Victorian terraces have plenty going for them. High ceilings, sash windows, solid brick walls. What they don't always have is a bathroom layout that makes sense in 2026. This project on a Victorian street in Wolverton started with a separate toilet, a bathroom next door to it and a boiler cupboard taking up one corner. It finished as a single bathroom with a freestanding bath, a walk-in wetroom shower and enough brushed brass to make a Victorian plumber feel right at home.
The customer came to us knowing two things: he wanted a wetroom, and he wanted the room to suit the age of the house. Everything else came together through our design service, from a visit to our Old Wolverton showroom, just down the road, to a home measure and a set of designs that took him all the way to the finished room.
What was the bathroom like before?
Originally, this was two rooms. The toilet sat in its own small room, separated from the rest of the bathroom by a partition wall. Separate toilets were a popular arrangement for years, and there's a certain logic to it: nobody gets stranded on the landing because someone else is halfway through a long soak. These days, though, most people would rather have one generous room than two small ones, and that's exactly what happened here. The wall came down and the two spaces became one.
The bathroom side had its own quirks. The old bath sat near the window, with the basin next to it, and the corner where the shower now stands was taken up by a large cupboard housing the boiler. Moving the boiler upstairs freed up that corner completely, so the wall could be pulled back and straightened. That straight wall is what the new shower sits against, and without it the walk-in layout wouldn't have worked nearly as well.
One thing stayed put. The WC stayed exactly where it was, and our designer Genna planned the rest of the room around it. Keeping a toilet where the soil pipe already runs is one of the simplest ways to avoid extra work (and extra cost) in any bathroom refit.
How did the design come together?
The customer started with a visit to our showroom, where he chose his wall and floor tiles and the taps and fittings he liked. Genna then visited the house to take measurements and pulled everything together into a set of designs, using the products he'd picked.
Those designs were refined along the way, and he ended up sourcing all his tiles and bathroom products from us. He summed up the whole process in a review he left us on Google:
"Earlier this year I visited TABO to get some ideas on what my bathroom could look like. I wanted a wetroom and was able to choose floor and wall tiles from the extensive range. Genna visited my house and took measurements and supplied a number of designs using the tiles I had chosen. This was refined and I ended up getting all my bathroom hardware & tiles from TABO. Many thanks to TABO for helping me through the process."
Set the render beside the photo of the finished room and it's hard to tell where the design ends and the real bathroom begins. The freestanding bath, the green vanity, the brass shower, the towel rails and the half-height tiling are all exactly where the drawing put them. One finishing touch did come in later on: the recessed shower niche, which we'll come back to shortly.
That's the real value of seeing a room before it's built. Decisions like where the bath taps go, how high the tiling runs and how much room the shower glass leaves around the vanity are much easier to make on a screen than halfway through a fit.
Why choose a wetroom tray instead of a standard shower tray?
The walk-in shower uses a One-Deck wetroom tray from Wetroom Innovations. Unlike a standard shower tray, it sits underneath the floor tiles, with a gentle slope built in so water runs towards a linear drain at the back. Once it's tiled over, you can't see it at all. The floor tiles carry straight on from the bathroom into the shower, and the only clue is a slim strip of brushed brass where the drain sits.
For this customer, it was mostly about the look. A wetroom floor is more minimalist than a tray, and you can walk straight in without stepping over anything. There's a practical side too. With no lip to step over, a wetroom floor is ideal for accessibility in later life. It's the kind of feature that looks good now and quietly becomes very useful later.
Is a wetroom floor likely to leak?
Before any tiles go down, the floor and the wet area around it are painted with a tanking system, which forms a continuous waterproof layer underneath everything. So even with the tray hidden from view, any water that finds its way through the grout can't reach the floor below. It's no different to the heating pipework running through your walls and floors: most of what keeps a house working is out of sight.
Where should a shower niche go?
The recessed shower niche is in brushed brass, which ties in with the riser, the drain and the glass panel's support bar. A ready-made niche like this has two advantages over one built from scratch. It's easier for the fitter, because there are no fiddly tile cuts to line up around the opening, and the metal frame makes a feature of it, giving a nice contrast against the glossy green tiles.
Position matters more than you might think. A niche is there to hold your shampoo and shower gel, so it needs to be at a comfortable height: not so low that you're bending down, and not so high that you're reaching up. Here it sits in the corner of the shower, rather than behind the riser pole, so everything stays within easy reach without anything getting in the way. And it looks smart, too!
How do you choose a finish for your taps and fittings?
Brushed brass runs right through this room: the Berwick shower with its traditional rose head and white ceramic levers, the floor-standing bath mixer, the basin mixer, the mirror frame, the towel rails and even the hinges on the toilet seat. Against the green tiles and the rust-toned floor, it gives the room a warm, period feel without looking like a museum piece.
Choosing a finish is one of the more enjoyable parts of a design consultation. We lay the customer's tile samples out and hold different taps and fittings against them, so they can see how brushed brass, brushed bronze or chrome changes the feel of the room. It's not unusual for someone to arrive certain of one finish and leave with another once they've seen them side by side. Here, brushed brass won the day, and it's the finish we're seeing chosen most often at the moment, with brushed bronze also very popular and chrome still a steady favourite.
Which tiles and products were used?
The walls are tiled in Dune Agadir in the Selva colour, a glossy green 7 x 28cm porcelain tile laid vertically. Its uneven surface and shade variation give it a handmade look, which suits a period house far better than a perfectly flat tile would. The tiling runs to half height around most of the room and full height in the shower.
On the floor, large-format Unicom Starker Oxid Lava porcelain tiles bring layered rust and copper tones. Big tiles mean fewer grout lines, which helps the floor flow seamlessly into the wetroom area.
The vanity is a 600mm underslung unit in Sherwood Green from the Tavistock Lansdown range, a Shaker-style unit with a white worktop and an undermount basin. Its deep green sits very close to the wall tiles, so it blends in rather than competing with them. The freestanding bath is the Henley from Eastbrook's Beaufort range, and the traditional close coupled WC, shower, taps and mirror are from Bathrooms to Love.
What should you expect when renovating an older house?
Older houses rarely give up their secrets until the floorboards come up, and this one was no exception. Once work started, all sorts of hidden issues turned up under the floors. The bathroom was installed by Jamie at Great White Plumbing, who worked through each problem as it appeared. It took a little longer than planned, but the finished room speaks for itself.
Period properties are full of character, and the odd surprise under the floorboards comes with the territory. A good fitter takes it in their stride, and having the design properly planned from the start means there's less to rethink if something unexpected does turn up.
Could TABO design your bathroom?
This project is a good example of how our design service works. We measure up at your home, then put together full plans, elevations and CAD renders so you can see the room before anything is ordered. We specify the details your fitter needs, such as radiator sizes and valve positions, and we're on hand to answer their questions during the install. You're welcome to bring your own fitter, or we can recommend one.
Our customers aren't only on our doorstep in Milton Keynes. We design bathrooms for homes across Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, and further afield in Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire. For more inspiration, browse our other design and installation projects, or see what other customers have said about us in our reviews. You can also check the areas we cover, visit our showroom to try out tiles and finishes in person, or get in touch to talk through your own plans.
See more photos and the original design renders for this project on Houzz.
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