Transformation of the bathroom

I've mentioned before that our cottage renovations and improvements have been going on for some time; approximately 22 years I believe! So I thought I'd show what we did to the main family bathroom over this time - I hope this isn't a boring post - I love to read house renovation and decoration blog posts.

When we first bought our house it was 2 cottages, I suppose semi-detached best describes them downstairs it was two separate houses but upstairs all one. One side was lived in and one side derelict. It was debateable whether one side was actually habitable but an elderly lady certainly did live there.

We had to wait over a year for all the necessary permissions covering the work we wanted to do and for the first few months we camped out in the house. I didn't use any of the cupboards and lived out of suitcases until we decided a caravan in the garden was a better option.

The house had been fixed up over a period of time by the owners late husband, one of the improvements was the electric pump to bring water from the well into a tank in the eaves space. She explained that the pipe had a filter on it and we should switch on the pump every day for a short time to fill up the tank. The switch in the kitchen activated the pump but had been installed upside down; so when it said on it was off and when it said off it was on! There was no cut off for when the tank was full but when water started to drip down the kitchen window you knew the tank was overflowing! One day I ran a bath only to find it full of dirty water and some small twigs - it appeared the filter had broken. The builder went to investigate the filter - what type was it? Would we easily be able to get another? Not a problem as the "filter" was an old pair of tights!

The houses had obviously been built without a bathroom but Mr DIY had added one some years ago; it was a wooden shed attached to the side of the house and knocked through! A little chilly to say the least. It only housed the bath though, the loo and basin were in another cupboard like room just off the kitchen (ex coal hole probably)


bathroom/shed

The loo had a window which didn't shut and I had my worst moment when going to clean my teeth one morning I found a snail on my toothbrush! I wanted to cry right then, the journey to get permission to renovate the house was a long one and then we had to tackle the build! I don't really think we knew what was in store for us (just as well) and we were on a very tight budget.

The new bathroom and an en-suite at a later date were to be situated in the eaves spaces, once the roof had been lifted to allow head height. Personally it just didn't seem possible to me when it looked like this....

The afore mentioned eaves space is behind the fetching red curtain! And my lovely Timothy (or Timmy Titten as he was fondly known) was not at all impressed by his new home

 (he did like the mice though)

Sorry about the awful pictures but they are old and have been scanned in.

 

Well the bathroom took shape eventually and we were able to afford to fit out one of them, we were only a family of two then so that was fine for the time being. Money was in short supply as The Builder had given up work to spend all hours on our house, I worked full time and we cashed in everything we had - including our car!

the dividing wall between bathroom (far side) and en suite - almost built. Me peeping through from the far end!

 The first incarnation of the bathroom was very "early 90's" and brightly coloured. In those days we had no need for a long soak in a relaxing environment, we had no children to escape from! We couldn't afford the free standing bath I'd set my heart on and we regretted the pine panelling almost as soon as it was done! Panelling it horizontally was a nightmare as any drips and runs of water left marks no matter how we sealed the wood.

post baby - note the bath toys!

The bathroom ceiling sloped down to just above the tiles so head height was still a bit restrictive.
I had been itching to redo the bathroom from day one and got my chance when two things happened. First we decided to add a bedroom above our kitchen which in itself was not too difficult but meant we had to create a hall through our bedroom and lose the en-suite. In doing this we could raise the ceiling of the bathroom and enlarge it slightly. However The Builder would no doubt have bodged together an almost matching extension to the tiles etc if I hadn't have inadvertently turned the water back on one night after he turned it off. I didn't realise it was off for a reason! The whole room flooded and as you step down into the bathroom it didn't creep onto the landing but the water went straight down; and flooded the hall below!
 It now became a much bigger job and we had to strip it right back to basics, hooray!
We were able to add a shower and retile and re-do the floor.

It is now my sanctuary and I love it - still a few too many kids things around but we've recently regained an en-suite so I'll be moving in there soon.

 

The bath is re-panelled and painted antique white, there are pale beige tiles and limed wood-look lino on the floor. I really like the flooring, it was really expensive but our insurance was new for old when we flooded so we could have almost anything.

The ceiling candle holder was made by a blacksmith from a metal beer barrel ring (not sure what the proper name for them is)

There is a feature wall at the end painted a coffee colour, the room can't take too much colour as it only has one tiny window.

 I should also point out that during the renovations (2nd time around) we're removed all the skirting boards as they just never seemed right with the wonky walls - it's not very practical as shoes, sports & school bags and the hoover leave scuff marks all the time!

 

Well I hope this is ok as a post, I'm not sure if it's interesting to anyone else or not!