Being one of the first jobs on our list (excluding the unexpected re-wire) this was kind of what made me decide to set up the hoppy home and want to write a blog. A place not only to make a diary log of our ‘first home project’ but to share hints, tips and things I had learnt; almost like a renovators ‘how to guide’ just without any qualified expertise?  With this being the first main job, we tackled it made sense for this to be one of my first blog posts…

In my simplistic mind, I thought you buy the bathroom suite, it gets fitted, the job is done. Once I started it soon dawned on me, where the hell do I start?   So hopefully if you are renovating or going to renovate this will prove useful, if not, hopefully, you can just sit back and enjoy the pictures. Who doesn’t love a good before and after?

The Before

As the bathroom used to be separate rooms, with a bathroom and toilet, one thing we knew we wanted to do, was to knock the wall down between these two rooms to make them into one and build the bathroom out losing part of the landing.I genuinely love a bit of DIY and aside from the fact I love a good bargain, I really wanted to do as much as I could in the house and enjoy the experience and being fortunate enough to do so! With this all been new to me. My childhood experience of painting my bedroom from orange to lime green and varying colours wasn’t really proving that valuable experience for such a job. As soon as I started I wasn’t sure where to start and what order in which work would need doing. This is the boring part, but if we are to do this again, or anyone else is in the same position hopefully this will be of use. (I have provided a list at the bottom of the blog) Unless you get a building company to project manage and do the job lot, but of course you will pay more for this. If you can, personally I would recommend doing this!

The Planning and Design

If you are like me, I love so many different styles and I am so indecisive! The planning was definitely the hardest part (I know poor me picking a new bathroom *violin emoji*, by hard I mean more time to consume). As it was all left to me as days after getting the keys, Mat had a couple of weeks trip to Paris planned – how convenient haha. Although it actually worked out well, as I could just crack on and do what I want, opposed to having him chirping ha ha. The only advice Mat offered was that “he didn’t want it to be ‘shabby sh*te” and off he went. I was thinking more wood flooring and upcycled furniture for the sink unit etc but this ‘guidance from Mat’ totally changed my direction. Which lead me to another style I love; a more timeless, luxurious and traditional bathroom.

I drew the bathroom in my home scrapbook (my own little to scale drawing might I add) and cut out to scale pieces of the bathroom suite moving them all around until I decided where they would go – sadly this is a true story haha. I am not recommending this to those of you renovating. Looking back I didn’t know Bathroom companies could do all this for you. You live and learn!

As the bathroom isn’t a massive space I tried to design the space in a way that could make the most of the space, incorporate storage and include a rolltop bath and a shower – I didn’t want much hey?

The Bathroom Suite

The bath

For me, I knew I wanted a rolltop bath, I mean who doesn’t? I put on the big sell to Mat that there wasn’t much difference in price (and he was too busy packing up for his trip to pay much attention. Still, I didn’t want to pay thousands for that pleasure, well that and I couldn’t afford to haha! After hours (and hours) of online searching and comparing I found the bath stores range to be really reasonable for the quality and the gorgeous resin feet and bought the Cambridge bath with traditional resin feet.

The vanity unit

In order to maximise the space, I wanted a vanity unit, which would conceal the charging sockets and to ensure it would be large enough to fill with all the bits and bobs you don’t want on display…you know loo rolls, razors, cleaning products – all the exciting stuff! Again from there I found their Savoy Charcoal Grey basin unit – with marble top.

The Shower

This proved quite difficult due to the size of the room and positioning of the shower it meant we had to ensure it opened to the right and I wanted one that was mainly the clear glass, without much metal framing – giving a more open look. I searched around again and Victoria Plum had exactly what I wanted. Which was the Luxury right-handed frameless hinged shower enclosure.

I do love a bargain and upcycling, but for the style of the bathroom I wanted everything to look immaculate and I couldn’t seem to source anything we needed from eBay – but definitely, a great place to start if you’re renovating, or doing your bathroom.

The Radiator

I absolutely love cast iron radiators, but due to the cost of those, I decided that they would be for a later project. Instead, I went for the Elizabeth traditional radiator at Victoria Plum.

The Toilet
Keeping in keeping with the traditional style, I went for the Winchester close-coupled toilet with the white wood seat. Which was again from Victoria Plum.

CLICK ON SLIDER BELOW FOR ALL IMAGES

This post has already turned out to be quite lengthy; I did warn you I can’t stop talking. I will do a separate post on the lighting, painting, the tiles, accessorising and the panelling.