New Year, New Bathroom

A different kind of New Year’s resolution, I guess?! I know that I still haven’t posted about our downstairs bathroom update yet but that’s because it’s so close to being finished, we’re just waiting to put up a backsplash tile then I can take photos – I don’t want to do them until that’s sorted – but it is as finished as it’s going to be, so we’re not starting another project while leaving another unfinished!

En Suite attic bathroom update before

The bathroom we’re wanting to do now is our en suite (the picture is the before – no after yet!). Our house has a bit of an overload of bathrooms – we’ve got a downstairs toilet, a family bathroom that has a bath but no shower, an en suite in the spare room that has a shower (I’m not keen on this, but it gets so little use) and an en suite in our bedroom which is in the attic which has a bath with a shower over it. But that’s the problem: our house is a new build (we were the second owners – it was built in 2009) and the previous owners bought it off plan. It means that they were able to choose whether they wanted standard fixtures and fittings in the bathroom and kitchen, plus they had decisions on where things like light switches, cupboards and doors would be, and let’s just say that some of our decisions would have been different ones! The house was built by Persimmon which means that the standard things are really quite…standard! If it was made by someone more like Skipton Properties who are quite local to us (so we’ve seen quite a lot of their properties around), it would be a bit more unique – they make the most of every square foot and work closely with interior designers and architects. While we love our house, there are plenty of things that we think just don’t work because of the way it was built, and our en suite bathroom is one of those – we’ve said a few times that we’d prefer one less bathroom in the house, but for the other ones to make better use of the space.

The problem with our en suite is that the bath is set horizontally across the room – it’s a fairly narrow space anyway which means that the bath isn’t a full sized one: problem number 1. I don’t ever actually use the bath in this room (I always use the family bathroom downstairs instead when I want a bath) because I end up more out of the water than in because it’s so small!
Then there’s the fact that because the bathroom is in the attic, it’s also under the eaves: problem number 2. It has a pretty cheap folding screen which you need to open up to start the shower (and that’s difficult to do as it was slightly broken when we moved in and is very stiff), then you need duck under the eaves but climb up over the bath edge to get into the shower – it doesn’t make a lot of sense!

So our solution is that we’re planning to remove the bath and put in a new shower. It’s been a bit of back and forth as Ben wanted a quadrant enclosure shower which I don’t mind (and previously wanted back when we were thinking about it in 2015!), but I prefer the look of more glass, less metal so it flows more in the space, like this (I’m taking a lot of inspiration from Pinterest!). The only problem is that, with where the water and waste come in plus where the angle for the eaves starts, we’re a bit limited on space. At first we thought it would mean that we would either need a bespoke piece of glass cutting or that we would need to build a stud wall then use the space on the other side for storage.
Fortunately, we’ve found a shower tray and glass screen that will fit, that will use up the space well and will look pretty (hopefully!) too. We’re also going to replace the tiles too (as I’m not a fan of the large beige ones) and replace the floor as again, I’m not a fan of it at all, plus it won’t fit right when we get the new shower in.

We’ve had a quote from a local plumber and we’re waiting for another at the moment to compare, and we were gifted money for Christmas from a lot of relatives to use for the refitting of the bathroom, so we’re almost ready to go. It’ll hopefully only be a few days of mess in there but luckily we’ve got the other bathrooms to use too, and we’re keeping the sink and toilet as they are so it’s not too much hassle. I’ll make sure to share photos when it’s done!

7 Comments

  1. January 4, 2017 / 11:51 am

    Looking forward to seeing your after pictures! We had our bathroom done about a year ago now and it was such a small space it’s so hard to work with and fit everything it but we managed it haha!
    Amy xx
    http://www.callmeamy.co.uk

  2. January 4, 2017 / 12:20 pm

    Oh I hope to see the end result of that makeover! x

    Jessica — NinetyCo 

    • Sian Thomas
      Author
      January 5, 2017 / 1:56 pm

      I’ll definitely make sure to share it – I’m looking forward to getting it done 🙂

  3. January 4, 2017 / 7:38 pm

    It’s so weird how process of fitting a bath is before its complete. Looking forward to the result 🙂

    • Sian Thomas
      Author
      January 5, 2017 / 1:56 pm

      Me too, I can’t wait!

  4. Lynsey
    January 5, 2017 / 6:21 pm

    Sounds like you have great plans, I’m sure it will look fab when it’s done. It takes ages to get a house just how you like it but I suppose that’s the fun part, planning, Pinteresting and seeing the end result.

    • Sian Thomas
      Author
      January 6, 2017 / 3:43 pm

      It does take ages to get the house sorted, but like you said, it’s a lot of fun in the meantime!

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