We decided as soon as we viewed our new house that we would completely strip out the bathroom and start again, including removing the wall that divided the bathroom from the loo ( you can see how it looked when we bought the house in this post). If there is one thing I can’t live with it is a grungy bathroom so it was always a priority for me.
I love a bright and airy bathroom that feels clean and crisp without feeling sterile and cold. My challenge was to find tiles, a suite and decor that were relatively inexpensive but would look and feel good.
To give you an idea of my plans for the bathroom here are some of the things that I have chosen and rooms that have inspired me…
It is a small room so no space for luxurious free standing baths and separate showers and the like. It is all going to be very practical, squeezing in as much as possible – I will follow up this post with the design we have come up with. The floor is going to be the white hexagonal tiles (super cheap) with mid grey grouting to hide the dirt and although I generally dislike tiled floors as I find them cold and hard we have been gifted some wondrous underfloor heating from the brilliant PlumbNation, which solves those problems. I can not wait for a toasty tiled floor on cold winter mornings! PlumbNation also gave us a lovely white heated towel rail that will keep this room warm too. The other tiles we have chosen are very cheap plain white square tiles (do you know how difficult it is to find true white matt tiles? Well, I’ll tell you it is impossible so we have had to go gloss) which will go round the bath that will have a shower over it. They will be laid in a running bond pattern with white grout (I think I’m the only person in the world that hates dark grout).
The only thing we have spent a chunk of money on in the bathroom is the basin. I would have loved an old cupboard with a counter top basin but there just isn’t space in the room for that so I chose a basin with a metal console instead and I like the slightly industrial feel of it. I really like the way wall mounted taps look and function with the added bonus that there is more space on the basin for stuff like toothbrushes. We were lucky enough to be gifted the Zenta tap from ManoMano and I hope that is going to look sleek and simple.
To soften the space we are going to tongue and groove all the way round the bottom half of the room (except the shower/bath that will be tiled) and paint it Farrow & Ball’s Light Blue with All White on the top half of the walls. I will also find a 1930s mirror to go above the basin to add some character and I have bought an Original BTC wall light to go above that.
The room has already been stripped, plastered and the mist coat was on yesterday when I went over so the installation will be all go next week. SO exciting!
Katy x