Bathroom Makeover

Do you know what I have just realised?  I have never written about the process of overhauling the bathroom - and it was almost 18 months ago now!

It didn't last long.  We had the keys for all of about 2 hours before we started ripping the ghastly thing out. We had a three week period between getting the keys and moving in - and in a one bathroom house, when doing it up while you are living there is much more difficult, we decided there was no time like the present.

So buckle up.  This will be a longish ride I think.

This was what it looked like in the beginning.  I'll admit I took these before the previous owners had vacated the premises while we were viewing the property.

So on the first evening, we began the process of removing the shower, bath tub, basin and floor covering.

We kind of thought the flooring was just lino.  How wrong could you be!  It was some sort of vinyl tiles and every inch was glued down with what looked like black tar.  It took HOURS to get it off, and the floor remained sticky afterwards too.  Two hours into the house reno and we were already behind schedule! Nightmare!

The next few days and everything started to look brighter.  It was much quicker to take off all the tiles than first thought.  The back wall just seem to come off in a large sheet.  I was downstairs at the time and I heard an almighty thud followed by silence...  "Dan! Dan! Are you alright????" Few more seconds of silence.  Then I hear "COOL! Come look at this".  Obviously during these few seconds I had imagined all sorts of terrible things had happened like the house had collapsed and squashed him.  But obviously all was dandy.

Safety first kids!

What we didn't realise when we had measured up for the bath was how many tiles we might find.  Tiles on top of tiles on top of tiles anyone??? Yeah.... So that slightly shorter than normal bath I bought because a standard 180cm one wouldn't fit, looks a bit silly now doesn't it?  It was too late to change the order as the bath was being delivered on the same day as we made this remarkable discovery and there was not enough float in the programme to send it back and get another.  So onwards we went.

The dust from the tiles also helped lessen the tackiness of the floor so that helped too.

As you can see from below, the electrician was also simultaneously re-wiring.  So he had hooked up wires for the new lights.  Can you see the brown bit in the middle of the ceiling.  Fancy a closer look?

Yes that's right.  That's a cork tile ceiling under that layer of white paint - which removing the old light fitting had shown up nicely.  Good job we were getting the room replastered then hey?!

We weren't going to plaster the back wall as this was all going to be tiled anyway.  So rather than wait for the plaster to dry before tiling etc - we decided to build a fake wall and put tiling boards up that would be super flat ready for tiling.  It probably on took a few centimeters from the bathroom but it was totally worth it for the speed and convenience.  We also built out where the shower head would be to so that it left just enough space for the bath, and also some room for the plumbing.

So we needed to put effectively a stud wall in.  But we needed to screw it to something solid in the ceiling.  Of course the joists weren't in the perfect position to do this, so I sent hubby up into the loft to screw something to the joist that we could then screw into.  Complicated huh?

Below is after the plasterers had been in, with some of our stud wall work on show too.  It's not perfect, I'm not going to lie.  But hey, we are two novices, and we were willing to learn and make mistakes.  That's what your first house is for right?

And with some supports for the bath to go in.

We had an extractor fan put in too (which you can just see in the photo below), as there was some mould in there when we viewed the property.  Always good practice I think to had a god extractor fan in the bathroom.  This was the bane of our lives though during the bathroom reno.  After a few days the fan started making this god awful noise - just horrible.  It made you want to strangle the nearest thing.  It was also connected to the lights, so if the light was on the fan was on.  And because it was february at this point, and we had full time jobs, it meant we were often working when it had long since gone dark.

Times got tough.  I think its the closest me and the hubby have ever come to having a marital argument.  The whole 40 minute drive home that night to our rental house was just silent.

So the next night, we just worked with iphone flashlights on.  It was difficult, but it was a heck of a lot better than that bloomin fan!  (We had to send the fan back and get a replacement in the end).

This is with the bath in and the aquapanel tiling board all screwed on.

By this point the plaster was slowly beginning to dry...

Look at that.  Flat as a pancake :) That's how good our carpentry was.  We just slid it on the supports we had made for it, put the spirit level on and BAM - 0! (Yes that is an iphone - who knew they could be such multipurpose tools when doing DIY.  One night its a light, the next its a spirit level...)

(FYI the bottom of the bath already has a fall on it to help drain it.   This photo was on the edge of the bath)

And then tiling began.  I had done a lovely layout plan on AutoCAD on the computer with exactly where all the tiles were going to go, with all the joints as well.  But with the whole tile on top of tile fiasco, my beautiful plan no longer worked.  It would have meant cutting a slither off a tile and that just wasn't possible.  So we rehashed the tile design on the spot and came up with this.  

I would highly recommend the Rubi Pocket 40 Tile Cutter.  We had a cheap one which just shattered the tiles basically.  One quick trip to Topps Tiles later and I was the proud owner of a Rubi.  It did a splendid job.  Not cheap, but at our own peril we discovered you get what you pay for.

On a quick break, I had a check in with the schedule.  Occasionally I had to move some things around on the programme, but we were doing very well.

As you can see I covered the bath with a dust sheet to stop tile adhesive getting all over it.

Next up was the floor.  I ordered some lino from Carpet Right, but before we laid that we needed to put down some 6mm thick ply board.  To get all the right notches in it, I lay down a really large piece of paper (quite a few bits of brown paper stuck together) and traced around the edge of the room.  This was essentially my template and I used this to cut the ply wood and then the lino.

Obviously for this bit we removed the old toilet.  We were probably without the toilet for a few hours, but it was bearable.

After the tiling came the painting - once the plaster had time to dry properly.  This is the best bit in my opinion :) I love a good old paint!  This time sheeting up the tiles and the bath to prevent any splashes.

In went the basin, and we were almost there then.  You can see on the far right of this picture a bit that looks suspiciously not painted.  This was going to be tiled, but we had to leave the plaster for a few weeks before we could so we just showered with this bit sheeted off for a few weeks while it dried.  I must admit the bathroom pretty much stayed like this for 2-3 months before I actually got on and finished it (skirting, bath panel, window sill etc.), but we had all the essentials in there which meant it could function as a bathroom in the meantime.

And this was it when I finally got round to finishing it.  I will have to take some better pictures of it soon, but I'm sure you'll agree - it looks way better than when we started!

Apart from the plastering, installing the lights, and plumbing in the shower (which looking back we totally could have done ourselves now), we did the rest ourselves.  We did do all the plumbing for the basin and the toilet though ourselves.

All in, I think it cost about £2,000, but £1,000 of that was labour (£500 plastering, £500 plumbing).  So the remaining £1000 for materials was split up something like this:

£100 Taps (Bristan Prism from clearance at Screwfix.  Includes Basin mixer and bath taps)

£50 Toilet (absolute bargain from B&Q - it's their value Plumbsure range, but it's pretty good for £50!  18 months later it's still going very strong!)

£70 Basin (Also B&Q - can't remember which range from though.  Not their value one)

£150 Steel Bath 170cm long incl. pop up waste (Bathroom Trade)

£100 Flooring (Carpet Right and B&Q for Plywood)

£200 Extractor Fan (Extractor Fan World - it's an Airflow Icon 30.  Very good customer service from these guys)

£30 Light fittings (LED Hut)

£250 Tiles, adhesive and tile cutter (Walls and Floors for the actual tiles and adhesive, Toops Tiles for cutter, and cement tile board was from Tile Giant)

£50 Paint (Dulux Bathroom+ in Magnolia and White)

It quickly (and scarily) adds up!

All in it took us three weeks but this was mostly evenings and weekends, and we were doing the rest of the house at the same time, so give or take a bit.

The Man Cave - aka Bedroom 3 Renovation

Bedroom 3 was to be my husband’s room, or rather, the “Man Cave”.

He didn't have full design control but was much more involved in the paint scheme than on any of the other rooms.  Magnolia and light blue were agreed by all parties.

Whatever colour it ended up, it had to be better than the shocking magenta that filled the room when we got the keys.  You’d never guess this had been a little girls room...

The bed was a Gumtree find for £30, and the mattress an unused freebie on Freecycle.  The curtain pole was already there (albeit with paint sloshed all over it – so we smartened that up a bit), and the curtains were existing ones we had from Ikea.

The lamp was my desk lamp at university (again Ikea), and the frame and print were a room warming gift to my husband. The frame we already had from my uni days (again Ikea, can’t get enough of Ikea!) and the print is from Paperchase.

The big thing in this room for my husband was the bike hanging system.  This was the item which he researched and purchased and was his final touch to the room.  This solution saves all the floor space it would otherwise take up.

It’s made by Cycloc and costs in the region of £50 – the most expensive thing in the room (apart from the bike!).

What do you think?

Hallway Renovation - the 2015 project. 6 month progress

It's going to take us all year to finish this job - I just know it.  We are 6 1/2 months in and it looks like this:

Almost stripped to the bare bones.

Let me start at the beginning - we've got 6 months work to catch up on!

In the beginning, it was purple, and textured.  Just everywhere.  Texture.  There were two different wallpapers - both textured, the coving was textured, and the ceiling was textured artex.  Excuse me while I vomit...

One of the textured wallpapers

The other textured wallpaper - painted purple

The ceiling texture

The "complementing" green carpet

The textured loft hatch - heck if you are going to texture the ceiling you might as well do the loft hatch too right?!

The textured coving

Have we all thrown up yet?  

So we stripped the wallpaper - every last inch of it.  That took most of January (evenings and weekends) and a good push over easter weekend to get the last bits.

We were held up with the really high bits as we didn't have a ladder.  One gumtree purchase later and we are now the proud owners of a multi purpose ladder.  Not that I can use it mind.  It gives me the heebly-jeeblies somewhat.  Therefore I considered it a gift to the hubby :)

We were then held up when all the plasterers said they wouldn't touch the radiator with a barge pole because it would leak.  Hence our April 'holiday' spent replacing all the radiators in the house.  Consider all of this enabling works.

So we finally got all the radiators done, and I gleefully called the plasterer to tell him we were all ready and when could he fit us in?  August, he said.  Oh...

To be honest it's a good thing, as it's allowed us to save the money up to pay for it as the radiator work made a big dent in the budget.

Watch this space!

Retro-fitted lintel above window

So one day I came home from work and happened to glance at the front of the house for a few seconds longer than I usually do.  That is when I noticed a big crack above our lounge window, and to see the bricks 'dropped' onto the window frame.  Eek!

Like all sensible adults, I didn't tell the husband, daren't open the windows and hoped the problem would magically go away on it's own.  Funnily enough, it didn't.  Who would have thought...

A few weeks later, I finally admitted to myself that we would need to throw some money at this thing to make it go away.  And devastatingly money which wouldn't make the house prettier, or add value, but rather keep the whole thing standing - to me that's the most annoying type of spending!

We had a few builders round to quote to retrofit a lintel above the window.  We wanted to keep the actual frame as there was nothing wrong with it.  Basically, the problem stems from when the houses were built and they were built with lovely structural timber window frames.  Then in the 80's Mr Cheapskate who used to live here ripped them all out and replaced them with cheap PVC which is not structural.  Essentially the window frames are therefore holding up the outer skin of bricks - not what they were designed to do.

A week later our chosen builder came round and fitted a lintel for the princely sum of £520.  Admittedly we had a 2.4m window so it was a big bit of steel he put in there.  Unfortunately I was at work that day, so I made the hubby take as many photos as he could without being a pest so I could see the process.

BEFORE

DURING

A brick that has been cut to hide the lintel at the edge

AFTER

Overall it took the builder a day and a half to complete the job.  You can see in the after photo (before he put some white sealant in the gap), how much the middle of the window frame had actually bent under the strain of the bricks.  I think that's a permanent deformation now, but I'm glad we caught it when we did.

The next job out here is to paint the rendering to cover up the unsightly insulation holes. I'm waiting for a sunny day! 

July - Gardening

Well the vegetable patch has gone crazy.  It's such a lovely feeling pottering down to the end of the garden just before dinner, and picking out what salad to have for tea.  And homegrown strawberries - can't beat the taste and satisfaction.  I've had my strawberry plants for 4 years now, and they have always been so so disappointing - but they finally seem to have got themselves together and we have a right bumper crop :-D

These photos were actually taken a few weeks ago, and everything has flourished even more since then!

I have also fulfilled a life long ambition and bought myself a hydrangea for the patio - it's just coming into flower now - I literally cannot wait :)

Last month I also gave the front garden fence a good spruce.  We already had the paint in the garage, so with a bit of sanding just to give it something to grip to, and it scrubbed up really well.  Hopefully it's got a good few more years in it yet.  Our neighbour also dug out all the gravel which was a weed patch and put some concrete in - much better.