Complete Bathroom DIY Makeover

Our last big DIY project was our bathroom. From the day we viewed the house- we knew we would want to replace the bathroom. At first we thought we would change the whole configuration on the bathroom, but once we started getting quotes in on doing the job- the cost was way too much for how much we would add to the value of the house. So we decided to do it ourselves and cut back on the work we originally wanted to do. We asked James’ dad to help as he is very good with plumbing and tiling.

The bathroom was falling apart from the moment we moved in, all our windows were old wooden framed. On the first night in our new house I opened the bathroom window and I was left with the window handle in my hand and the window flapping in the wind. The handle had rotten out of the frame. (We replaced all windows & doors within 2 months of moving in).

On one side of the bath we had a glass panel and on the other side we had a 4 fold panel. We took the glass panel out to properly clean it and as we were putting it back, I think we balanced it incorrectly on the bath, the pressure wasn’t even and it shattered into a million pieces. We had to buy a bathroom curtain pole and shower curtain.

A week or so later one of the folds on the other screen fell off. And another week after another fell off… So we bought another curtain pole & shower curtain.

After a while the shower kept sliding down, as the clip was broken, so we had to use a tie and tie the shower head up.

We moved in end February 2016 and we came round to do the bathroom September 2018.

You might wonder why it took us 2 and a half years to get to the worst room in the house, but we were doing a lot to the house & both gardens, and we had to do things in order.

The overall timescale for the job was 5-6 weeks, as most of the time the work was being done on the weekend as both of us are working full time. As this is our only bathroom and toilet in the house we needed to make sure that we had a working toilet at the end of each day. I think we did end up going 3-5 days without a working bath or shower.

Due to me re-formatting my external hard-drive to be able to load pictures and files from Mac, I lost everything that I had on there, including DIY project photos. We have some saved on a different drive so I have some to show you the before & after.

James and I took up the floor tiles, probably, a month or two before we started the work. These were, probably, 15x15cm dark blue-gray-ish colour. We bought our sink, pedestal and toilet (both Ideal Standard) from B&Q- these were what we were looking for and they were on offer, which worked out perfectly.

The bath tub was a nightmare- we ordered it directly from Twyford- we got one delivered, on unpacking- it had chips and damages. This one was collected and another delivered- that had chips as well. Then he 3rd one was delivered, it all looked fine until we spotted a chip on the top of the bath. At this point both of us were fed up of getting damaged baths delivered, that we ended up cancelling the order. Not only because we’ve had 3 baths delivered that had chips in them, but also they didn’t have any more of these in stock.

So we ended up buying the bath from Travis Perkins, we have one about 6miles from us, so we went to pick it up. When the guys took the bath down and put it on the floor, me & James were all over it inspecting it from top to bottom, left to right. They were looking at us like- What are you two weirdos doing? So I explained that we’ve had quite an adventure with our bath deliveries and now we wanted to make sure that this one was perfectly fine.

The bathroom saga didn’t end there, as when we were about to put the bath in, a discovery was made, that we only had 3 out of the 4 bath leg clips. But we did get there and our bathroom now looks super nice and modern. The colour scheme probably doesn’t fit everyones taste, but we love it.

Here is a breakdown in what order we did everything:

1. Removing artex from the ceiling, plastering and painting it white
2. Electrician installing 4 down-lights
3. Bath, shower & sink removed
4. Tiled around the bath & sink – Mokara Porcelain White
5. Re-installed bath & shower (bath from Travis Perkins & shower from Taps Empire)
6. Grouting tiled areas and sealing all edges with silicone
7. Prepping, filling holes, sanding & painting the walls (overall 3 coats)
8. Fitted 3 door glass cabinet (B&Q), shower rail (Taps Empire), shower corner unit (B&Q), towel rail (Taps Empire), toiler roll holder (Screwfix)
9. Remove old toilet
10. Tiled behind sink & toilet
11. Installed ply board under the toilet
12. Re-fitted new toilet & sink
13. Installed ply board on the rest of the bathroom floor
14. Tiled the floor – Tabula Cappuccino
15. Grouted all remaining wall tiles and all floor tiles
16. Siliconed around sink & toilet
17. Tiled & fitted bath panels
18. Went shopping for all new towels & bath mats
19. Made it all nice & pretty

Taps for our bath & sink were from Taps Empire as well.

All tiles, grouting and silicone were from Topps Tiles.

Towels & bath  mat from Dunelm- Dorma collection, primrose & lilac colours for all.

I love taking long baths, as they give me some alone time to relax or read a book, or just watch some Netflix on iPad, so I really wanted a bath caddy and we got a really nice bamboo one from Amazon and to match with it we got a square wooden bin from Amazon as well. As well as a bath pillow.

All our paints are Dulux paint- for ceiling, walls and all wood work.

Best product to remove Artex is X-Tex- it is like a jelly, you put it up on the ceiling, it softens it up and then you just scrape it off. This is still a lot of hard work, but much, much easier than just sanding or scraping Artex off without anything. Trust me- we tried it all.

All the links will take you to the exact products we used.

Leave me a comment with your thoughts about our bathroom & any tips you have for DIY’s. As always- I’d love to hear about your DIY projects and how you tackle them.

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Stay safe.

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A