Bathroom Reno: New Beginnings

Yesterday morning, after the room had been completely emptied, the plumber got to work. His first job was to set up all the water supply pipes for the shower, bathtub, basin and toilet.

You never get to see the pipes, because they're inside the wall, but I'd call this artwork.

The drainage pipes in the bathroom will be a bit tricky, and the plumber will need access from underneath. So, R & the builder made a mess of my kitchen by cutting out the plaster from the bulkhead.

The bathtub. That was another story! I left home just before lunch to go to a friend's birthday party (via another friend's for a shower), so I missed all the action. I phoned R at about 2pm, and he said they were just putting the bath in. At about 5:30 I was just about to leave my friend's house and I hadn't heard from R, so I assumed they'd finished up and he was having a nap. Sadly no. He rang just before I walked out the door and said they'd only just finished the bath now, and he was desperate to get out of the house, away from the mess and have a shower, so he came round. (Many thanks to our gracious hosts!!)

Reno tip #3: Talk to the builder about bathtubs before you buy one. If your cheaper tub takes 3 hours longer than it should to be set in, it's not really cheaper!

We didn't realise until we'd pulled the bathroom walls down that the duct in the corner was much bigger than it needed to be to hide the pipe that's there. Our bathtub is a small one (only 1500mm long), but with the extra space created by having a smaller duct we could have gotten the more standard sized 1700mm one. Oh well. Live and learn. It just means that there'll be a bigger shelf at the end of the bath.

That's as exciting as it gets for now. This morning I swept, vacuumed and mopped (plaster dust and wood chips everywhere!), while R went to Bunnings to buy all the sheeting to go on the walls. Later today we'll need to decide on and buy our lights and exhaust fan.

There's a bit of electrical work to do, and the plumber will be back tomorrow to connect waste pipes for everything, then the sheeting will go up. Tiles and waterproofing are next, & we'll paint sometime in there as well. Then comes the fitting off, which means attaching the taps etc. Oh, and the vanity and toilet will be connected somewhere in the mix of it all, but I can't remember when.

And then it's all done! Easy peasy. Ha. Hopefully!

Bathroom Reno: Out with the Old

We removed the old bathroom on Friday night. We got to work at about 8pm, and were all done by just after 11:30.

Taking off the shower screen.

Ripping the wall down.

My handiwork. This is what happens when you want to remove a vanity unit that has been tiled in - that is, the vanity went in first, then the tiles glued it in place. Very difficult to remove!! Good thing I'm handy with a hammer and chisel. Reno tip #1 - tiles first, vanity second.

Just a small pile of rubbish.. We walked up & down the stairs so many times on Friday night getting rid of all of this.

The trusty hammer. It's a bit worse for wear, but it's doing the job!

Reno tip #2: Befriend a guy with a jackhammer. (He came around on Saturday morning.) The black plastic was under the tiles, as 'waterproofing'.

Empty! (The white patch on the floor is waterproofing. Yes, there should be more than just 100mm past the edge of the shower hob. A lot more. Black plastic doesn't really work.)

All empty, from the other angle.

By 9:15 on Saturday morning, the bathroom was all empty, ready for the plumber to start his work.

Bathroom Reno: The Point of No Return

The Bathroom reno will go into full action mode in T-8 hours. Ish. Everything we've ordered has arrived, though unfortunately there are a couple of damaged items that need to be replaced.

Well, it's not like we use the dining room much anyway...

R says he's got no uncertainty about it all. He's just keen to get in and rip some walls off and get it done.

There's a niggle in the back of my mind, wondering if we picked the right things, if the tiles will look like I want them to, where we're going to put the laundry basket...

Well, it's too late to worry about it now, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Tomorrow night's pictures will be much more exciting. Promise.

Bathroom Reno: Preparation

We've been collecting and ordering various items, like said tub. Does anyone want a pallet?

We found the perfect vanity - and then discovered the price was twice as much as we wanted to pay, so we decided on the almost-perfect option B.

The tiles will be delivered on Thursday. The toilet, tap-ware and bathroom accessories will come Friday morning.

The bashing and crashing last night produced some good results! The aim was to remove the tiles from the eastern wall, under the window.

He did smile, I just wasn't quick enough to catch it. "No I can't stop and wait for a photo, there's work to be done!"

We were considering leaving some of the walls up, but it turns out they're actually fibro board, not plaster like we thought. (And yes, they're definitely fibro, not asbestos.)

So, rather than spend hours chipping the tiles off, we'll just take the rest of the wall down when we take everything else out.

The big Removal is planned for Friday night. Hopefully it goes well!

Bathroom Reno: Before Photos

We're renovating. Doing the bathroom. I know, way to start with the easy one first. We're rearranging the room, so it all needs to be stripped right back, even the plaster has to come off.

The plumber and builder will be here on the weekend to set everything up, including our bath tub. Insert happy dreamy face here. We will have a bathtub. Well technically we already do, it's in the dining room, patiently waiting. In the mean time, there's a bit of hard work to be done before then.

R's starting to pull off the old tiles as I type. There are odd sounds coming from the other side of that wall.... 

Here's the bathroom before we touched it.

Beige, cream and pink. Hello 1995!

Old and tired.

Oohh, vertical blinds, how I dislike you so!

The floor space feels big enough, and yet somehow unusable.

Stay tuned for the progress pictures!
K.

Obligatory welcome / opening post

All blogs start somewhere, so here it is. A place to record happenings, brag about recent achievements, group inspirations and espouse some form of wisdom. Or at least opinion wrapped in eloquent sounding words and marketed as wisdom. You know the drill. Same old.

At this moment in time life involves: one fantastic husband; one soon-to-be-very-renovated two-bedroom townhouse; a small but relatively busy dressmaking business (with a small studio in said townhouse); a part-time gig as PA for a man involved in much more than his own orthodontic practice (read: 8 hours a week of multi-tasking stress); a three-subjects-to-go-then-I'm-done Bachelor of Business majoring in Finance and Accounting (much of which I will not use in the near future); not nearly enough exercise; faith in a God much bigger than me; and a frequently recurring desire to relocate to a completely different city and start over. Oh, and friends. I'm sure I have those... Cannot wait to clear a few more things from my calendar and get back to investing in the people who mean something to me.

Today's Wisdom: Life is hard enough. Don't make it worse by cluttering it with stuff you don't even like.

Today's Inspiration: Puff-skirt / French petticoat inspired lighting at Bistro Guillaume:

 

Ciao! xo