Bathroom project - planning

So, with the other two (drains and civil engineering type stuffs that I mention here) being more t'husband type of projects (he is the kind of man that got excited about copper piping during plumbing stages, copper piping that will be hidden under the floorboards and eventually carpet -see exhibits A and B above) my next project is the bathroom project. Or I should say a bathroom project as we have the luxury of three bathrooms and a downstairs loo. Three bathrooms sounds like far too many but if you know anything about my husband then you may even question if three is enough! In our old place we only had one which could be pretty frustrating when t'husband was in residence as his residence was never a short term let, if you know what I am saying.

Now, because of The Grand Plan (which I am not yet going to divulge details of here...yet) we decided that the bathroom on the third floor will be the next one for attention. As well as the kitchen, bathrooms, fireplaces and stone flags that were taken by the previous owner, it also seems that he may have taken the chimney pots. Okay, he may not have done but when we were fitting the living room fireplace, the sweep discovered that there were no pots. Hence the weather had been getting in and the chimney breast in the top bathroom was rather damp and the paint was flaking. I decided this weekend (in order to get the project underway) to try and sand the chimney and them give it a lick of paint. As I seem to be finding out rather too frequently with this house, there is no such thing as a simple task. As I began to sand, rather than taking off just the flaky paint, big chunks of plaster decided to come with it. So what was meant to be a quick touch up job now looks like this...

Mneh...ah well another job to add to the list. No biggie as we have to get the plaster chipped off the wall in our bedroom as it has come away, so hopefully we can get this skimmed at the same time. By the time I had achieved (?) this, I was fully into the swing of chipping off stuff so also had a go at the grout that had been left behind when the shower was removed.

Although it don't look that pretty it is now ready for new tiles and a lovely cubicle which we could probably purchase for the same price as 1 metre of plastic inner sleeve for the drains - see I can even joke about the drains now...well nearly!

I have a fairly clear idea in my head of what I want for this room. Although I love prettiness and I love colour I am not actually very confident with either so any choices I make of this nature have to be temporary and reversible. This doesn't help with bathroom 'furniture' as it is permanent.

One of the nicest bathrooms I have been in is my great and dear friend Abi's. She has a beautiful home, full of beautiful things, colours, patterns and textures but I think that her bathroom is one of my favourite rooms in her house. I will try and get a picture of it. So when I thought about the style of bathroom I wanted then Abi's was one of the top of my list. This was helped by the fact that one of Jason's work colleagues kindly donated a basin that he had removed during his own house renovation. Here it is...

So we then had to find a toilet to match (and matching can be tricky as I daresay I will talk more about when I go into the details of the 'other' bathroom). Fortunately, we found something similar in B&Q and even more fortunately it was half price, and I am delighted to unveil the new loo.

Jason still has to finish off some bits of joinery but you know, it's in, it flushes and that, my friends, is progress...


All we now need to find is a bath and I want something like this...

Flooring along the lines of this...


And tiles like this...

And the room will be finished. So a lot to do but a little in the scheme of things. I would have liked to have made some progress by the time my mum (hi mum!) comes to stay early May but if I say that out loud then I am setting myself up for disappointment....but you gotta have a plan.