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The bathroom. A bastion of solitude away from the kids, a place I do some of my best thinking and a subject I write about on a daily basis! As a blogger for the UK’s No 1 online bathroom retailer (own trumpet being well and truly blown), you’ll normally find me penning pieces about interior design trends, products and other peoples’ bathrooms. But today, for a change, I shall be writing about my own bathroom. When we moved into our new house last year, one of the many fabulous things was the lack of renovating and decorating we actually needed to do. Perfect for an absolute DIY novice like me. Apart from the odd lick of paint, new curtain rails and a few bits of boarding here and there, we didn’t really need to change anything.
The bathroom was no exception. Mosaics Galore Like the vast majority of homes in the UK, our master bathroom isn’t much larger than a king size double mattress, so space is at a premium. However the existing décor was passable.
Our predecessors had chosen a blue and white palette, which, I’m sure Alan Partridge would instantly describe as “AQUA! Which is the French for water.” They had also decided to tile absolutely everything in sight and added mosaic tiles to the floor, wall and bath panel. One major bonus was the shower & bath combination. I must admit to being pretty disappointed the first time I used the shower. Instead of the gushing torrent flowing forth from the shower head that I had imagined, I experienced, what can only be described as a light drizzling of warm water. However, after taking the advice of one of my colleagues, I removed the rather chunky shower head and replaced with a smaller, and much cheaper plastic head. This did wonders! The water was now squeezed through much smaller holes vastly improving the water pressure. The suite itself looked fairly modern and the toilet did actually have a soft close seat for about 4 weeks, until the soft close mechanism gave way. Nothing to do with me, honest!
After adding storage in the form of a large mirror cabinet, we had a very acceptable bathroom.
Out with the old However, on the downside there was still a lack of storage. Kids + wife = bath toys resting on every shelf and a number of lotions, potions, bath bombs and assorted smelly stuff.
We also have a couple of annoying protrusions, including the waste stack in one corner and some boxed off piping running behind the basin (which we also felt was far too large) and toilet. The bath screen, whilst modern, was highly inflexible. When I first attempted to move it, it took half a tile with it. Also, our youngest soon realised if she plonked herself behind the screen, it was very, very difficult to get to her. She’s no fool! Things all came to a head when we noticed some small but worrying drops of water coming through the kitchen ceiling downstairs, which we eventually pinned down to a leaking overflow on the bath.
This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it gave us the perfect excuse to start planning a whole new bathroom. And so Project Bathroom was born.
