Small Space, Big Vision: How a Master Ensuite Became the Highlight of the Home
Small Space, Big Vision: How a Master Ensuite Became the Highlight of the Home Some bathrooms are beautifully designed. Others are beautifully thought through. The
Some bathrooms are beautifully designed. Others are beautifully thought through. The best ones are both. This master ensuite is one of those.
When the brief came in, the challenge was clear: one room needed to do a lot. A double vanity for two people getting ready at the same time. A separate shower. A bath. And everything needed to sit within the space without the room feeling crowded or cluttered. Getting that right required more than just good taste, it required genuinely clever design.
Designed and supplied by Kallums Bathrooms, and it is a strong example of what happens when a room is planned with real purpose from the very beginning.
The first decision, and arguably the most important, was how to arrange the room. With a double vanity, a bath, and a shower all required, there was no room for anything to feel like an afterthought.
The solution was to position the shower directly alongside the bath. Rather than treating them as separate destinations within the room, they share the same zone. The shower sits at one end, the bath beside it, and together they form one cohesive wet area enclosed by a frameless glass screen. The room flows. Nothing feels wedged in.
This kind of layout thinking is what separates a good bathroom from a great one. It is not about having more space, it is about understanding how the space you have can be used most effectively.
If you have ever wished you had both a bath and a walk-in shower but felt you did not have room for both, this is worth paying attention to.
The shower-bath combination is one of the smartest tools in bathroom design. Done well, as it is here, it gives you full use of both without either one compromising the other. The overhead rain head sits above the bath, the hand shower mounts to the wall, and the bath is fully accessible from within the wet zone. You get the morning shower and the Sunday evening bath, in the same beautifully designed space.
The frameless glass screen does the heavy lifting visually. Because there is no bulky frame, the eye moves straight through it to the marble wall beyond. The room feels open.
If you’re exploring ways to maximise a compact ensuite, take a look at our recent Fulham Ensuite Project, where careful planning, hidden storage and seamless finishes transformed a modest footprint into a luxurious retreat.
The tiles in this bathroom are large-format Coliseum Michelangelo porcelain and they are genuinely striking.
Floor-to-ceiling in the shower-bath zone, the marble-effect slabs bring bold, sweeping veining across the walls with the kind of drama that natural stone delivers but in a format that performs far better in a wet environment. The large format matters: fewer grout lines means the eye travels further without interruption, and the room reads as significantly bigger than its footprint.
The bath itself is clad in the same Michelangelo porcelain, giving the impression of a solid cube of marble set into the room. It is a simple detail but a striking one.
On the floor, Cortina Oyster introduces a softer, more neutral texture. This was a deliberate choice, with the walls already making a strong statement, the floor needed to ground the scheme without competing with it. The result is a palette that feels refined and considered throughout.
Opposite the shower-bath zone, the vanity holds its own as the second key moment in the room.
The cabinetry is from the Codis Stecche range, finished in a soft off-white RAL colour with beautifully detailed fluted drawer fronts. It is the kind of detail that looks simple but is carefully considered, the ribbed texture adds character without adding noise, and the calm colour keeps the look clean against the warmer stone splashback behind.
Sitting on top is a custom Corian worktop in matt white, measured and fitted by Crafted by Design Worktops, with a pair of Catalano sit-on basins. Wall-mounted brassware from Coalbrook in a brushed nickel finish runs across both sides, matching the hardware throughout the rest of the room.
Above, bespoke mirror cabinets by 4C span the full width of the vanity. The benefit here is twofold: maximum storage capacity without a single shelf or cabinet visible on the wall, and a mirror surface that reflects the marble opposite, making the room feel twice the size.
Lighting in a bathroom is often treated as something to sort out at the end. In this project, it is clearly something that was thought about from the start.
At the vanity, a continuous LED strip runs the full width beneath the mirror cabinet. It throws a warm, horizontal wash of light across the splashback and over the basins, exactly where you need it when you are getting ready. It is warm without being yellow, bright without being harsh, and it gives the whole vanity zone a glow that overhead lights alone never quite manage.
Two wall-mounted task lights above the mirror add a second layer of light at the vanity, directional and clean.
Inside the shower-bath zone, a recessed niche with its own LED strip gives that area its own separate light source. When the bath is running in the evening and the rest of the lights are low, that lit niche becomes the focal point of the room. It is a small detail that makes an enormous difference to how the space feels to actually use.
Every product in this room was chosen to work together rather than simply coexist. Floating towel bars from Thermosphere maintain the clean architectural line of the walls. The WC is from Alice, paired with an Alca concealed cistern and flush plate, tucked away, barely visible, exactly as it should be. The wet floor is finished with an Easy Drain system, keeping the floor surface clean and continuous.
The overall feeling is one of calm. Everything is in its place. Nothing is there without a reason.
Before a single tile was laid, this bathroom existed in full detail as a 3D render and a set of construction drawings. Seeing the room in three dimensions before work begins is not just useful for the client, it is how decisions get made with confidence. Every product placement, every tile layout, every light position is worked through in the design stage so that what arrives on site is exactly what was planned.
Whether you are starting from scratch or rethinking an existing bathroom, the process always begins in the same place: understanding exactly what you need the room to do. From there, everything else follows.
Come and visit us in our London or Guildford showroom, bring your measurements, and let us show you what your bathroom could look like, before anything is ordered or built.
Every bathroom presents its own challenges and opportunities. That’s why we encourage homeowners to browse our collection of bathroom renovation case studies to see how different layouts, styles and requirements have been successfully brought to life.
Explore more projects in our case study collection.
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