Warning, this post is going to be really image intensive.

My first major building project to the house since moving in was to move the old back door and replace it with a window. This gave me a nice new french door out into the garden, but the underlying plan was to rip out the old dingy bathroom and replace it with a nice shiny new one (building regs no longer requiring you to have two doors between a toilet and a kitchen).

I somehow managed to get a local bathroom installer (really local, 4 doors down local) to rip out and replace my bathroom while I was away at a local juggling festival (very convenient as I could pop back if needed and was regularly popping in to feed the cat).

So we started from this:

A rather odd configuration with the toilet in a sort of alcove and a stud wall so that the two doors could be put in place (leading to a completely wasted bit of space).

They got straight onto ripping everything out, so that when I popped in on Monday (having left on Friday) it looked like this:

Thankfully when the rather random tongue and groove was removed the walls didn’t collapse and it was discovered that the walls had been packed with polystyrene for insulation. This meant that new plasterboard could be attached to be tiled on to. The ceiling also did not collapse when the walls around the toilet were removed, but some replastering was required to level up the ceiling. This had been done by the time I returned on Wednesday:

Friday saw the start and end of the tiling, and the attachment of the taps to the bath. The soil pipe had also been moved and the floor where the toilet had been was levelled up to match the rest of the room:

I returned on Monday and it was finishing up time. Just a few applications of silicone and it would be done:

Once the silicone had dried I could move back in all of the towels and toiletries as well as the new shelving unit and a veritable shed-load of decorative items (mostly candles and plants). I even replaced the old blind since the hooks were still there:

Not bad for just under 5 grand (about what it cost me to do something similar, but not quite as nice, to the bathroom in my old house).