'It's a luxurious look ON A BUDGET'

Inspired by the glamorous interiors at a Dubai hotel, Kopal Jaitly turned her bland bathroom into something special

Manav and I moved from our previous terraced house as we wanted more space for our visiting family from India, who often stay for a month at a time,’ says Kopal.

‘On the surface, this semi-detached house looked fine as all the rooms had been decorated white, but after we moved in, we discovered it wasn’t in such great condition. We were a little naïve! We’d lived in a new building before and had no renovation experience, so didn’t know the warning signs to look out for.

SLEEK FINISH 'Using the marble-effect tiles up to the ceiling and along the bath gives a seamless look'

Starting out

We discovered both bathrooms had poor water pressure – something we hadn’t noticed when doing the viewings as it hadn’t occurred to us to turn on the taps. The problem was down to narrow pipes and the water tank in the loft, and although we decided to make do at the time as I wanted to tackle the kitchen first, when the bath began to leak in May 2021, we were forced to make the bathroom our priority.

First, we replaced the pipes and installed a powerful Megaflo heating system to improve the water pressure. Then we had a DIY shop design our floorplan, as we wanted to work with a company that could manage the installation, too. Manav was keen to have a separate shower and although the DIY shop managed to fit everything into the layout, the design looked like it would feel cramped and their quote was expensive.

Choosing the look