A Bathroom Makeover: Before & After.
It’s time! I’ve been waiting so long to do this post, and I’m so, SO glad that the work is done, our bathroom is finished and I don’t have to deal with a dusty room and a lack of shower anymore!
This was such a big job, even now I can’t believe how far this room has come. I never imagined it would look all pretty and white, it just seemed so far off… but it happened. I’m going to do two posts on the bathroom; the first (this one) is a before and after roundup – with details on the progress and a lot of pictures. Tomorrow’s post will focus on the details, so look out for that!
Before
Our bathroom had remained untouched since we moved in last year – and, by the looks of things, the last 50 years too; it was hideous. Even though I have my dream bathroom now, looking at these photos makes me feel so sad. I hated it, it felt disgusting to be in and I didn’t feel very clean after hopping out of a shower in here! When we first moved in, I tried to make the place look nice, but I soon came to realise it was impossible. The terrible wallpaper job, the paint colour (I don’t even know what that shade is, but let’s hope it’s discontinued), the wall of tiles, even the wood panelling which came up too high and made the room look even smaller. There wasn’t much to like about this room, and I never once shared a photo of it – so this is the first time anyone will have seen it… unless you know me in real life.
In the end, we got rid of everything. Only the actual toilet stayed because there was no real need to change this out.
As you can see from the last picture there, we’d had to rip up the flooring and half the tiles on the bath (yep, they had tiled it in) due to a plumbing emergency a few months ago that saw us flooding our poor downstairs neighbours at 7am. Sorry, guys! We had a lot of issues with the plumbing prior to the renovation, and the guy fixing the plumbing last time said it was the worst he’d seen. It’s such a relief to know it’s fixed now.
Progress
Jordan and I tried to do as much as possible to keep costs down – this included stripping the wallpaper (yuck, there were multiple layers), removing the tiles – which pulled off half the wall -, pulling off all the wood panelling and removing all the rubble from our third floor flat. It was hell. We almost gave in so many times, especially trying to rip off the tiles – that was extreme! I used the biggest crowbar I could find, gave it a go and then handed the job over to Jordan. Hell.
When Jordan started to remove the wallpaper from our 14ft high ceilings, he was up on the ladder when a huge chunk of the ceiling fell, hitting him as it went. Kind of funny… nothing like a near-death experience at the top of a ladder.
I still can’t believe we did that much on our own. Desperate times, my friends. Desperate times. Even though we saved a few bob by doing this much work ourselves (as well as ALL the painting afterwards. Ever tried to paint a 14ft high ceiling? Not fun), at the time I was wishing I had just paid the money to have the guys do it. Jordan would never have allowed it though, so that’s the story of why I was elbow deep in plaster dust for a week of my life.
We had to get the lower half of the room replastered, as well as all the walls reskimmed, and the ceiling replaced or whatever they did to it. Then we had heated flooring put down – DREAMY! The only way I was going to have floor tiles (even gorgeous patterned tiles) was if heating was involved, because Scotland is cold. We went with Warmup and chose the electric underfloor heating. The process was super easy and not entirely expensive either – I think it’ll save us a lot of money in the long run. We even have a thermostat to control it too! Our bathroom fitter fitted it so quickly, so it’s something to consider.
I’m not even one bit upset that the hideous sink had to go. BYE FELICIA.
After
I made a proper before and after picture, click here to see it in full. The final result is unbelievable – even though we designed and purchased everything, I wasn’t sure how it would look when it came together. It was hard to imagine it, and I had no idea if what I was buying would actually fit together – also, who knew it was so hard to choose taps?!
The bath was easy, I’ve had my eye on this Bathstore Freestanding Bath for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was little, I’ve wanted a freestanding bath with claw feet… so now we can’t ever sell the flat heh.
The sink wasn’t so easy – it took me forever to find anything remotely nice! I wanted lots of storage, since the space is quite small and we need lots of storage for all the products I hoard. In the end, after hours of searching, I went with IKEA which I didn’t really want to do, but I love the sink we picked! It’s huge and holds everything and really works with the style of the room.
I made the magical decision to put our bathroom door on a track, so it now slides open. THIS WAS A GENIUS MOVE! I r smarts. Before, the door would open in to the only good amount of space in the bathroom, but the track door leaves this space free – meaning the bathroom looks way, way bigger. This change is probably the best bit about the bathroom, seriously!
We went with tiles behind the bath, and tiles on the floor. I wanted parquet flooring in here, but settled on tiles instead and I feel I made the right decision. I’ve wanted dark grout tiles forever, there’s just something so charming about them. Both the floor tiles and the wall tiles are from Tons of Tiles, I searched high and low for some affordable tiles and ended up on their site. It was so easy to order and they came super quick – though we did have to carry them up a zillion stairs, but so worth it.
SOoOo that’s a little rundown of the bathroom fun. Has it been fun? At times, near the end, maybe. It’s certainly been stressful and hard work! Look out for tomorrow’s post with all the pretty after pictures…!
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