Why Choosing A Single Brand For Your Bathroom Or Kitchen Is Better Than Mixing And Matching

You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends… and your kitchen and bathroom products. And in that case, you can – and probably should – choose your brand family. This is the best way to get a cohesive look that you will enjoy for years to come.

So what does it mean to fit out your bathroom or kitchen with a brand ‘family’? And what’s the big deal about mixing and matching? Let’s explore the answers to these burning questions.

Brand families favour sameness and consistency

A happy family is one where everyone’s individual differences are appreciated. There’s almost always someone who’s somewhat of an odd one out, but you love them for that. It’s what makes family barbeques so interesting.

Brand families aren’t that tolerant. Brand families strive for everything to be as alike as possible. For bathrooms, most brands have accessories that match their shower and tapware ranges. The same goes for kitchen sinks and mixers. They’ll have consistent shapes, features and finishes. This is important for creating a cohesive style, which is generally the outcome you’re looking for in a functional kitchen or bathroom design.

Unfortunately, your favourite tapware and favourite basin aren’t necessarily a match made in heaven

It’s tempting to search near and far for every little item to make sure you get the products you absolutely love most. But that basin mixer might be too short for that vessel basin. Many brands release product ranges where each piece is designed to work well with the others. Trust them. You might have loved that mixer initially, but you won’t love it after you keep bumping your hands on it trying to squeeze them under the water flow.

Unintentional mismatches can be really disappointing

Don’t get us wrong, we are open to mixing and matching. In fact, this is a style that’s really taking off in kitchens and bathrooms in 2024. There used to be this belief that if you chose a gold accessory for your kitchen, every accessory had to be gold. The experts are telling us this is not true! A brushed gold kitchen mixer can work beautifully with a gunmetal sink. It just depends on the overall style you’re going for.

One thing that doesn’t work, is a gold kitchen mixer with a slightly different gold kitchen sink. The same goes for white basins with not-so-white baths. As we say in our Bathroom Basin Buying Guide , aim to match your basin with your bath or other features because when it comes to colour, one supplier’s shade of white is different to another supplier’s. If they’re different, they can look very strange (and disappointing) when side by side in the one room.

Save yourself from design fatigue

You don’t have to be building or renovating a whole new bathroom or kitchen to be overwhelmed by the decisions involved. Just simple upgrades come with a lot of decisions. You have to choose the items you actually need, the colour, the style, the size. Keeping to one brand, and one product range in particular, takes these decisions off your hands. You already know that the shower, towel rails and toilet roll holders are a perfect match for the tapware you love. They’re also likely to fall within the same price and quality range, so no nasty surprises when it comes to tallying up the costs.

Stop the little things from standing out in a big way

In our experience, many consumers overlook the minor details of wastes, traps and overflows. When you buy a basin, you generally get a waste fitting as standard, but it may not match your taps. This small attention to detail can make a big difference to the cohesive design of your bathroom colouring. Ask your salesperson about wastes, traps and overflow rings within the same brand family as your other products and accessories so you can try and get consistent colours and finishings.

Get consistent quality, care and after-sales support

It’s not just shapes and colours that are obvious matches or mismatches. Quality can be too. A lower quality vanity might be glaringly obvious against a high-quality basin. A cohesive standard for all kitchen or bathroom features is more likely to give you the wow factor you’re looking for. Consistency also makes installation and product care easier, plus you have only one place to go if you ever need after-sales support.

Tradelink is your one-stop-shop for extended brand families

At Tradelink, we like to keep things in the brand family. We supply quality brands that have extensive and cohesive product ranges for kitchens, bathrooms and laundries. It’s easy to search for all the products in one brand by using the brands filter in our online search function.

Our Tradelink showroom consultants can also help you find all the accessories and products you need within one brand family.

Plus, we’ll let you in on a little secret… Some of our different brand names fall within the same brand umbrella. In these cases, some finishes might be exactly the same across different ranges. Our Tradelink showroom consultants will have useful advice there if you’re thinking of breaking up a family range. They won’t judge. At the end of the day, their goal is to help you create the best bathroom or kitchen you possibly can.

Check out the extensive displays in one of our showrooms near you.