1930s Bathroom Renovation: Ideas, Suites and Layouts for a 1930s Semi

In short: A 1930s bathroom style combines simple Art Deco lines, white sanitaryware, black-and-white or geometric floor tiles and soft pastel colours such as mint green, and it suits a modern bathroom well. The room itself in a 1930s semi is usually a small room over the kitchen or at the back of the landing, with 100mm to 150mm floor joists, lath and plaster or early plasterboard walls, a cast iron soil stack outside, and no mechanical ventilation. None of that is a problem, but all of it changes the specification, and shallow joists in particular are the reason level access is not always achievable upstairs. Anyone quoting on one of these houses without mentioning the floor has not looked at it properly.

01 What is a 1930s bathroom usually like?

The inter-war semi is the most common house type across Worksop, Mansfield, Chesterfield, Bolsover and the villages around Creswell (most of our bathroom renovation work in Worksop is in one), and its bathrooms have a recognisable shape: roughly 1.7m by 2.2m, often over the kitchen, frequently with the WC in a separate cubicle next door and a small window on the rear elevation.

Many have already been altered once — the WC brought into the main room, an airing cupboard removed, a shower fitted over the bath in the 1990s. Those earlier alterations are usually where the current problems come from rather than the original construction, which was generally well built.

02 What always comes up when renovating a 1930s bathroom?

03 Can you have a wet room upstairs?

Yes, you can have a wet room upstairs, including in a 1930s semi, but it needs more care than one on a ground floor: the joists are checked before anything is designed, the fall to the drain is formed in or over the timber floor, the floor and walls are tanked continuously into the junctions, and the waste has to reach the soil stack at a workable gradient. In these houses the shallow joists often mean a slightly raised floor with a low threshold rather than a perfectly flush one.

A true wet room needs the shower floor to fall towards a drain, which means creating a fall of around 15mm to 20mm across the shower area and getting a trap below the floor level. In a modern house with 220mm joists there is room to do that between the joists without touching them structurally.

In a 1930s semi with 100mm to 150mm joists there often is not. Notching or drilling those joists to fit a trap takes out a meaningful proportion of a member that was sized for 1930s loading, and no competent fitter will do it without a structural view.

There are three honest ways round it, and which one applies depends on the specific floor.

1. Build the floor up rather than down. Lay the former over the existing floor and accept a shallow ramped threshold at the door, typically 20mm to 40mm. This gives near-level access without touching the structure and is what we do most often.
2. Use a low-profile or flush-fitted tray instead of a formed wet room floor. A modern 25mm tray with a level-access former around it gets most of the way there with none of the structural questions.
3. Move the shower over the load-bearing wall or into a corner where the joist run allows a trap without notching. This is the best outcome when the geometry permits it, and it is worth redrawing the room to find out whether it does.

If genuine step-free access is a medical requirement rather than a preference, the ground floor is often the better answer in these houses. Converting a downstairs WC or a section of the dining room into a shower room gives you a properly level floor on a solid concrete slab, with none of the compromises above.

04 What are the best layouts for a 1930s semi bathroom?

The best layout for a 1930s semi bathroom is usually one that takes in the separate WC, or moves the bathroom into the small third bedroom. The two most valuable changes in a 1930s semi are both layout changes rather than finish changes. Knocking the separate WC cubicle into the bathroom turns two cramped rooms into one usable one, and it is usually a non-structural stud partition that comes out in an afternoon.

Moving the bathroom into the third bedroom, or taking a slice of it for an en-suite, is the other. It is more work — new drainage has to reach the stack with a proper fall — but the small third bedroom in these houses is often 2.1m by 2.4m and is not doing much as a bedroom.

Both need care with drainage. Waste runs need a fall of roughly 1:40 for a 40mm pipe, so the distance from the new position back to the stack is the constraint that decides what is possible. That is a measurement, not an opinion, and it should be taken at the survey.

05 What is the best bathroom suite for a 1930s home?

The best bathroom suite for a 1930s home is usually a plain white suite with simple, geometric Art Deco lines, sized for a small room: a close-coupled or low-level toilet, a pedestal or compact basin, and a bath that fits across the 1.7m end wall or a shower in its place. The period character of these houses comes from clean shapes rather than ornate Victorian detail, so a squared or softly rounded suite with cross-head or lever taps suits them better than a heavily decorated one.

Size matters more than style. In a room of around 1.7m by 2.2m, a basin with a short projection and a compact toilet leave space to move between them, and a wall-hung basin or toilet needs a frame or a solid wall behind it. The details that read as 1930s are mostly in the finishes: black-and-white or chequerboard floor tiles, plain gloss or metro wall tiles, and chrome or nickel fittings.

06 How do you create a 1930s bathroom style in a modern bathroom?

You create a 1930s bathroom style mostly with tiles, colours and accessories, and keep the plumbing, extraction and electrics fully modern behind them. The original interior of a 1930s house was simple and practical, so the classic style comes from a few strong, elegant choices repeated, not from filling the room with period pieces. Most suppliers now offer a good-quality range of 1930s-style sanitaryware, so the perfect look rarely means hunting for reclaimed pieces.

• Tiles and patterns. Black-and-white chequerboard, small hexagonal mosaic or geometric patterns on the floor, with plain white or metro tiles on the walls, often to dado height with a coloured border tile. A patterned floor in a plain room is the single change that does the most to make it feel of its era.
• Colours. Mint green, pale blue, primrose and other soft pastel colours were popular in the 1930s, usually paired with white sanitaryware and black detailing. Used on the walls above the tiles or on panelling, they give the period feel without making the bathroom look dated.
• Panelling. Painted tongue and groove panelling to dado height suits these houses and hides boxed-in pipework, but in a bathroom it needs to be moisture-resistant board, sealed and kept away from the shower zone.
• Baths. A roll top or other freestanding bath is the image most people have of a classic bathroom, but most 1930s semi bathrooms are too small for one with room to walk round it. Where the room is big enough, check the floor will take the weight of a cast iron bath full of water; where it is not, a straight bath with a painted panel gives a similar look.
• Sink, taps and accessories. A pedestal basin or a sink on a simple washstand, cross-head taps, and bathroom accessories in chrome, nickel or brushed gold fittings. A traditional-style towel radiator does the same job as a modern one and suits the room better.

What does not need to be period is everything you cannot see: a thermostatic shower valve, a ducted extractor and modern waste pipework make the room work, and a 1930s style bathroom built on top of them will last. If you would like help making the design work in your own house, our bathroom installation team plans it at the survey.

07 What to insist on in a quote for a period property

• That the floor has been looked at, with a board lifted if necessary. A quote written from the doorway of a 1930s bathroom is a guess.
• What is happening to the external wall. If insulated board is not mentioned, the room will be cold and it will get mould.
• What the ventilation specification is. "We will fit an extractor" is not enough; ask for the extraction rate, where it ducts to and whether it has an overrun.
• What happens if the soil stack turns out to be cracked. Cast iron is a known unknown in these houses, and it is better to agree the approach in advance than to negotiate it mid-job.
• Whether the tiling substrate is being replaced. Tiling onto original lath and plaster is a failure waiting to happen and it is a shortcut that is easy to hide.
• How the threshold at the door will be finished, if you are asking for level access. This is where the honest answer lives.