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Wednesday 24 October 2012

Tempus Fugit

I feel I should be starting this post  'it's been five weeks since my last post and I have....." but I really don't know where the last few weeks have gone. Each morning 'blog' appears on my to do list, and each evening it gets shifted on a day. I haven't even been catching up on my fellow bloggers (apologies to one & all). So what we been doing?


  • Work
  • Lots of guests (so nice)
  • Work
  • Another broken toe for me
  • Work
  • A growing obsession for jam making (more on that another time)
  • Work
  • Upholstery course starts again
And so it goes on. The problem is because I haven't been blogging I have a back-log - or is it a blog-log? - of things to write about which are all now a bit out of sync. Oh well! The benefit for you, dear reader, is that instead of a blow by blow account of bathroom progress you can have a whistle stop pictorial guide. Then I can write a couple more posts and have them up my sleeve for later. Cunning eh!

So, when I last posted on the bathroom we were in full plumbing mode and the walls were just studs. Plasterboard went up and Andrew plastered the ceiling (to cover the Artex) and then the walls.

Recipe for arm ache


 A frame was built for the concealed cistern and then it was the floor. We laid plywood down to give a more rigid surface than the floorboards and then started planning the floor.

Laying out the floor tiles
Andrew decided to use a flexible adhesive so there would be no chance of the tiles moving and possibly cracking, but it's horrible to work with and so much muttering went on!


Messy work
Getting there
Supervisor's inspection
Next stage was the grouting, the observant among you will notice that the cistern has now been boxed in and the bottom of the wall has been plastered.

Grouted
It then got quite exciting as the suite went in so the wall tiling could be done. The plumbing was tested and all was dry. Andrew (notice how I don't feature much in this tale? I painted the walls & ceiling and then assumed a management role) then decided that a mere cupboard at the end of the bath was not good enough and constructed an oversized drawer. The dark grey on the wall is a rubbery waterproof coating mainly for the power shower.

Work in progress
We had chosen plain matt white tiles for the walls with  glass terrazzo inserts which we played about with until we were happy with the design.

Mocking up the design
Design approved

Next step was for Andrew to work out the datum line and put up a batten to support the first row of tiles.

Datum lines & battening
And finally yesterday tiling started.

First tiles up

As I write progress continues upstairs and we should have the tiling finished by the weekend. Frustratingly it will take two weeks for the grout to harden sufficiently for the power shower but at least it will give me time to get all the painting finished.

Until next time


Sharon

4 comments:

  1. Looking good, Sharon! I love the shape of your wall tiles. I'm also immersed in bathrooms - ours this time - not as far ahead as you, sadly, and still trying to put together what you'd call a mood board. I must have looked at a thousand pieces of sink furniture and can't find a single one that I like, so am now faced with the prospect of finding something old and converting it into a kind of washstand. Sigh. Haven't decided yet quite how much we're going to do ourselves but we may well just, as a friend here puts it, Get A Bloke In this time because we have to fit it around guests and our other big winter job, building a summer kitchen in the barn. What I could really do with is an Andrew. You don't rent him out, do you? :-)

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  2. Thank you Kalba. I don't know what I'm more envious of, the fact that you're having a summer kitchen or the fact that you have a summer! Andrew is available for hire, rates are the same as quoted previously to Margaret - he can only come if accompanied by his supervisor & guard dog ;-)

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  3. Now then, really interested in this post because we too are in full bathroom mode just now. We've been held up because, having with difficulty chosen The Tiles (which are remarkably like yours by the way - such taste), and having waited, as we had been warned at point of sale, 3 weeks for them to be delivered, we got bad news. Unobtainable, anywhere. So.... back to the drawing board. It's all such fun, isn't it?

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  4. Oh Margaret I do feel for you. I kept finding tiles that if they were the right size they were the wrong colour! Or broke the budget. And now Andrew is nagging me for the concept board for the en-suite. Will it ever end?

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