Bathroom revamp: meet the bathrooms

When we moved into this house almost two years ago, top of our to do list was to get rid of all the weird textured metallic wallpaper and paint every room white. The next job was to rip out the bathrooms. “There is no way I can live with those bathrooms for even a month,” I seem to remember saying. Well two years on we have the white walls but the family bathroom, en suite and downstairs loo are just the same. Okay we tore up the carpet in the loo and replaced it with lino when the smell of stale pee became overpowering but otherwise not much has changed.

I am guessing from the swamp green floral tiles that this bathroom was put in sometime during the 80s. It is dark, dull and depressing and never feels properly clean. 

 

The family bathroom is split into two rooms – bath and sink in one room and loo in the other. It's a ridiculously inconvenient layout so we are going to knock down the dividing wall and block up one of the doorways to create one big light-filled room.

Then we may swing the bath around so instead of being wedged in against the short wall, it runs along the external wall under the windows. And we desperately need some storage. At the moment all our shampoos, shower gels and bubble baths are crowded along the windowsill.

We are on an extremely tight budget in the sense that we really don’t have any money to spend at all. Big M is going to do all the work himself on weekends and after work – well that’s the idea anyway. We are already looking out for bathroom suites and tiles that don't break the bank but are still relatively stylish. In a dream world I'd be going to made a mano for tiles but I think the reality is more Wickes and Topps Tiles.

Wish us luck!