A Bathroom is Done!

After  a reno epic, my bathroom is finally done!
When I think back to how it was, I couldn't be more pleased with this outcome - it is now a joy to be in, in contrast to the depressing, dingy hole that it was a couple of months ago. So here it is.......I'm still waiting on a fitting that goes onto the tiled wall to hold the shower hose - it should be here next week. And the silicone is still curing, so I haven't christened it yet.......but SOON!

 

Since I last posted, I had the re-finishing company in to professionally re-surface the stained and chipped bathtub - it now looks immaculate. Thanks to Dave and Scott from TasBath for a lovely job. Here are a few shots of the bath being done:

 

Yuck!

 

Scott working on the stains and acid-etching the surface..

 

Stains gone - ready for the base coat

 

Yellow elephant trunk?

 

Final coat curing under a heater

Then it was just a matter of waiting until the hand-basin unit arrived to complete the installation. I called on my friend Alan, to help with this. After a few false starts (retro-fitting new to old takes a bit of messing about!) we finally got everything successfully hooked up. And don't you just love a tradie who dresses to match the decor? I got Alan to help me lift the shower screen into place after he'd done the other work (it's heavy!) and I fixed it into position and put in the top bracket.

 

Alan matchy-matchy!

 

Here's a finishing touch: my sister, Jan, found this perfect bathmat while she was out shopping and bought it for me. I have a thoughtful sister :-)

So there you have it..........it's as good as done. Here's a little reminder of what it was like before:

 

 

 

Ready to tile!

The bathroom is all prepped and ready to go with tiling, which I'll be doing this week. Suddenly this whole bathroom renovation looks like it will be over soon. Once the tiling and grouting are done, I need to call the company that does the bath resurfacing, which will take half a day to be done. Then I can install the tapware and shower, new hand-basin and the glass shower screen  (Rick McLean Fix and Swing.........500 fixed and 400 swing). Shelf and mirror. Silicone sealing and painting and it will be done! Can't wait to have that first shower!

 

Cement sheeting underlay down.

                                        Bath surround tanked and waterproofed ready for tiling 
                                          (This was after one coat - another was added later)
 

                                   Where the door was........this will be shelving and storage.

This bathroom renovation has been a massive job - I'll probably take a month off after its done and then get back into painting (still a couple of rooms to do) and the outside jobs are always beckoning! 

Progress......and a setback

Well, I've had a pretty good week getting stuck in with Project Bathroom, but unfortunately I was a little bit gung-ho with exuberant ceiling plastering and I exacerbated an old back injury - enforced layoff for several days while it got better. I think it is my 60+ year-old body saying, "Hey, you're not eighteen years old any more, you know!" It's nearly better now, so I'm proceeding.....carefully!

Here's what I got done before I hurt myself: 

 

Door and architraves removed, creating an opening between the laundry and bathroom (Love that un-building tool!)

 

 Studs added to fill the cavity and gyprock cut to size for the opening.....glued and nailed in place. If you are wondering about all those little extra blocks - well, it's because modern stud timbers have considerably smaller dimensions than an old hardwood 4x2 from 1962! I had to improvise a bit to get flush surfaces on both sides to attach the gyprock to. It works. Solid wall.

 

 ..........and plastered.

 

The bathroom ceiling had this nasty, grotty, unevenly applied bubbly textured finish - it had to go! I wasn't sure quite how to deal with it. In the end, I decided the best thing to do was to re-plaster it. It's had one coat of plaster and it's working much better than I could have hoped. One more coat and it should be a fairly smooth finish. It won't be mirror smooth, but I'm confident that I'll get it acceptably smooth! Hopefully it won't all come down on top of me when I'm in the tub one day.

While all that was drying, I turned my attention to the laundry side (or as a friend of mine refers to it - the "butler's pantry" -not sure about that, but it is definitely more than just a laundry) This room was still in it's original dingy state with old cigarette smoke smells deeply embedded. It had a decorative wallpaper frieze around the top of the wall which I removed. Underneath was another one, which I removed. Underneath was another one.......but wait! The final one was actually a rather neat stencilled on design, and not a wallpaper frieze at all. I might keep it; I haven't decided yet. I washed the walls and ceilings down with sugar soap ready to paint when the plaster is dry and lo and behold the awful lingering smell has finally gone.

 

 

And while I am bathroom-less, this will be my bathing facility........fortunately I DO have friends with showers!