After the discovery of water damage last summer in our downstairs toilet (the small en suite off my office/the guest room), everything had to be ripped out, stripped back to bare bones and started again. While the timing couldn’t have been worse during a pandemic when we couldn’t let anyone into our home, at least it has given me a good while to decide how I want to design it this time around!

Small en suites and single toilet rooms are a great opportunity to be adventurous with your decor because you do not spend much time in there. The lack of square footage allows you to use strong colours without the concern that they will be overpowering (nor are they a big commitment to a brave decision). You can also choose big, bold patterns, as it is not a space to entertain or relax - it’s a ‘in and then out’ room.

For my own en suite, I required new tiles for the shower enclosure and on the floor. I’d been particularly drawn to the layout of upstanding rectangular tiles (as featured below in some of my favourite tile design schemes), so decided this was the look that I would have in the shower.

For tiles, I headed to the Verde Tiles showroom - an independant tile retailer located not far from me in Bishop’s Stortford. The owner, Brad, is a previous tiler and fitter, so you can guarantee a really knowledgeable service. What I really like about the showroom is that all tiles are laid out for you to touch, move about and moodboard. Showrooms where tiles are just stuck on the wall (so you can’t mix and match with other tiles, lay with your paint sample cards or move about in different lights) do not offer the opportunity for any in depth consideration of your tile choice. That ‘just pick and go’ method can often result in making the wrong decision.

As well as the tiles being upstanding, I really wanted a bit of texture to my tile choice. I didn’t want the tile to be smooth and glossy, so veered towards tiles that had a raised surface.

For the floor, at first I was drawn to real marble herringbone - but then the realisation of the maintenance hit. With a mud-attracting dog (who will get washed down in the en suite shower) and a young family, I quickly realised that my selection of bumpy textured tiles in the shower are not the easiest option to wipe down, and that real marble on the floor will need protection and sealing. Instead, for the floor I went for a marble-like pattern on an easy to maintain porcelain hex tile, and an aged-edge rectangular tile for the shower to give me the rustic look I was after without the bumps.

To bring some visual interest to the rest of the space, I decided that I’m going to panel the bottom half of the walls by installing some modern 3D Orac Decor wall panels. These panels can easily give a ribbed, fluted or slatted effect, and they come pre-primed ready for painting.

With the shower and floor tiles both being white, the panels I want to paint in a really pigmented, deep tone. I’ve been drawn to strong plums, rich purples and lavender tones, and after some deliberation in the paint shop, I purchased four tester colours to try out: Plum Brandy by Paint & Paper Library, Lavender Garden by Mylands, Purple Tulip by Zoffany and Brassica by Farrow & Ball.

I’m still to pick a colour from the four options! However, the real work starts in the en suite next week, so stay tuned for the big reveal shortly.