet.

Note the handle height, the type of lock and anything on the wall that stops the door opening fully, then keep that with your sketch.

Handle and lock choices interact with a narrow reveal or a tiled return, and they are easier to settle before the wall finish is decided.

List the fittings you would like and then mark, honestly, which one you would give up first if the layout cannot hold them all.

A designer working without that order of priority will guess, and the guess is usually the thing you cared about most.

Consider whether losing the bath is something the whole household agrees on, and record any disagreement rather than leaving it unspoken.

Bath removal is the decision most often reversed halfway through, and reversing it after tiling has started is far more disruptive than settling it now.

Write down whether storage matters more to you than a generous basin, since a tight room rarely holds both without one feeling mean.

Naming the priority lets a professional propose a narrower basin with a cupboard, or a wider bowl with open shelving, instead of a bland compromise.

Note whether anyone in the household bathes a small child or washes a pet here, because that often decides the bath question on its own.

Practical uses like these rarely come up in a showroom conversation but they determine whether a shower-only room will be regretted.

Decide and record whether the room must still work with someone else in it, or whether single occupancy at a time is accepted.

Accepting single occupancy frees a designer to use the whole floor, while insisting on two people constrains almost every layout option.

Record the one compromise you would refuse outright, so nobody spends effort developing a layout you already know you will reject.

Stating a firm no early is more useful than a long wish list, and it makes the remaining options genuinely worth reviewing.

Pace out where you actually stand at each fitting and note it on your sketch, because the space in front of a fitting is what makes a room usable.

Plans show outlines, not people, and a layout that fits on paper can still leave nowhere to bend over the basin or step out of a shower.

Ask what clearances the manufacturer and the installer require around each fitting in this room, rather than assuming a catalogue outline is the whole story.

Requirements vary between products and between locations, so this is a question to put to the people supplying and fitting rather than something to settle from a brochure.

Treat clearance and spacing as matters for the manufacturer, the installer and the relevant local requirements to confirm.

Consider whether a shower enclosure door would swing into the only standing space, and note what is left for drying yourself afterwards.

Hinged, sliding and folding doors behave very differently in a tight room, and the difference is usually only obvious once the door is in place.

Write down whether a wall-hung basin or pan is being considered, and ask what the wall behind it would need in order to carry it.

Wall-hung fittings free up floor for cleaning and can make a small room read as larger, but they change what the wall has to do.

Ask a qualified professional what support a wall-hung fitting needs here before choosing one on appearance alone.

Note where a cistern or concealed frame would sit and how much depth it would take from a room that has little to spare.

A concealed cistern usually creates a duct across a whole wall, which can be useful as a shelf or wasteful in lost floor area.

Check whether a bath screen rather than a curtain would still let you reach the taps and clean behind it without moving anything.

Screens look tidier but can turn simple cleaning and tap access into an awkward reach in a narrow room.

Count what is stored in the room today, including the bottles on the floor and the items on the windowsill that never appear on a plan.

A real count turns a vague wish for storage into a measurable requirement a designer can actually solve.

Consider whether a mirrored cabinet is the only realistic place for storage, and note how far it would project over the basin below.

A deep cabinet over a shallow basin is a familiar cause of knocked heads, and the projection is easy to test with a piece of card now.

Write down what must stay out of reach of children or visitors, and where that could realistically live in a room of this size.

If there is no high or lockable place, the answer may be that some items simply stay outside the bathroom.

Note whether cleaning supplies and spare paper need a home inside the room, or can live elsewhere without becoming a daily annoyance.

These are the items that end up on the floor when the plan ignores them, and they are the reason a finished room can look cluttered immediately.

Decide and record whether recessed storage is worth raising, then ask a qualified professional what the wall build-up here would allow.

Recessed niches save projection but depend entirely on what is inside the wall, which is not something to assume from the room side.

Ask a qualified professional what is inside a wall before assuming a recess can be formed in it.

Check whether a towel can hang within reach of both the basin and the shower, which is a common squeeze once everything else is placed.

Reaching a towel from inside a shower is a small daily detail that a plan rarely tests but every user notices.

Note where daylight enters and what a new arrangement would place in front of it, since blocking the window is a common small-room casualty.

Tall units and shower enclosures migrate towards the brightest wall on a plan because it is often the only clear one.

Consider what you see first from the open doorway and record whether you would prefer that to be a basin, a window or something else.

The view from the open door sets the impression of the whole room, and it is one of the few preferences you can settle before anything is chosen.

Write down how large a mirror you want and note what else wants the same wall, such as a light, a cabinet or a shaver point.

Mirror, light and cabinet decisions are usually made separately and then discovered to want the same piece of wall.

Note whether an unbroken floor finish running under wall-hung fittings matters to you, or whether you would rather keep floor-standing units.

A continuous floor tends to make a small room read as larger and is simpler to clean, but it depends on choices made much earlier.

Consider whether largely clear glass matters more to you than the cleaning it will need, and record the answer before a screen is chosen.

Clear glass keeps sightlines open in a tight room but shows every mark, and the trade-off is personal rather than technical.

Note where the existing waste leaves the room and ask what relocating a fitting away from that point would involve here.

Waste position is the single biggest constraint on moving a pan, and it is usually visible or traceable before anything is opened up.

Ask a qualified plumber what moving a waste connection would involve in this room rather than assuming any fitting can move.

Ask a qualified professional whether the water supply arrangement in this home suits the fittings you are considering for this room.

Some fittings depend heavily on how water is supplied, and that is a question for the person who will connect them, not a catalogue.

Treat supply, pressure and system compatibility as questions for a qualified plumber to assess on site.

Discuss with a qualified professional how the room would be ventilated once the layout changes, and what routes are actually available here.

Ventilation depends on where air can go, which is set by the position of external walls, ceilings and any void above.

Ventilation requirements vary locally, so confirm what applies to this room with a qualified professional.

Write down where the existing electrical points are and ask which of them could remain where they are in a new arrangement.

Keeping an existing point is often simpler than moving it, and knowing which ones are movable shapes where a mirror or cabinet can go.

All electrical work in a bathroom is a matter for a qualified electrician and the relevant local requirements.

Note whether a radiator or heated rail has to keep its current position, and ask what moving the pipework would involve in this floor.

Heating pipes usually come up through the floor at a fixed point, and moving them can be simple or disruptive depending on how the floor is built.

Ask what has to be settled before anything is ordered, so a late change does not leave you with a fitting that cannot go back.

In a small room a single substitution can shift every other position, so the ordering sequence matters more than in a generous space.