Forum Topic

Dickens Yard revisited

Or visited for the first time, in my case. Went to look at the show flat on Sunday and very nice it was too: oak floors, underfloor heating, high-spec kitchen and luxury bathrooms. The saleswoman tells me the first phase has sold out apart from the infamous £2.75m penthouses.Wonder how they're getting on attracting shops and restaurants to the development.

Susan Kelly ● 4726d12 Comments

You don't need to have such hard and slippery-when-wet surfaces for a wet room.Some flats have such small ensuite showers that you can't put a shower stool in there - let alone raise your elbows for a good scrub. (Same problem with basins positioned in corners.)It is nice to be able to mop the whole floor in the ensuite at the same time and not have thresholds to trip over and extra doors to argue with.I'd still want a bath in the bathroom though - perhaps one that is wider at one end so you get a better shower too.Think about where you are going to put handles for when anyone is ill or old - which happens to the great majority of us - yet we still seem to be surprised by it.  Aren't we supposed to be designing and building now for whole of life occupancy?  That's for us - not the building - although for both would be good.

Philippa Bond ● 4725d

Loos in the wet room?  Yuk!

Charles Campbell ● 4725d

Re  I would not give a wet room house room.            xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    well said !

Tony Price ● 4725d

I would do more that resist - I would deny the request altogether.For that kind of freedom one is going to need to lay one's own cash down and buy one's own place!

Tony Colliver ● 4725d

I wouldn't get rid of the bath. Plenty of people won't want to buy or rent the place without one. I wouldn't for one. I hate the wet rooms that I've used to Italian hotels: everything soaked, including the loo, had to use towels to mop up. Maybe they were just badly designed but one old lady slipped on the wet floor in the hotel I was staying at in San Gimignano, banged her head and had to be taken to hospital. I would not give a wet room house room.

Susan Kelly ● 4725d

I read recently (can't remember the publication now) that wet-rooms are in vogue.

Charles Campbell ● 4726d

Re  bath with a shower over plus one of the bedrooms will have an en-suite which has a shower but no bath.            xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx thank you, just as I thought. I am in process of buying another property primarily to provide a home for a friend ( immigrant) and his family and the place has bath with shower over and an en suite to master bedroom with w/basin and shower. He wants to convert that to a computer room, doing away with both washing facilities there plus in the bathroom, getting rid of the bath and having a shower in cubicle , only. More modern he says. I am resisting as some still like to have a bath. Plus the problem when the shower packs up for various reasons, which they do.

Tony Price ● 4726d

The family bathroom had a bath with shower over it. The en suite to the master had separate bath and enormous walk-in shower. I think it's becoming normal for the master bathroom to exceed the family bathroom in spec; we all know how the kids hate washing!

Susan Kelly ● 4726d

Certainly a shower is de rigour.Typically a residence will have a "family" bathroom which has a bath with a shower over plus one of the bedrooms will have an en-suite which has a shower but no bath.So, one bath + two showers is the normal minimum for new build properties these days.

Tony Colliver ● 4726d

Re  and luxury bathrooms.             xxxxxxxxxxx as a matter of interest Susan, did the bathrooms have baths or just showers. I ask because I am told it is far more modern now NOT to have baths in a place but just showers. Any comments  anyone?.

Tony Price ● 4726d

Ealing does seem to have enough retail units to be going on with, especially with so much shopping now done online.

Susan Kelly ● 4726d

The saleswoman is perhaps confused.According to the Dickens Yard web site there are still two £1+ million flats (Phase One 'Belgravia') still unsold.The jungle drums say that the developer has given up trying to find shops and restaurants to occupy the boarded up ground floor retail spaces. The line appears to be that they will attempt again to fill these spaces in 6 years time when all Dickens Yard phases are scheduled to be completed.By then the much better sited new Arcadia retail developments are likely to be in place.Dickens Yard retail may eventually be the failure that Save Ealing's Centre predicted way back in 2009.

Eric Alan Leach ● 4726d