It’s the bathroom re-furb post – let me talk you through it!

I’ve been asked for this post many times, so here it is, it’s the bathroom re-furb post!

It’s fair to say that it has taken me a REALLY long time, but I’ve finally written about the re-furb of the bathroom on the top floor of our house. Many of your shared by daily trials on Instagram stories – so thank you for your help!

By way of context, this room had previously been part of the loft. The house was renovated before we moved in 14 years ago and two bedrooms and a bathroom were created out of the space. Our 16 year old son has one bedroom, the other is a spare room come study and then there’s the bathroom.

I had some ideas as to colours (grey and pale blues) and I also knew that the room was large enough to take a free-standing bath. By the way, when I say “I” in this post, it’s only because Mr G is not interested in housey stuff.  He says to me: “Do what you want love and let’s just see if I notice.”

The lighting was important and I knew that I didn’t want the room to look too “bathroomy” – despite it BEING a bathroom. Nor did I want things (such as the taps) to match. I also fancied a mix of really modern, with quite traditional. In other words – a real mish mash.

But that aside, I really like making things up as I go along – winging it slightly and hoping that it will all come together. I love that feeling of not knowing quite how it’s going to look at the end – but just hoping (and trusting) that it will be fine.

So as to keep the costs down, we didn’t move any of the plumbing. The shower, loo, bath and basin all stayed in the same place. We also kept the heated towel rail, as although it’s 14 years old it still looked fine and as the shower head wasn’t that old, we kept that too.

I really wanted the bath to be the focal point of the room, so I opted for this lagoon freestanding bath from the Bathstore. The price on the site is crazy expensive but we paid about half what it is listed at.

The tap was also from the bathstore. It’s the open water mono bath filler and again we paid a lot less than the listed price.

I also felt that it would be great to have some sunken lighting in the floor and our builder came up with a suggestion that seemed to work. So we went for it – and I’m super pleased that we did.

When it came to the tiles, we used four different ones. I knew that I liked the idea of a wooden look floor. For the walls I thought that herringbone tiles looked quite interesting and having not previously liked them before, metro tiles had grown on me, so I wanted to use those. Oh and a patterned tile needed to feature in there somewhere too. Talk about an eclectic mix! But I figured that making everything tone together may JUST make it work.

The floor tiles were from Topps tiles and they were the woodgrain bayur ceniza tile (£19.89/m2). We already had them on a wall in our ensuite, so that was an easy decision. I’m a fan of an easy decision. Much as I love interiors, I’m not one for pondering things for weeks. If I like it, that will do nicely thanks!

The tiles which were laid herringbone style (top picture) were the Hartley white tiles  (£54.67) also from Topps. OK.

The pale blue patterned tiles around the bath came from Tons of Tiles. They are the Arabesque blue floor and wall tile (20cm x 20cm) (£39.75/m2).

The navy tiles in the shower, below, were probably the hardest ones to find. I knew what shade I was after but I could not find them anywhere. I finally found them, also at Tons of Tiles. These are the V&A metro sykes blue wall tiles (49.8 x14.8cm) (£37.96/m2).

These tiles probably caused me more grief than anything!  First they were out of stock. Then the first, and the replacement, palettes of tiles arrived and they were both smashed. There was then a danger that they wouldn’t arrive in time before the builders had to move on – but we got there in the end, somehow, and I love them.

The chair in the above shot was from Cox & Cox last summer but it is still available here. It’s really an indoor/outdoor chair making it really great for a bathroom setting.  The cushion was bought on a trip to Watergate Bay Hotel. And the rug in the shots above was from Oliver Bonas. The shower tray was from Victorian Plumbing  and the glass surround was again from the Bathstore.

And then we come to one of my favourite pieces of furniture – the freestanding wash basin unit which was made for me by Joe who runs a local furniture making business, Avie & Oak Joe is so talented and although I’d seen similar in Neptune, the dimensions weren’t right for the space that we had, so I asked Joe to come up with something which fit. Joe painted it for me in smoke from Neptune and I couldn’t be happier with it.

I ordered, and paid for, a much nicer tap than the one above.  It didn’t cross my mind to check  that the right tap had been sent before it was opened and installed. When I realised and contacted the supplier, they refused to provide a replacement.  I haven’t quite put that one to bed yet!

Then I felt that it was time for a bit of glamour. This is the Buckingham mirror from Neptune (£250) and it’s painted in shingle.  It was a little bit of an extravagance but as lots of savings were made elsewhere, it was worth it as it’s a real focal point of the room.

The existing velux was rubbed down and painted in the same shade as the washbasin unit – which is actually much nicer than its original, orangey, wood colour. Thank you to whoever it was on Instagram who advised me that it would work OK. It has!

And then finally, it was time for a bit of light action. The centre light fitting was the Horatio cut crystal bathroom flush light from John Lewis(£145). I think that it’s fair to say that it’s a bit fancy for a bathroom but we’d had traditional spot type lights for a long time and I fancied something a bit more glam.

The wall lights are the Keats wall lights from Neptune – although the ones on the site don’t seem to have glass shades. We STILL need to get the right bulbs for these lights – the ones with the trendy filaments in them. We’ll get there one day.

So there we are. Long gone are the brownish tiles which seemed oh so cool when we first moved in. Isn’t it funny how times change? In 14 years perhaps someone will be ripping all of this out because free standing baths and metro tiles are so outdated!