Bathroom transformation
The bathroom was the first room in the house that we tackled. Here’s what it looked like when we moved in…
Before
This was back in October 2016 when we moved in. As well as looking very tired, it also wasn’t functioning properly. The hot water didn’t really work and the taps spat out rust when we tried running a bath.
Unfortunately before we could get to work on the bathroom we needed to move and replace the boiler, so we had to live with it for a couple of months. Being the only bathroom in the house we just had to grin and bear it…
The bathroom after we’d stripped it out.
Alex getting to work on the old tiles.
The idea
Luckily a very kind architect friend must have felt rather sorry for us, as he came up with some plans, and amazingly reconfigured the layout so that the bath fit beneath the window which created extra space for a bigger sink and made the bathroom so much more functional.
Architect’s design with short bath and over head shower.
Here’s the over head plan and scale.
As soon as we had the plan we hired a builder from Rated People (who has stayed with us throughout the entire project) and gave him this drawing to go by.
As he set to work, we went on to source everything to go in the bathroom online. This included taps, shower head, sink, bath and tiles.
During
The room had to be plastered and the floor was boarded with ply to provide a flat base for the tiles.
We had an extra shelf built in which houses the tap pipes and connections.
Boxing the plumbing in gave a really clean and contemporary finish.
Renovation life certainly wasn’t glamorous - we lived without a functioning bathroom for nearly three months. Luckily we had a downstairs loo (of sorts) that we could use. I showered mostly at my friend’s house (thanks Hannah!), at Alex’s work or at the gym, and used to plan my weekends around where I could find a decent shower!! There were quite a few tears shed at this point in our renovation journey - turns out a girl needs a bathroom.
However, as hard as it was living in a building site, when the bathroom was finally finished it was truly worth the wait. Having a clean space to shut myself away and wash away the dust was quite the revelation.
Here are a few photos we took when it was completed:
The finished bathroom
LED lighting below the cabinet is perfect soft lighting for midnight loo trips and relaxing baths.
We chose to have a hand shower installed too which we mainly use for cleaning the bath!
We kept the original door and fittings, but painted it entirely in Downpipe.
The thought process
Our bathroom is quite tiny, but I wanted a sanctuary where I could escape from the rest of our house, which was a building site at the time. Instead of trying to make it look bigger and going for lighter colours, we decided to be brave and paint it dark. We opted for Farrow and Ball’s dark grey, Downpipe, which is warm and cosy.
We chose two types of tile; a small metro crackle glaze tile in a lovely sage green to surround the bath and shower, and a larger tile for the floor, bath panel and lower wall where the loo and sink sit (i’ve linked where we sourced everything at the end of the blog post).
Crackle glaze metro tiles, Down Pipe paint and Anthracite towel rail.
With storage being an issue, we opted for a large wall mounted mirror cabinet to house our every day toiletries. This hangs above the sink and fills most of the wall. We also installed an LED strip light below for soft lighting an night time and a shaving socket for concealed charging. To make the space look bigger, we decided not to have a vanity unit below the sink, but chose a wall mounted sink which gives the illusion of extra space.
The shower screen needed to have a hinge so we could have a bath without a screen in the way, and for easy cleaning too.
We had spot lights installed and a mega extractor fan too - as the bathroom is so small it can get pretty steamy!
As this was our first project, we learnt ALOT. Our builder/plumber/electrician/all round legend Krystian was superb. We chose some really awkward tiles which didn’t make his life easy, and asked a lot of him with some tricky plumbing. Three years down the line and our bathroom is still looking great and working really well, and I never take it for granted! Having a bubble bath with candles and wine is still my favourite thing to do, and it is so much sweeter knowing what that bathroom was like when we moved in.
If you have any questions about this project, please feel free to contact me - i’d love to help!
We sourced from:
Paint - Farrow and Ball, Downpipe
Metro tiles - Crackle Glaze Notre Dame (I think these are discontinued but they were purchased from Tons of Tiles)
Large grey tiles - Honed Slate
Sink tap - Vitra
Bath taps - Cross Water
Shower head - Victorian Plumbing
Mirror cabinet - Trade Taps
Towel Rail - Victorian Plumbing
Loo - Victorian Plumbing
Bath - Similar to this