Bathroom update

So there has been some progress on the bathroom, not a lot but some is better than none. With the shower cubicle done, except putting the doors on, we started on the walls. The tiles are huge, well, bigger than anything else that I have used before, 600x300. The main tiles are flat but the 3rd tile up is textured, acting as a boarder tile.

The main wall, minus radiator.

Sink plumbing.

So, things look to be progressing, however, they have hit a bit of a wall. All the whole tiles have been put on the wall and its now about the half tiles. Although I have an electric tile saw, its getting started that's the problem. Once I get going with it all, I'm sure it will start flying up again. If I can get the main wall done teats a big chunk of the tiling done, although round the window is going to be a pain, as there are a lot of tiles that need cutting.

The big challange is going to be grouting. The walls are not very flat, behind where the radiator sits the tiles are sitting on a thin smear of adhesive but at the top, the tile are sitting on about half an inch of adhesive. If I just grout the tiles, it would end up using massive amounts of adhesive, at great expense for not a lot of gain. So I'm looking in to other options to pad out the bits behind the tiles, so I only have to grout the actual space between the tiles. I'm sure it will all come together in the end.

In other news, these arrived. The new velux window for the upstarira bathroom. Its an opaque window for a bit of privacy, even though the only people who can see in are those flying over in a plane! Oh well, the wife is happier with it that way and I'm not fussed. Not sure when it will be going in, probably not until I've finished the downstairs bathroom, so it could be a while! 

Bathroom update

I though it was probably about time for an update on the current build project, the bathroom. Well its progressing slowly, very slowly, as the floor took a while to sort out. It looked like it was going to be fairly simple to put the floor down as we were going for laminate, however, we hit a slight snag.

At some point in the past the floor has been wet, and by wet I means soaked over a long period, probably when the room was used as the original bathroom. I had already replaced a large rotten section, however, there was a join further across the room and this was the problem as it has swelled due to the water. The first laying of the laminate was a failure as the ridge made it feel like a trampoline! After trying to shave the wood down it was better but not perfect, so down went the leveling compound. Now, when something says it self leveling, don't believe it! I ended up with a big dent/divot in the middle which caused a problem when I laid the laminate (for the 3rd time), so down went more leveler. Unfortunately I think I went a bit over the top with it that time and ended up with a small mountain, which is just as bad as the dent/divot I had before! So after some sanding and settling, plus a ltiile bit of pinning of the laminate, the boards went down for the 7th and final time! Not its all good, no movement or bounce and with the toilet in and fixed, along with the shower tray, were all good.

The next challenge though is that I need to get the shower board in. This is not as simple as it sounds! While the floors pretty level, the ceiling is not and this leaves me with an option of either profiling the top of the board or cutting in to the ceiling. So the ceiling is getting it. Hopefully ill have it in and sorted by the weekend and then I can get the second board in and get the shower mounted. Ill probably leave the shower cubical until the tiles are done, or i may get it in and working so we could use it is we fancied.

Anyway, that's were we are at, and with the tiles sitting in the garage, ready to go on the wall, we should have been heading for the finish line. However, a broken finger has slowed things down again!

New bathroom

So this is the current project, the new downstairs bathroom. I say new, but its actually the original bathroom, that was changed in to just a toilet, and is now being moved back. Most of the stuff, sink, toilet and shower are coming across from the downstairs en-suite which is being removed. It should have been relitivly simple, but was always, there's been a few surprises!

Firstly, we had to get the stopcock moved, as it would have been in the bathroom once the new wall was in. Which is odd, as we were putting the wall back to its original position, so the stopcock must have been moved at some point inthe past.

One the wall and stopcock were moved it was a while before I gotta chance to get the rest moved. Once I did however, things got messy again. This was mostly due to moving the toilet and shower wastes. Now the shower was easy, simple 40mm pipework, but the toilet was in 4" and was a right pain, especially when your working in a crawl space under the house! It took me a lot longer than I thought it would and was a lot harder! However it is all done and dusted and more importantly its water tight.

New toilet position, the old one can be seen sticking out the wall on the left.

My work space, I quite often get told off for the mess! I just have a habit of just shifting the rubbish around the room to which ever corner I'm not using!

The next stage of the build was sorting out the woodwork. This mostly involved building the frame for the shower/cupboard space ( below). This was simple and easy and took very little time to build.

It got more complex when I started on the door area. This area was a mess of different surfaces, with lots of steps in the plaster boards. The idea was to smooth it out and build up the area around the door to make the recess for the door more snug and less makeshift. Unfortunately, things didn't got to plan. The stairs needed some repair, mainly replacing the screws with bigger better ones but the top step needed a lot more. For some reason it was build using 2 pieces and there was some movement in the structure. It took a lot of work to remove the movement, and to be honest, its still not perfect. I will replace the two bits with a single board when we redo the upstairs landing, but for the moment, this will have to suffice.

The wood work under the stairs. Not pretty but it works!

Hopefully by the time your reading this, the woodwork and plasterboard  will be complete and the floor will be down, ready for the tiles!