Function vs design.

Bathrooms have changed from being merely functional to being fashion and design driven. One reason for this is that there are a lot more women in management positions in sanitary ware companies. Even five years ago the industry was completely male dominated. When couples come into the showroom most men will ask what a product does and women will say that they don't care about function, they want something that looks good.

Think glass

If you want to give your bathroom a complete new look but don't want to rip everything out, put in a glass basin. Glass has had a huge impact on bathrooms recently and comes in various colours and finishes such as sandblasted and crushed ice. Small glass bowls are great in tiny apartments where they don't take up much space, don't require a pedestal but look stylish. You can also give your bathroom a contemporary look by adding wooden products such as bath panels. Wenge is the latest wood. Glass and wooden handles can add to the simplest of basins and baths and are another way you can update a bathroom if you're on a budget. Taps and shower fittings are predominantly in chrome now with satin finishes starting to filter through while gold colours are fading fast.

Changing trends

Be aware that bathroom trends will change and glass will probably last for around five years. Following trends is a completely new concept for the bathroom industry. Traditional styles, which have been with us for years, are coming to the end of their lifespan, especially in urban areas, and the European influence is huge. The big bathroom fair at Bologna, Italy, shows all the latest products and it used to take a year or two to filter through to Ireland but it is happening more quickly now. Awareness is tremendous and is partly due to the Internet and television.

Euro colour

Sanitary ware in the main is still completely white in Ireland but in Europe soft colours are coming back although I think it will take a while before they get here and we adapt to it.

Hot acrylic

If you want your bath to stay hotter for longer consider products such as acrylic or Ficore. Ficore is a new material which was developed solely for baths so it has dedicated properties and comes in almost any colour. Other new bath materials include glass, wood, stainless steel and Corian.

Get a copy

There are designer ranges created by the likes of Starck, FA Porsche and Michael Graves and new designs are copied by cheaper brands. Vola (from Denmark) is one of the most imitated brands in the world.

Spend on the shower

It is worth spending a large tranche of your budget on the shower. Look closely at the shower and carefully check its quality. Test the door to see how smooth the mechanism is especially on curved doors. Roller doors are supposed to glide and open and close with a heavy clunk. Cheaper ones will judder and clink rather than clunk. so you're never sure if they're fully open or closed. It is worth paying a lot for the shower enclosure because it gets so much more abuse than anything else in the room. Go for the biggest shower you can, the minimum comfortable size is 90cm and sizes up to 140cm are readily available. Showers are progressing towards bigger enclosures and more imaginative shapes and the choice has become fantastic.

Electric en suite

If you have an en suite, you may consider an electric shower in it, as a cheaper option, while having a standard shower in the main bathroom. However they do still tend to comprise white plastic boxes that are not aesthetically pleasing.

Hang it on the wall

To create a feeling of space in a small bathroom you should put in wall-hung products. The lack of pedestals and cisterns makes a huge difference.

Don't rush in

When buying products for your bathroom, you need to keep everything in proportion, if you rush out and buy, say, a large basin you may find that the only lavatory which will fit has to be tiny and totally disproportionate. Remember, too, to design a space for your towel rail and radiator unless you opt for underfloor heating.

Shapely number

You no longer have to design your bathroom around a standard 5ft 6in bath as the choice of shapes and sizes is huge. One recent customer from Dublin specified a corner bath with a seat at each end. In the past, manufacturers would often make baths to complement the rest of the sanitary ware in a suite but now there are bath manufacturers who make nothing else so they concentrate solely on design.

Storage

Storage is crucial in bathrooms. Free-standing units on castors are the latest trend. Everything can be wheeled from the shower to bath, basin and bedroom without having to transport the contents individually. With women being more involved in bathroom design they are very aware of what items they want hidden and what they want on show and there is an increasing range of storage systems to reflect that.

Helen Scott is a director of The Yard bathroom centre, Belfast. Telephone: 048-90405600