Its one year today since we bought our house! Not quite one year living here as we didn't move in straight away, but a year as homeowners of our little project. This has gotten me in a reminiscing kind of mood and since I haven't done any proper blog posts for 6 months (to be fair there hasn't been a lot more to show you until now) I thought I'd do a series of before and now posts room by room to show the progress in a year, just where we are now nothing is necessarily at the "finished" stage yet but its nice to see where we are after a year.
I'm starting with the bathroom which we have had a big push with over the past few months and is looking so different, there are side by side before and after shots at the end of the post.
When we moved in the bathroom looked like this, wallpaper, dark blue, wetroom, no bath, lino. It was serviceable and everything worked, although we didn't want to keep it as a wetroom.
We pulled up the lino and the plywood underneath
Spent days with with floorboards up trying to find a leak which was dripping onto the kitchen ceiling so that the plumber could fix it while plumbing in the bath.
God this picture brings back memories. I think I texted it to Tom who was at work with a caption something along the lines of "this f*&king house man"
All ready for the new suite! My dad came round while we were at work before the bathroom was fitted (it was when it was snowing last January or February so he wasn't at work) and stripped all the blue paper off before the bathroom went in.
We got the bath, toilet and sink fitted I think the day before we moved in. We kept the same configuration as it makes the most sense, and meant we could get an extra large bath as there is quite a lot of space. Its really nice to have a soak in as I can fully stretch out in it rather than having your knees or chest poking out of the water. It then stayed like this for an age (about 7 months) before we got it tiled. We just got it to the point where it was functional then left it so that we could focus on more urgent things in other areas of the house.
It wasn't ideal, but it was better than the wet room and we had to focus our time and money on a few other things first like finishing the kitchen and getting flooring in the rest of the house. Luckily the floorboards were in pretty good condition as they had been covered with plywood so we just cleaned them up.
To be honest if the shower hadn't broken in August we would probably still have this setup with plastic sheeting on the walls around the shower.
However the shower packed in, and the plumber who came out wouldn't fit the new one onto the untiled walls as it was too uneven so we decided to go for it and get the bathroom done in September. We got a tradesperson in to plaster and tile, we painted it and did the light fixture and the little fixtures.
I'm not going to name or recommend the tradesperson we got to do this (happy to recommend any others we have used) because they weren't great to be honest and there have been a few issues, it also took forever with some days having very little work done at all and I seemed to be constantly chasing them as to when they were going to finish it. It goes to show that as we went as cheap as possible with this that you do get what you pay for!
Here is where we stand now, nearly there! The room is large for a bathroom because it used to be the third bedroom and it also gets a lot of light being south facing so we thought it could take a darker tile and this turned out correct. We went for a lighter grey paint to balance this out so it wasn't too gloomy, but I love the dark floor tiles!
The tiles are all from Topps Tiles, the wall tiles I think are discontinued now because I got them at a massive discount. I only paid I think £120 for them all and we have enough left to tile the front of the bath. I love the different patterns and colours and how they aren't all the same size.
They go a really nice colour when wet too, this photo below is when I had just run the steam cleaner over them.
The floor tiles are really solid stone and have a slight texture which is meant to stop them becoming slippery, which I like considering the bathroom is quite large so we do walk around in there out of the shower to the sink, to the towel rail etc with bare feet.
The grout needs a bit of touching up on the floor (one of the issues I mentioned before) but we went with a dark grout both in the shower and on the floor for ease of maintenance and also because I think it looks better with the tile.
Accessory wise I was going to go for a more industrial look in here but decided against it as I think the dark tiles are enough and the sink and bath taps are both chrome so unless we replaced them (they are brand new) then I didn't think it would really look great to have a different style and colour towel rail, light etc. We went with standard chrome in the end for the accessories. Its something we can always change out quite easily down the line if we want to. I am mindful that I wanted to keep this space quite relaxing and zen though, and not too dark or moody.
The light fixture is from Argos, I got a £150 voucher from our life insurance so got 3 different light fixtures with it. I don't seem to have a before picture of the one in here but it was just one of those glass globe lights and was pretty yellowed with age and not very bright.
The sink cabinet is really helpful for keeping toiletries and clutter tidied away and the wall mounted soap and toothbrush holders help keep the sink surface clear too. I'm all about clutter free and ease of cleaning for the bathroom! At the moment all I do for cleaning is wipe over the bath, loo and sink with cream cleaner, the taps and shower screen with my home made vinegar spray and then steam mop the floor and tiles (unfortunately the vinegar spray can't be used on stone tiles).
The to do list left in here is;
Put the skirting boards on (this is the same for about 80% of the house too),
Replace the door,
Put up a blind,
Put up some decorative things like artwork, plants and accessories and some shelving,
Touch up the grout,
Touch up the paint around the new light fixture,
Clean or replace the yellowed extractor fan cover,
Replace the plug hole and overflow (its leaking and doesn't drain well anyway),
Get a cabinet or drawers to go between the sink and the radiator (where the towel rail is now) to keep toiletries, towels etc in,
Replace the towels and bath mat, as you can see the colours at our old flat were blue but I don't think that really goes with this new bathroom. I'll probably do those last though when the bathroom is "done" and I can match them to the blinds and other bits.
We also want to tile the front and end of the bath with the leftover wall tiles which I think is going to make it look so much more luxe and high spec. As you can see in the before and afters below we don't actually have an end panel on the bath at the moment as it doesn't fit with the tiles, the front panel is just kind of bent into shape too it doesn't really fit anymore. I'd like to build out a little around the bath too to make a shelf around the outer edge for soaps, candles etc sort of like this one (found on Pinterest).
Here are the before and now shots together as promised, its so motivating for us to see the difference!
Stockists;
Bath - Wickes (Its their largest rectangular one)
Toilet - B&Q
Sink and cabinet - B&Q
Taps - B&Q
Shower screen - B&Q
Tiles - Topps Tiles
Mirror - B&Q
Accessories - B&Q
Paint - Dulux "Polished Pebble" bathroom paint and B&Q own brand white bathroom paint for the ceiling.
Light Fixture - Argos
I'm starting with the bathroom which we have had a big push with over the past few months and is looking so different, there are side by side before and after shots at the end of the post.
When we moved in the bathroom looked like this, wallpaper, dark blue, wetroom, no bath, lino. It was serviceable and everything worked, although we didn't want to keep it as a wetroom.
We pulled up the lino and the plywood underneath
Spent days with with floorboards up trying to find a leak which was dripping onto the kitchen ceiling so that the plumber could fix it while plumbing in the bath.
God this picture brings back memories. I think I texted it to Tom who was at work with a caption something along the lines of "this f*&king house man"
All ready for the new suite! My dad came round while we were at work before the bathroom was fitted (it was when it was snowing last January or February so he wasn't at work) and stripped all the blue paper off before the bathroom went in.
We got the bath, toilet and sink fitted I think the day before we moved in. We kept the same configuration as it makes the most sense, and meant we could get an extra large bath as there is quite a lot of space. Its really nice to have a soak in as I can fully stretch out in it rather than having your knees or chest poking out of the water. It then stayed like this for an age (about 7 months) before we got it tiled. We just got it to the point where it was functional then left it so that we could focus on more urgent things in other areas of the house.
It wasn't ideal, but it was better than the wet room and we had to focus our time and money on a few other things first like finishing the kitchen and getting flooring in the rest of the house. Luckily the floorboards were in pretty good condition as they had been covered with plywood so we just cleaned them up.
To be honest if the shower hadn't broken in August we would probably still have this setup with plastic sheeting on the walls around the shower.
However the shower packed in, and the plumber who came out wouldn't fit the new one onto the untiled walls as it was too uneven so we decided to go for it and get the bathroom done in September. We got a tradesperson in to plaster and tile, we painted it and did the light fixture and the little fixtures.
I'm not going to name or recommend the tradesperson we got to do this (happy to recommend any others we have used) because they weren't great to be honest and there have been a few issues, it also took forever with some days having very little work done at all and I seemed to be constantly chasing them as to when they were going to finish it. It goes to show that as we went as cheap as possible with this that you do get what you pay for!
Here is where we stand now, nearly there! The room is large for a bathroom because it used to be the third bedroom and it also gets a lot of light being south facing so we thought it could take a darker tile and this turned out correct. We went for a lighter grey paint to balance this out so it wasn't too gloomy, but I love the dark floor tiles!
The tiles are all from Topps Tiles, the wall tiles I think are discontinued now because I got them at a massive discount. I only paid I think £120 for them all and we have enough left to tile the front of the bath. I love the different patterns and colours and how they aren't all the same size.
They go a really nice colour when wet too, this photo below is when I had just run the steam cleaner over them.
The floor tiles are really solid stone and have a slight texture which is meant to stop them becoming slippery, which I like considering the bathroom is quite large so we do walk around in there out of the shower to the sink, to the towel rail etc with bare feet.
The grout needs a bit of touching up on the floor (one of the issues I mentioned before) but we went with a dark grout both in the shower and on the floor for ease of maintenance and also because I think it looks better with the tile.
Accessory wise I was going to go for a more industrial look in here but decided against it as I think the dark tiles are enough and the sink and bath taps are both chrome so unless we replaced them (they are brand new) then I didn't think it would really look great to have a different style and colour towel rail, light etc. We went with standard chrome in the end for the accessories. Its something we can always change out quite easily down the line if we want to. I am mindful that I wanted to keep this space quite relaxing and zen though, and not too dark or moody.
The light fixture is from Argos, I got a £150 voucher from our life insurance so got 3 different light fixtures with it. I don't seem to have a before picture of the one in here but it was just one of those glass globe lights and was pretty yellowed with age and not very bright.
The to do list left in here is;
Put the skirting boards on (this is the same for about 80% of the house too),
Replace the door,
Put up a blind,
Put up some decorative things like artwork, plants and accessories and some shelving,
Touch up the grout,
Touch up the paint around the new light fixture,
Clean or replace the yellowed extractor fan cover,
Replace the plug hole and overflow (its leaking and doesn't drain well anyway),
Get a cabinet or drawers to go between the sink and the radiator (where the towel rail is now) to keep toiletries, towels etc in,
Replace the towels and bath mat, as you can see the colours at our old flat were blue but I don't think that really goes with this new bathroom. I'll probably do those last though when the bathroom is "done" and I can match them to the blinds and other bits.
We also want to tile the front and end of the bath with the leftover wall tiles which I think is going to make it look so much more luxe and high spec. As you can see in the before and afters below we don't actually have an end panel on the bath at the moment as it doesn't fit with the tiles, the front panel is just kind of bent into shape too it doesn't really fit anymore. I'd like to build out a little around the bath too to make a shelf around the outer edge for soaps, candles etc sort of like this one (found on Pinterest).
Here are the before and now shots together as promised, its so motivating for us to see the difference!
Bath - Wickes (Its their largest rectangular one)
Toilet - B&Q
Sink and cabinet - B&Q
Taps - B&Q
Shower screen - B&Q
Tiles - Topps Tiles
Mirror - B&Q
Accessories - B&Q
Paint - Dulux "Polished Pebble" bathroom paint and B&Q own brand white bathroom paint for the ceiling.
Light Fixture - Argos
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