The first advice I'd give to anyone visiting the Bath House showroom in Dublin is, whatever you do, don't try to photograph their displays. I'm halfway through my tour with md Conor Flaherty when a couple enter and the man begins taking shots with a digital camera. Flaherty is over there in seconds, giving the bemused offender a stern talking to. Bath House, you see, is not like other bathroom showrooms - and it wants to stay that way.

Launched about 18 months ago by Flaherty and co-md John Devlin at a cost of around EURO500,000 (£400,000), the store won this year's kbbreview Showroom Award for Bathrooms. Its stated aim is to offer a unique retail environment, that elusive something different, and customers who take photographs are rarely welcome. Some might call their attitude paranoid, maybe even a little precious, but their immediate suspicion is that these kinds of people are planning to launch a showroom that's modelled on their own.

"That guy was a builder," Flaherty whispers to me as he returns. "She was a retailer and he's her builder. If they come in and don't ask if they can take photographs we throw them out."

Snap-happy retailers often snoop around the store apparently, reinforcing Flaherty's view that other bathroom showrooms in Ireland are too bland, and that Bath House has become a target for those trying to emulate its success. "Nobody has copied us yet," Flaherty says, "but I wouldn't be surprised if they tried. We just need to keep one step ahead."

Originally, kbbreview planned to feature the store as part of our Showroom Masterclass series, but the pair didn't want us to publish their floorplan, fearing it would be used by their competitors. However, they're more forthcoming when it comes to the thinking behind the layout. "We had a look at other showrooms before setting this one up and every one that claimed to be high or medium end looked the same," Flaherty says.

"Compartment after compartment of toilets and basins. We wanted something better. The principal aim is to show the product and its potential. The customer can take over from there to get the bathroom they want. It's not just a catalogue of products lying on the wall. We avoid cubby holes and give it an open look."

Originality

Devlin's background is in managing building projects while Flaherty's is in retail. Together, they realised they could offer something superior to the mainstream offerings of their competitors. "I'd been buying bathrooms on behalf of clients and the offering was weak," Devlin says. "People were flogging up to The Yard in Belfast in their droves; it's a nice showroom, but it wasn't that fabulous. The main thing was to get away from tiling. We wanted to use different surfaces to give it a bit of originality. We're really happy with the results, we're in the middle of a refurb but only to kick in some new products."

Another tip for visitors is to maybe wear some sunglasses. "There's thirty grand's worth of lights in here," Flaherty tells me. "We wanted to keep it very bright. People come in and tend to say, 'wow, look at this' and that's half the battle. If they think they can achieve something like this in their own home you're almost there. All you need is a decent sales pitch on top of that and you've got them."

The concrete floor is coated in a shiny white resin, and with the walls also predominantly white the effect is certainly striking. Partition walls are either left plain or given a lime rendering that's characteristic of the local buildings. A splash of colour is added by occasional wallpapered areas.

The look is enhanced by a focus on glass panelling supplied by Bohle. There are also luxurious feature pieces like the giant Kos whirlpool bath near the front window, a mere snip at EURO10,300 (£8,215) and bigger than most people's whole bathroom.

Bath House deliberately features fairly unusual niche brands to offer exclusivity to its clients. Furniture comes from Italian manufacturers Burg and Falper while sanitaryware comes from Pozzi Ginori, Flaminia, Catalano, Castello, Kos, Duravit, Cesana, Inda and Arblu. "We're going for contemporary products," Flaherty says. "The popular trends we follow here are wet rooms and customised shower screens. Modern brassware is also very popular. The most fundamental difference between now and 10 years ago is the rise of wall-hung WCs. If someone can physically put one in they will."

Designed by a local architect, the showroom is located in Monkstown, a wealthy area of County Dublin about 20 minutes drive from the city centre. Around 20 customers visit per day and the pair hope to convert at least one of these into a sale. Average spend is between £12,000-£16,000 although some of the biggest domestic orders can be over £60,000. However, the impression that this is an exclusively top end store is deceptive.

"We do a lot of mid market business too," Flaherty insists. "We're always wary of alienating the mid section, but it's time we cut down on some of our brands. We always start with the product, then find a distributor. Very rarely do we start because the rep comes in and forces us into it."

Market correction

Although Ireland is also suffering from a downturn in the market, the correction here was inevitable after a period of such unprecedented growth. "The man who invented the Celtic Tiger idea expected this to happen a lot earlier than it has so we can't be surprised," Devlin says. "But you won't see it lasting very long. This time next year you'll see things level out and confidence grow again."

Flaherty feels the downturn is probably in line with the UK. "Property has taken a big knock - the high end has dropped 30% in the last year, which is dramatic," he says. "But prices were mad before that, higher than in London. We were building more units in Ireland than the whole of the UK; that couldn't go on forever. It will come to a more sustainable level.
"Another knock-on is that the people who were chasing contract work are now chasing this work; it means there's a smaller market. I imagine The Yard are doing that. It's the only part of the market with sizeable activity."

"This time last year Ireland did EURO1.9bn (£1.51bn) in commercial sales generally," Devlin adds. "This year it's EURO394m (£314m), which is a drop of about 80%. Luckily the contract side is not a part of our business. Sales this year are roughly in line with what we predicted. We'd be happy with that given the market conditions."

Bath House's success comes despite the fact that not only is the business in its infancy but neither Devlin, Flaherty or the third member of the team have a strong background in design. Flaherty even goes as far as suggesting that the whole industry training issue is a bit overblown.

"It's not the design step that's important, it's the finished product," he says. "You can't learn that. I can send someone to a design college and they could be very good with CAD, but you could ask them to design a bathroom and they could be rubbish. In that case they're more of a draughtsman than a designer. Design is something you can or can't do. You can learn the tools and there are certain rules that you can follow, but if you have an innate sense of servicing the customer you're there already.

"We sell finished bathrooms, we don't sell designs," he continues.  We're not trained designers but we know how to sell bathrooms. I'm not an architect, I'm not an interior designer, but our product is often better than the rest. If me and John went to design college now, would the end product be any different? Probably not. We'd keep our eyes open as to what's happening in the design world and match the brief."

So what's the advice to other showrooms looking to improve their strategy and product offering? "It's all about brand," Flaherty says. "We're considered quite unique and in the next two years will become readily identifiable. Homogeny is a big problem in the Irish market. Avoid it. It's hard to create an identity. It's ok to have products that are something similar to those in other showrooms, but just do it better. Why does a customer go in one showroom and not another? Identify that. It's what we're very focused on."