Bathroom revamp: gutted

Things have to look worse before they look better, right?

M has been holed up in the bathroom every spare minute clad in his beanie hat and a light sprinkling of dust chipping away at the old tiles.

He left the bath in until the very last minute so our shower-phobic kids could still use it. I did manage to coax them into the en suite shower and first time round it all went amazingly well. They thought the water was tickely and it was fun. Second time around the novelty had worn off and they both screamed blue murder whilst being washed. I am skipping nightly washes - just can't face the agro - and washing them only when they look visibly grimy ie when they are caked head to toe in suncream, melted ice cream and sand from the beach.

When we finally got around to removing the bath, it weighed a ton and we couldn't lift it even with help from his father. M ended up smashing it to pieces so we could get it out the house in several pieces. It was a real shame because although it was old and knackered, it was a decent quality enamel bath, far better than anything we can afford to buy.

We've finally chosen and ordered our tiles and bathroom suite - large plain white tiles from Wickes and the Positano bathroom suite also from Wickes. 

It is useless trying to make a choice online as they all look exactly the same and you can't judge the dimensions or the quality. We had a wander round the store and fortunately both liked pretty much the same thing. The one we finally settled on was boxed up so we couldn't actually see it but it was the only one that ticked all of our boxes - high, deep basin, unfussy design, sleek(!) loo (some are really odd bulbous shapes). We got a pretty decent discount as we bought two sinks, two loos and extra tiles for when we get around to the en suite. I have a feeling they may sit in the garage for a while.