bathroom | Over The Backyard Fence

Jillian here- Happy October. Bet you thought I’d do a post about my love for Halloween, didn’t you? Well, not today! LOL!

Last year, the hubs and I agreed to no Christmas presents for us since we don’t need “stuff” and, instead, we would remodel our small bathroom. Weirdly, in our house, the master bath only has one of those big sunken tubs with water jets and no shower so we have always taken our showers in the bathroom at the far end of the house. There is another bath that the boys use but we have always used this third one for ourselves for showers. It’s also one of the two rooms–the other is the laundry room–that we have never changed the flooring in (and we have owned this house since Oct, 2000). It’s an awful color, but when I suggested it was past time to tile it, Mr. C said he’d rather do the whole bathroom over. So, that was supposed to be our Christmas present to ourselves. Yes, 10 months ago…

Life took a turn with a cancer diagnosis for Mr. C in February and, as he planned to do the work himself, it had to wait for the procedures and treatments to be done and for him to feel better. He was lucky that he didn’t get too sick, but he was tired all the time and didn’t feel like doing much–which is totally acceptable and understandable.

So, today, we start. He is cutting up the tub and removing it. Here are the “before” shots. And I know, it looks like I need to clean, but I have put it off since we have D-day today. Will do some “afters” when it’s done. Wish me luck as he gets to be a bear when he is laying tile-and he is doing the whole shower wall and floor–he’s a def. perfectionist!! Which is good for the final product, but not so good for his mood while it’s happening. 🙂

It’s been a chaotic month in the Domino household thanks to a new bathroom being fitted. It had been almost 20 years since the bathroom was last modernised. The shower unit needed replacing, walls half paint/half panel needed a complete make-over and the corner bath unit a complete waste of space. Dave had never used it. I had twice, both times putting my back out as I got out of it. It had to go. As for the carpet… well, we won’t talk about the carpet.

Eight months in planning. We knew what kind of shower cubicle we wanted but it took me a long time to convince Dave what we really needed was cupboards, lots of them. The old bathroom didn’t even have a medicine cabinet, everything kept either on the floor or in wicker baskets on the windowsill. I hated it. So began a constant round of searching the internet for images, countless showrooms visited, catalogues and magazines scanned, endless discussions until he was finally persuaded. Yay! I’d also managed to talk him into having it all installed professionally rather than he do it. It would be too expensive, he kept saying. He’d done the last bathroom, but he still works fulltime despite being past retirement age – we would still be living in a muddle 12 months down the line.

The hardest decision of all was what sort of tiles. There were so many to choose from, so many patterns, colour combinations – our heads were spinning. As we wanted the room tiled floor to ceiling and as this was hopefully the last time we would be doing up this room, we took our time: weeks and weeks of looking, more showroom trawling, changing minds, umming and arrring; we needed to be sure we picked the right ones.

Decisions made, bathroom on order, fitter contacted. That’s when another problem arose – the fitter advised us not to tile the floor as all pipework for the house (water, gas, central heating) runs under the bathroom and if ever there were any problem, it would mean ripping up the tiles. Far better to have linoleum. Oh dear, more shopping, more decisions, more choices. Eeek – we just couldn’t decide.

But finally we did, and the great day arrived when the complete bathroom was delivered. The delivery chaps wouldn’t take any of it upstairs, saying they couldn’t under Health & Safety rules, so it was stacked up in my hallway and dining room for well over a week. Oh joy! We found one item was missing so rang the shop who arranged immediate delivery of awol part. When I mentioned about it all left in the hall, the helpful lady on the phone explained the fitter would take each item upstairs as and when he needed it because of space constrictions when working in bathrooms, which are normally small and space tight. It made sense.

The day came when it was all to start so I beat a hasty retreat and made myself scarce whilst it was going on. I mean, what is a lady to do when the bathroom is out of action for a week and there is only one loo in the house? (Note black bucket for use of!)

Now finished, what an excellent job the fitter has done. Perfect! He’s done all the finishing off, bits my husband wouldn’t have thought of. The best bit for me is the shower. Instead of tiles on the wall in the cubicle, we came across shower boards – similar to Formica worktops. These single laminate sheets fit the whole wall: no grout to get grubby, easy to keep clean – no scouring or scrubbing. It looks fabulous. And as a surprise, Dave even arranged to have a lovely chrome towel warmer installed after telling me it would be too expensive to run.

We’re well pleased. It took a little over 7 days to install, and yes, it was expensive but worth every single penny. We still have to put the finishing touches to it, buy the homely bits, but as we have 5 boxes of tiles left over which we can return to the store and get a refund, that pays for the fripperies needed.