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Saturday 29 November 2014

Bathroom Progress - Finishing Touches

Our bathroom is finally finished and looks great.

Here are the photos:








































Sunday 23 November 2014

Bathroom Progress - Vanity Marble Top & Splashback

As mentioned in the previous post, the vanity was purchased from Ikea as a 2 drawer unit without a top.

The unit is sold separately and designed to have a molded sink purchased separately and added to the unit.

Our plan was to use this unit and have a marble vanity top made, along with a splash back as below & a counter top basin.


I visited our marble supplier who we purchase our kitchen quartz from to choose from off cuts.

Choosing from off cuts means you can get a really good low price as they are generally unusable pieces and the price you pay basically covers the 
labour - cutting, polishing & fitting the marble.


I took a sample of our marble bathroom tiles and tried to match the marble as best as possible.

I was really lucky to find a very close match in off cuts to cover the amount of marble required for the job.


The basin was purchased from Bathstore on sale


We had originally purchased the larger rectangle size basin but when it arrived it was too big.

It took up most of the vanity top covering majority of the marble which defeated the purpose so we exchanged for the smaller square option which was perfect.


Because we were having a counter top basin we needed an extra tall tap.

We didn't have enough space to sit the tap behind the basin so planned to put the tap to the top right hand corner on an angle.

We then realised this wouldn't fit as I wanted to add a glass shelf just above the splash back, so it was either have no glass shelf or re-position the tap.

We ended up positioning the tap in the centre of the left hand side which actually works really well.


The top piece on the concealed toilet is also marble made to measure, as you can see the marble matches the tiles really well.


Glass shelf being installed just above the splash back

We bought the glass shelf from B&Q


The finished look











Sunday 16 November 2014

Bathroom Progress - Flooring, Radiator & Vanity

The underfloor heating has been laid.

We used 'Comfort Zone' underfloor heating, the same brand that we also used in the kitchen.

Now the freezing winter mornings will be something to look forward to..


The floor tiles we selected are a light to mid grey 600mm x 300mm

They are slightly textured and have a very faint barely there, glitter through them.

The grout will be a matching light grey colour.



The pigeon hole shelves have now been finished with tile edging in white.


The box has been made for the concealed toilet cistern, ready to be tiled.

It's been so long since we've had a toilet upstairs!!



The vanity has been secured to the wall.
We bought the vanity from Ikea, it's from the 'Godmorgon' range:

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/80195536/#/80180993

The unit does not come with a top or basin.
My intention was always to have a marble top & splash back made to fit this unit, with a counter top basin.

Our marble supplier can now come and measure.


The wall radiator has been fitted to the wall & plumbers have connected the pipes.


The shower screen has been fitted.



We bought a new silver antique style large mirror from Camden Mirrors in Camden Market Stables:

http://www.camdenmirrors.com/

We bought the largest size possible to fit in the space so it would make the room feel bigger.







Sunday 2 November 2014

Bathroom Progress - Plastering, Tiling & Flooring

It's so nice to see the bathroom starting to lighten up, it was such a dark room before we started the renovations.

The new window lets in much more light than the previous.

The dark red wallpaper has been removed and the plastering has begun.


The pigeon hole to the left of the window is starting to take shape





The frame around the concealed toilet cistern has been built to support the tiling.
The wall to the left of the toilet is where the vanity / basin will positioned, it's not a solid wall so our builders have added timber beams behind the plaster board to support our wall hung vanity.






Once the plaster has dried completely the tiling will begin.

We've chosen natural Marble Bianco Carrara tiles 600mm x 300mm 
for the walls.

As a feature within the pigeon holes, we've chosen a mosaic tile 
300mm x 300mm as below:


When the tiling began, it soon became evident that they were really difficult tiles to work with.

When the tiles were cut, the edges were very rough & sharp, we thought there was a problem with the tiles we had bought.

We bought new blades for the tile cutter, searched online & spoke to our tile supplier to see how we could resolve the problem.

Apparently this is normal for natural marble tiles and a lot more time and effort is needed to get the edges of the tiles smooth ready to be used (much to the dismay of our tiler!!).

The only solution was to use a fine sand paper to sand each cut edge of the tile to achieve a smooth finish.



The timber shelves have been added to create our pigeon hole shelves.






The walls have been painted, we used the same colour as we used in our kitchen which worked really well.

It's Crown 'Soft Steel' for kitchens & bathrooms.




The feature mosaic tiles have been put up inside the pigeon hole shelves.











The end is now insight and the bathroom has taken on a brand new look, which is very exciting and looking forward to having it finished.