At this year's Ideal Home Show, as well as the wellness bathroom room set, bathrooms were much in evidence as I stumbled across a further three bathroom room sets towards the back of the show. I wasn't expecting to find them, but it's always great to get as much inspiration as possible when at shows like this, and the extra room sets (there were two more kitchens too) did go some way to make up for there not being any garden “room sets” at the show.

I've been sorting through my photos from the past few months - there are too many, I'm starting to think I should show some restraint, but I also know that's unlikely to happen - and I saw the photos and thought they would fit in nicely with a post on my dream bathroom. You know how much I like a loo or two, so it makes a change to think about the rest of the room.

In case MOH is reading I should say I'm not looking to update either of our bathrooms in the near future before he has a bit of a cold sweat, but of course that doesn't stop me looking and taking a whirl around the trends in bathrooms this year. I also know that if we were even thinking about updating our bathrooms, he'd be pushing for a wet room.

We toyed with the idea of a wet room before, but although we were keen it was a while ago (more than ten years!) and the concept wasn't as normal as it is now, and the relative newness in a domestic setting dissuaded us, along with the additional work that we were sure our bathroom would need. Instead we opted for the shallowest shower tray we could get (and afford). It's not as shallow as the one in the photo below, from one of the extra room sets I mentioned above, in the Industrial bathroom and would, I think, still be in the running for our bathroom.

THE INDUSTRIAL BATHROOM ROOM SET AT THIS YEAR'S IDEAL HOME SHOW

I like the geometric patterns, and the mix of tiles too. So I'd be keen to adopt something similar in a future bathroom, and black and white in bathrooms is just a classic isn’t it? All three of those were in the trends for this year, and like many of the interiors trends you’re probably more aware of them than you think you are.

Mixing tiles appeals to the patchwork loving me, but in our shower room we've gone for another classic approach with the same tiles for floor and walls in a natural colour, and while it's a smaller room than any of these room sets looking at these photos, while it’s still perfectly lovely, it does now feel kind of dated.

I need to be careful here, or else by the end of this post I'll have convinced myself we need to update our bathrooms!

House & Home magazine say that matte black finishes are one of the bathroom trends you'll see everywhere in 2018 and I tend to agree with them. The finish was used in the open plan bathroom in the Houzz of 2018, as the photos below show and I was quite taken with it at the time (less so with the open plan approach though) and while it's quite a step away from the traditional chrome it is something I'd consider, and something I think would be a relatively easy sell to MOH too.

His and Hers showers and metallic glamour were two of the trends the Ideal Home tipped to be big this year and while you might think the His and Hers showers is unrealistic - and maybe it is depending on the space you have available - I think I prefer this than a double shower, but perhaps I just like my own space!

If you have the space, the aqualisa electric shower might be one of the ways you could make it work, and incorporate some of the other trends at the same time, as on their site they have the shower, what I call "control boxes" in both a graphite and chrome finish.

METALLIC GLAMOUR AT THIS YEAR'S GRAND DESIGNS LIVE

I couldn’t end this post without including a shot of what is probably my favourite example of the metallic glamour trend. It’s from this year’s Grand Designs Live and part of their lavatory project, which I’ve yet to share here but made me smile, and I couldn’t help but think that Kevin and his team were jumping on my loo bandwagon...

But it’s gorgeous isn’t it?

* This is a collaborative post but all views are my own.