Just looking to refurbish bathrooms and a little confused on all the different manufacturers. Seems to be expensive brands such a Luafen, Duravit, Villeroy & Boch and them middle or the range brands such as Ideal Standard and then lots of cheaper brands Kartell/Kvit etc.
We are just looking for something that looks ok, will last and will need minimum maintenance and we can get spare parts easily if required. Is there a major difference in quality or are you just paying for the names?
Same thing with furniture, they look fairly similar in the showrooms but just wondered if there are recommended brands, they all look as though they will last a few years but not ages?
And finally taps, someone has recommended Bristan – but as above any recommendations would be welcome.
Don’t mind paying for something if it is worth it, but do not want to pay for something if it is just a name.

Grohe. I’ve had three Grohe showers (!) and all have been excellent and long lasting. I can only imagine their taps are as good.

I second the Grohe comment.  Good quality taps at pretty reasonable prices.

Also, the similarly named Hansgrohe for mixer shower valves.

Apparently a similar story behind those two, to the Theakston / Black Sheep tale from the UK (family business split after a disagreement).

I have both and they are good quality and reliable.

We’ve got RAK ceramics, seem good quality and weren’t silly expensive.

Ideal Standard slimline shower mixer (for partition walls) here, plus hansgrohe rain dance shower parts. All good. The hansgrohe slider rail I’m particularly pleased with as imo it looks nicer than a traditional shower rail. The bathroom suite is twyford (one of their toilets fitted the floor outlet pipe perfectly so we sort of had to buy it) and it’s all fine.
Only neg experience was buying cheap non brand waterfall taps from somewhere online, after a while they started spraying water beyond the sink/bath, ended up replacing with more normal taps, think they’re Crosswater and have been fine.

I have a Grohe toilet and shower (no complaints about either), Bristan taps (sink and bath) no complaints apart from the hot/cold colour dot wearing off quickly (it’s not like I clean them often either…) and a Kaldewei steel bath (no complaints).

The wall mirror cabinet I just got off Amazon (£200) as local store options seemed a fair bit more expensive, I expected it to arrive in pieces and the electrics to fry but it’s been fine. The heated mirror is great (I have a decent extractor but condensation still forms on the mirror/glass and stays for a couple of minutes after getting out of the shower, the heating element stops that entirely), has an internal shaver port for the tooth brush and a hands-free on/off for the LED lights (they are useless for shaving etc. but handy at night  if you forget to turn the main bathroom lights on)

Best thing I did was follow the plumbers advice and go with him to the local indy plumbing supplies place, got a lot of advice there, they didn’t seem to push me to the most expensive stuff (and plumber would give his opinion if he’d fitted a certain model before) and I got the bath and sink/vanity unit half price as ex-showroom (they even stored it for a couple of months as I had some delays in being able to start the work).

Thanks for your advice so far, so seems Bristan, Grohe and Ideal Standard are getting some recommendations.
Just wondered if there are any specific recommendations on baths / Vanity units? Any Bathroom fitters on the forum with any advice / recommendations. Just trying to sort out what we want in the next week.
Thanks ever so much for all the advice so far, just seems a minefield with all the different options and prices.

Same thing with furniture, they look fairly similar in the showrooms but just wondered if there are recommended brands, they all look as though they will last a few years but not ages?

I would personally consider consider getting certain furniture items made bespoke.
Exactly what you want, completely individual, last a lifetime.
Ahem…

HansGrohe taps / mixers / showers etc.

Roca for sinks and bogs.

Whatever bath / tray fit and you like the look of.
(edit: we were recommended to get a carronite one, bit more expensive but worth it I think).

As above Bristan, Ideal Standard etc for brassware and china. Named brands that will have a good aftersales and it won’t be a ballache to get a shower cartridge further down the line.

Furniture – steer clear of K-Vit and anything priced around the same, it’s invariably crap. Be-Modern furniture is good for the money as is Tavistock. It’s all modular so you can tailor it to fit your space. Once past that you get into the realms of very very expensive stuff like Laufen and Duravit.

Baths – depends what you want to spend. Buy cheap and you’ll get a 6mm acrylic encapsulated one. Fine, just don’t drop anything heavy on it. Carronite ones are strong but more expensive. Ideal Standard do something called Idealcast which are quite hefty, and expensive. Look at Kaldewei or Bette for typically well made German steel baths.

Source – used to sell this stuff for a living.

RAK ceramics here, good stuff.

We have a Villeroy vanity unit in our en-suite (it was an absolute bargain Ebay ex-display find) and a cheaper* one in the main bathroom (Hudson Reed). They both look very nice but the Villeroy one is significantly better – the internal finishing is nicer (soft touch surfaces, nice dividers etc) and the runners are a million times better.

*Still not ‘cheap’ cheap – and in fact I just looked and it is DOUBLE the price now that we paid for it eight years ago (we paid £630 inc. VAT – it is now £1,440!!!! WT a F)