Bathroom renovation

[bishbosh]

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurker but finally joined up many moons ago, but never got around to posting anything. Anyway, here's my latest project which I'm about 80% of the way through.

2 years ago, wife and I bought an old cottage (built around the 1750's) as a holiday home which was extended in the 70's and for my most recent project I decided to renovate the bathroom. The house had been rented for about 6 years before we bought it and as such the bathroom was clean but not very nice.

As a rough guide we wanted to replace the loo and the sink as both were cracked. The metal bath we would keep as it was in good nick. The floor and skirting would also be coming up. The plan was to put MDF T&G cladding up to roughly dado rail height. The tiles by the window would be removed and a wooden cill fitted. The tiles around the shower would be coming off too. The shower screen would be removed and a ceiling mounted shower ring fitted along with a rigid riser. Finally a loft mounted extractor would be fitted as current ventilation requirements mean leaving the window open (I like a particularly hot shower!)

I did the work during my spare time at weekends which involves a 200 mile round trip each time!

This is the bathroom as it stood at the start of the project:

First job was ripping out the old stuff and prepping the pipes for the radiator and moving the cistern inlet from one side of the loo to the other:

Sheet vinyl was going on the floor so I installed 3.6mm ply, this also extends into a little side cupboard:

My daughter helped me fit and trim the vinyl and to paint the the MDF sheeting:

The vinyl extending into the cupboard:

I got the radiator, skirting and bog in so thankfully didn't need to keep using next door's loo!

It took a couple of weekends to get to this stage, not helped by the fact that the nearest shed is 16 miles away! There was a local builders merchant but it didn't open at weekends. The only other DIY place that was local and open on Saturday made B&Q seem cheap!

The next job was to sort out the pipes for the bath which was a convoluted mess, the earth bonding had come away from the bath legs too so that needed to be fitted securely too.

I started by taking off the plasterboard, which had crumbled in places but was dry to the touch now. (Evidence of a previous leak perhaps?) The studs were fine though.

Everything cleaned up:

I then fitted moisture resistant plasterboard:

 

[bishbosh]

The bath was metal and less likely to flex, however I still built a frame for it with 2x3 timber.

The bonding was also fixed properly.

The most recent weekend was spent fitting and painting the MDF panels, fitting the dado rails, sealing around the bath, cutting, oiling and fitting the window cill, fitting and painting skirting, fitting the sink and painting some of the walls:

The skill I am least competent at is plastering, I've only ever done small patch repairs but here I needed to cover approx 3m2. I decided to tackle this one myself knowing full well I only have myself to blame if it goes t*ts up!
It was only a skim over plasterboard and nothing deep to fill in but I managed to get something reasonable. It will need a little sanding though as I am still a long way off getting an immaculately smooth finish:

This is where the project stands at the moment, hopefully I'll get some time this weekend to continue my endeavours

 

[Ian H]

Looks great so far

 

[bishbosh]

Update:

I've finally finished the bathroom! Carrying on from where I left off, I got the wall painted around the shower area, I installed the rigid riser and shower curtain rail. It was a little awkward holding the rail in position while marking the drill holes and ideally I could have done with a second pair of hands.

Forgive the poor photo, I'd just had a shower and the camera lens was steamed up a little!

Today's job was more involved and consisted of installing a loft mounted extractor fan. It was fairly straightforward but being quite a tall chap it wasn't that easy to maneouvre in a confined space! The extractor kit I used had zip ties for holding the ducting but these were beyond useless as they would not grip and the ducting kept coming off. I fitted hose clips instead for a very secure fixing! The fan is on a timer, connected to the permanent and switched live for the bathroom lighting circuit, there was a junction box near the loft access hatch for this. The neutral was taken from the light fitting itself.

The fan itself is fairly quiet - at least in the loft. In the bathroom it sounds a little like a wind tunnel though!

Anyway, once the fan was done and a cuppa was had I got the mastic gun out and sealed whatever needed sealing, and this is the end result! Wife will be happy

Before/after shot: