When this customer first came into the TABO showroom, he wasn't looking for advice on layout or fittings. He was looking for tiles. That's not how most projects start, and it shaped almost everything about how this Wavendon Gate en-suite came together. No design brief, no measurements, just a man who knew a good pattern when he saw one.
Richard Cleere from RJC Property Maintenance carried out the fit. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Richard's own bathroom in Furzton featured on our last blog post, in Two Points Of View, One Bathroom: A Furzton Renovation. That project was Richard fitting his own home. This time round, it's a customer's bathroom rather than his own.
Can you design a bathroom around a tile you already love?
Normally a TABO project starts with a site visit and a design plan, then the products get chosen to fit that plan. This one ran the other way. The customer came into the showroom before anyone had even measured his bathroom, had a look around, and fell for the Greenway Teal floor tile from Original Style's Odyssey collection. Once that decision was made, the rest of the design was built around it rather than the tile being slotted in at the end.
It's a floral, geometric pattern in soft teal and grey on a chalk white base, and it's easy to see why it stopped him in his tracks. The walk-in shower picks up on the same restrained palette, with the smooth, glossy Kent Sea Gloss tile from Porcelanosa running up the walls in a soft grey-green, while the vanity wall behind the sink is finished in Sensi Roma White from ABK, a large-format porcelain with a travertine look that adds warmth under the backlit mirror.
What do you do with a sloped ceiling in a small en-suite?
This is a room with a sloped ceiling, which immediately rules out anything tall going along that wall (unless you fancy a lot of head-ducking every morning). Rather than treat it as dead space, fitted storage from Deuco's Cashmere Gloss range was built right along the back wall underneath the slope, making use of every inch that would otherwise have gone to waste. Tight on space, not on style, as they say, and it's the kind of detail that makes a small en-suite feel properly planned rather than squeezed in.
Heat comes from a chrome towel rail in Eastbrook's Wendover range, tucked in alongside the storage where it earns its keep without taking up any more space than it needs to.
Why a sliding door instead of a wetroom panel?
Most TABO shower projects lately have leaned towards a simple wetroom panel, just a single piece of glass with a support bar. It's the option most customers ask for, since there's less to clean, less to go wrong, and it keeps things minimal (and there's less chance of trapping a towel in a door hinge at 7am)!
This en-suite couldn't work that way. The shower tray wasn't wide enough to leave a proper gap for a wetroom panel on its own, and there wasn't enough room for a hinged or pivot door to swing open either. The answer was a sliding door instead, specified from Bathrooms to Love, which slides along the same plane as the shower rather than swinging outward. A well-specified sliding door holds its own against a wetroom panel too, giving a similarly sleek look while solving a problem a panel couldn't in this space.
Why a short projection pan for this en-suite?
Even the toilet was chosen with the size of the room in mind. It's the Amyris short projection back-to-wall pan with a soft-close seat, again from Bathrooms to Love, a shorter version of the standard pan built for exactly this kind of compact en-suite. In a room this size, those few extra centimetres of floor space make a genuine difference.
Where do you start if you're planning a new bathroom in Milton Keynes?
Every project like this starts with a proper bathroom design service, whether the tiles are chosen first or last. TABO's in-house design team puts together full plans and elevations, right down to radiator dimensions, valve positions, and exact tile layouts, so a fitter knows precisely what they're working towards before a single tile goes up. That level of detail is what turns a vague idea into a bathroom that actually works for the space, especially in an awkward room like this one, with its sloped ceiling and tight shower footprint.
During the install, TABO stays on hand for any questions that come up on site, so a fitter isn't left waiting on an answer or guessing at a spec. Richard, the fitter, brought this customer to TABO himself, and that's how a lot of these projects start. Plenty of independent fitters have a good working relationship with TABO and point their own customers here for design and supply, safe in the knowledge that Genna and the team will handle the planning properly and stay on hand throughout the fit. Customers without a fitter of their own are welcome too, and TABO can recommend a trusted local one if needed. Either way, there's one point of contact for the design and the products, which keeps things simple for everyone involved, from first sketch through to the finished room.
This was the first bathroom TABO designed and supplied for this customer, and he's since come back for further rooms in the same house, which speaks for itself. That kind of repeat trust is exactly what the design and supply service is built around: get the plan right the first time, and customers keep coming back for the next room.
TABO's Milton Keynes showroom at Waterside Park is open for anyone who wants to see tiles, furniture, and fittings in person before committing, which is exactly how this project started. The team works with customers across Milton Keynes and beyond, covering Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire, with projects as far afield as Luton and Aylesbury, whether that's a full bathroom renovation, an en-suite refresh, or a straightforward supply-only order for a trusted fitter to install.
If you're weighing up a similar project, the TABO blog has more real bathroom transformations to browse, including the Furzton renovation this one ties back to. You can also see what past customers think on Trustpilot. If you're planning something similar, get in touch to talk through your options, whether you already know exactly which tile you love or you're starting with a completely blank page (we don't mind either way, honestly).
