Bathroom renovation #12 - Before and After

Now that the bathroom is finished, apart from a couple of little touch ups, I thought you might like to compare the before and after pics. First the bathroom which is where it all started. Before a really ugly bath with a barely usable shower.

Now transformed into a beautiful sleek shower room. A pleasure to use. And don't worry we have not got rid of the bath altogether, we will eventually put one in the other shower room.

Next the kitchen. Where the big, ugly, awkward to reach into larder cupboard has been removed.

There is still a lot of work to be done in the kitchen, but it is great to have a bit of space.

The old front door that opened straight into the kitchen has gone. Much to the confusion of the cats.

And now I have a brilliant larder. Everything is in reach and I can see at a glance what I have and what I need to get.

Then there is the old toilet, which did not have a sink, you had to go next door to the bathroom to wash your hands!

The toilet has been relocated into the shower room, which is far more sensible. The front door is now where the old toilet used to be and we have a lovely calm entrance hall.

From the outside the door and one of the windows have been swapped over. All the ugly pipes and the strange built out bit that contained nothing but air have been removed.

We still have to repaint the exterior of the house. But I am pleased with the effect so far. And I am really pleased with my red front door. Lots more work to be done, but that will have to wait until Autumn I think, when the weather has cooled down a bit.

Bathroom Renovation #11 still continuing

The bathroom renovations have taken a bit of a backwards step. I was a bit shocked that instead of removing the leakey tiles from the wall, they cut out the wall with the tiles on it. Have they taken the bit of wall and installed it in somebody elses bathroom?
Ranna seems happy with the result, a cosy cool bed for her to sleep in.

Bathroom Renovation #10

Sorry I have not been blogging much over the last week. I have been busy painting and painting and painting and still painting. The walls are all done, the ceilings are all done and the glossing is under way.

The new look cool and calm hall. It is still a bit empty until I get round to deciding where my pictures should go.

The bathroom is finished, apart from the skirting boards and around the window, theoretically. More about that later.

New taps, sink and mirror are installed.

The new larder is painted and ready for its shelving.

The kitchen does not look so pretty. There is a lot more work to be done in there, before I can get down to the painting.

But there is a major problem in the shower. The tiles leak. Within seconds of us putting water on them, the water went through the glaze and discoloured the tiles. I know it looks like it is the grout, but it happens way to fast for the water to be soaking up from the grout. Also if you run your fingers over the tiles you can feel pits where there is no glaze. Soooooo, the whole lot have to come off. The nice new shower screen has to be taken down, the shower removed, the tiles removed and back to square one again. This time, we bought the tiles, so they are good quality and not porous. One day the new shower will be finished.

Oh and by the way my next post is my 1000th post.

Bathroom Renovation #9

End of week 3 and we are almost there. The shower is in. Minus one essential part that they forgot to send, then sent the wrong thing. Hopefully the final part of the shower will be installed tomorrow.

The hall is plastered and ready to paint.

The new pantry is boxed in and plastered ready to paint.

And all the holes and weird empty boxes have been removed and filled in. Another area ready for painting. We have been trying out colours on the boards outside the house and have decided to go with white. The main reason is that we have had so much hassle trying to match up the existing colour when it needed patched up.

All that is needed now is the floor sanded and sealed, the final plumbing done and the final electric work done and we will be finished. I can't wait. It has been ok sharing a shower with the rest of the family. But I will jump for joy the day we get a toilet back in the newly done shower room.

Bathroom Renovation #8

Our bathroom renovations at the end of week two. Well actually a bit more than bathroom renovations, we have progressed on to the kitchen. The boxing in of the new pantry has started. At the moment we can't actually close the new pantry door, because the fridge is in the way. Bad planning you might think, but actually once the horrid grey old larder in the corner is removed, we can then shift the fridges further down. But we have to wait until the new pantry is finished. A bit of a chicken and egg situation. Keriann when she visited on Friday gave me a brilliant idea for our front door. It should be red she said and demonstrated with her cardigan, and she was so right. Below are the two reds we have picked out. Peter thinks the raspberry red would be best, I am not convinced yet, but will go with his decision.

And here is the front door complete with all the weather board in place, no hole abouve the front door. Once all the work is finished I will be able to paint. What do you think, will a raspberry red door and very very pale bluey grey weather board look good. I think so. It has got to be an improvement on the current undercoat patchwork and yucky blue door.

And lastly the painted bathroom. I could not get the paint I wanted in the colour I wanted. So went for the paint I wanted in Peter's choice of green. I think it will grow on me, at the moment it seems just too intense. Perhaps once the rest of the room is put together it will reduce the effect.

Bathroom Renovation #7

Here are the changes today at the beginning of week two. At last the new bit of floor is laid and the big gaping hole has gone. The front door has been moved and the window is in its new position.

We do seem to have a new alfresco hole in the wall. Hope it is covered up soon.

And the best bit is the shelf is up and the basin is sitting on it. I think it looks great.

Oh and lastly here is the hole in the wall in our other bathroom. Just beside the toilet so you can bend over and see who is at the front door, isn't that handy, not.

Bathroom Renovation #6

At the end of week one (its a holiday here tomorrow), I think we are getting somewhere. The bathroom has been plumbed, wired and gibbed. Front door is still boarded up and there is still a big hole in the floor, but at least we have lights to look at the hole in the floor with. Can't wait for next week.

Bathroom Renovation #4

The bathroom renovation has started at last. The bathroom has been stripped, new plumbing laid and the hole cut for the new front door. Hopefully by tomorrow we will have a new front door in place.

Painting complete where's the spouting

After a hard weekend's painting here is the finished result. I am really please with it and so glad to get rid of the old blue, which was not to my taste. Unfortunately our spouting is not ready and will not be fitted till next Tuesday. We could have had an extra weekend to get the painting done if we had known.
What we did notice as we were going around the house, climbing up and down ladders, was lots of the above paint flaking on the east and south side of the house. I thought there was only a couple of patches and I was going to patch them up. But as there are maybe a couple of dozen spots it is possibly time to repaint, one side of the house at a time. Below are a couple of the colours we are thinking about. Still not sure weather to go with the very pale dove grey or a darker version. The pale, bluey, greyey white is winning at the moment.

Big Plans #1

This is some of my before pictures. I have been planning our renovations for a while and I think we are just about ready to start, thanks to the little sink accident. The front door of my house opens on to the kitchen, which I have never liked. So we are going to move it into the middle, with a window either side, and get rid of the ugly plumbing pipes.
Our front door will then be where are toilet is at them moment. We will move the toilet into the bathroom next door. The little alcove in the kitchen which the door opens onto at the moment will become my walk in pantry. I have always envied Keriann her lovely pantry, it will be so cool to have one of my own. We can then get rid of the big ugly pantry cupboard in the kitchen and move the fridge and freezer down a bit. But before all this happens, we will have to do the bathroom. First of all we are going to strip out everything. Put in a nice frameless shower with a ceramic base. A new lou and a new hand basin. I am having great fun sourceing our bathroom fittings. Once all the above is done, we will move on to the other bathroom, which as you can see below, with its scratched, pink, plastic sink really needs a lot of TLC.
To cut a long story short by removing an alcove in a bedroom and moving the door frame by 90 degrees into the corridor, we can double the size of the other shower room which will leave room to put the bath in there. But that is stage 4 and a very long way off. Meanwhile I would like to put two sets of french doors. One in the dining bit of the kitchen, so we can add a deck and sit out and admire the view down the garden. And the second in my sewing room, which opens onto the veranda. So I can open them up in the summer and feel like I am sewing outside.

This is all going to take a long time. I will probably be retired before we are finished, but it will be worth the wait.