Cropper's bathroom blog - update

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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 1:11 pm

Good looking bathroom eamonn I like the tile work

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:52 pm

Still 2 weeks away from the ceremonial breaking of the first tile ceremony.

The good news is that, yesterday, I presented a �300+ bill to the tame plasterer dude, then said 'but you don't have to pay that..' and led him to the bathroom. Shocked

Game on! If, once I get all the horrible tiles off, I can give him a near enough empty room, with wires where we want them and shower pipes poking out of the wall, he will skim the lot.

Edmundo is on board for the sparks and plumbing, I am general labourer and runner (not to mention paymaster).

I bought a bog on eBay with sink, tap etc, when it comes I'm pulling the top off to see if a sparkly granite one is doable / affordable.

After looking at a bunch of tiles, I want travertine, found this stuff on eBay at �20 (plus 17.5% VAT) per Sq metre:

Just got to work out what I want, it comes in 60x40 and 30x40 sheets. Ive just been drawing the pattern in full scale on the bathroom wall cos Hayley can't imagine stuff, being a girl and all. (Puts on tin hat and retires)

Has anyone any experience of using travertine sheets like this? any big no-no's? (Apart from 'whatever you do, don't f*ck it up!')

I also bought me a heated towel thingy, comme ca:

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:36 pm

travertine is not a big problem. use a good quality tile adhesive such as BAL (Topps tiles sell it IIRC).
You might have to seal the tiles after doing them as well.

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:48 pm

Damn you Roy! You're giving SWMBO ideas again!

We're in the process of having the kitchen retiled. Tiler gave us a very optimistic estimate of 3-4 days for the job. He's been here 2 weeks & still not finished!

To be fair, he's doing a much better job than the bloke who did the bathroom. I don't think he anticipated the amount of plastering which was needed when he took the old tiles off, nor the fact that there isn't a straight wall anywhere Shocked

Took an entire day to tile the area round the window - turns out whoever put the double glazing in didn't fit it in straight. Every single tile had to be individually measured & cut Crying or Very sad

Goodness knows how much this is going to end up costing. To make matters worse, I just had to fork out �120 for a new exhaust on the car & yesterday I broke my specs - varifocals which are going to set me back another �200. Crying or Very sad

Do you think locking myself in a cupboard with a bottle of Ardbeg would help?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:58 pm

/\/\ After the Ardbeg, you won't be able to tell (or care) if you have your glasses on or not.

Shame you already had the bathroom done, the stone dude has a 25 Sqm pallet of travertine on Ebay. I bid �250 but didnt get to his reserve price. I only need about 7 SqM (though if I had a pallet I'd do all 4 walls) so we could have gone halves on it.

I presume your house was built by the same pissed up jokers who built mine, they wouldn't know a right angle if they tripped over it.

I see you found an avatar even scarier than my one. Shocked

According to the plasterer and Edmundo, a rebate (ie hacking a slot) in the wall will soolve the problem of the bath being a touch too long.

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

^^
Can I hide in the cupboard with you.
We're about to start redoing our bathroom.
Same problem as Roy, original bath is imperical while all new ones are metric it seems. So it cant be a straight forward swap.

Baths now seem to come in 1700mm or 1500mm.
What about a smaller bath with a shelf near the end Roy?

If anyone is contemplating a wet room make sure the floor slopes towards the drain!
Sounds obvious but had a disabled relative move into a house with an adapted wet room. When the shower was turned on the water flowed into the hall.

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:00 pm

Beautiful bathroom eamonn and travertine will have to be sealed and resealed every year. I have used the 5, 10 and 15 year sealants and not seen a difference when kids are involved. I've got a Jacuzzi and am at the 50 to 1 ratio. 50 hours of maintenance for every hour of use. I suggest no whirlpool, forget the plastic tub and go cast iron. Its more but its a great investment.

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:18 pm

Wet-rooms should also have at least a 2-inch "lip" in the floor at the door... to prevent such accidents as water flowing into the hall Wink

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:37 pm

Beware that heated towel rail Roy, we had an identical one and it rusted to hell after 18 mths due to the damp towels Confused

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:59 pm

Quote:

I presume your house was built by the same pissed up jokers who built mine, they wouldn't know a right angle if they tripped over it.

That's being far too kind.

The angle between the side & back walls in the bathroom is over 90deg. Bath fits nice & snug at one corner & there's an inch gap at the other corner. Sad

Quote:

After the Ardbeg, you won't be able to tell (or care) if you have your glasses on or not

It's remarkable how much you come to rely on these things (specs, not Ardbeg Wink

). I've got a spare set but they're single vision only - if I put them on I need to sit around 5ft away from the computer & I can't reach the keyboard. Without them I'm about 6inches away from the screen & it's giving me a headache. Sad

Glad you like the new avatar Wink

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

@ Rodus. That true about the towel rail rusting?
We're going to have to replace our radiator and thought the rail type looked nice but it'll get heavy use- there's 6 of us here at present.
We're thinking of getting a steel bath. The acryllic one we have cracked when something was dropped in it.

@ bearkat the bathroom was adapted so that a wheelchair user could have access , unfortunatly the twits of builders didn't check the level of the floor and no one thought to run the water before signing off the job.
This wasn't the only house that was refurbished in the complex to have this problem Rolling Eyes

Luckily I was trying to clean the builders dust off the floor before moving day and noticed it.

I'll be watching with intrest Roy.
Wish my hubby was good at DIY. We'll have to rely on tradesmen unless one of the kids suddenly shows a talent for building work.

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 6:32 pm

^^yes i'm afraid it's true. We've replaced it now with one half the size that Focus said won't rust (although they are usually fairly clueless). It had a damp bath mat and towels on it nigh on every day and was in a terrible condition in the end. It's also a good idea to use a towel rack that hangs off the heated rail to eliminate direct contact.

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 6:34 pm

@Nanny: I agree with Rodus - beware them heated bathroom thingies. We bought one some years ago and apart from the fact that it was a proper b&(!h to install, the thermostat never seemed to work properly so it was either boiling hot or stone cold. And yes, the things rust...

@Roy: I like the sink unit. Personally, I would have dumped the bathtub completely and gone for a rainfall-shower room/cubicle. Way better than a soak in the bathtub Razz

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 8:58 pm

@Roycropper

Please, no pictures of the consecration of the royal seat or of the first bang in the shower. Wink

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:42 pm

KD

You are such a partypooper!! Rolling Eyes

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 11:24 am

Lol, there will be a tile breaking ceremony when we get started, but no we can launch the loo in private.

We once had a bang in a hotel's corner bath, and managed to move it off its foundations.. Embarassed

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

Good luck with it all Roy

Thanks for the info Rodus and Luther.
I'll avoid the towel rail and just go for replacing the radiator.
I was concerned that a rail wouldn't have enough heat output. Our bathroom is Victorian, narrow but longish.
We have one of those racks that hang on the radiator at the moment.
I use them around the house in damp weather to dry the washing as well.
There's some things you can't put in a tumble drier.

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 7:20 pm

Quote:

There's some things you can't put in a tumble drier.

Like kittens.

I just got back from drawing all over the bathroom with marker pens, once I worked out the travertine panels are 2.5 old tiles wide by 4 high (yes that's the way up she wants them before you ask) I realized I could use it as big graph paper until I smash the tiles off.

I need 17 big 60 x 40 tiles, 14 of the smaller 40 x 40 cm ones, plus wastage and bits. What I dont know is whether I have to buy in boxes of 10, I emailed the guy about that. Also I wonder how much extra to allow for cockups?

Edmundo says we can cut them with an angle grinder, you should have seen the look he gave me when I asked if he can cut them in dead straight lines...

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 7:35 pm

Generally you buy tiles by the square metre so the number in a box depends on the size of them.

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:17 pm

Yay! Eater's answer to car crash TV, part deux. Laughing

I have no suggestions for you, but I do have one for Hayley: tell her to join a good spa so that she can use their showers, warm fluffy towels, and posh toiletries for however many weeks the bathroom is out of commission. She may have to join for a minimum of 6 months or a year, which would be tragically sad , of course. Wink

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:10 am

Allow 10% for wastage. It should come in much lower than that, but its nice to have the extra. When you are sorting through the material, you may find stock you do not like and will not be usable. Once the project is in, a crack may develop and no new pieces will be remotely like the stuff stuck to your walls. Having something stashed away is nice. While an angle grinder will cut just about anything, the dust from it is horrific. I would suggest a wet saw. A cheap one with a diamond blade would run you less than $78 here in the States. With one, you could lop four corners off adjacent pieces and put in an accent piece. Having fixed visual interest points pulls the eyes in so people don't notice the screw-ups. Laughing

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 5:41 pm

And so it begins...

The vanity unit is in the garage, with the towel radiator and shower, bath is on its way, tiles and granite windowsill / unit top are about to be ordered. I have photo'd all my felt tip planning using the tiles as giant graph paper.

Anyone know how I stick a granite window sill in place? I guess I use a tube of 'I Cant Belive It's Not Nails' or whatever they call it. I am taking the tiles off the sides of the sill before I have the granite cut, as iMike said before, these houses have serious issue with right angles in places, and my window sill is definitely on the p*ss.

*** BANNED *** Joined: 02 Jan 2006 Posts: 2021

I thought we were still in the kitchen Embarassed

Good luck

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:58 pm

I would lay a granite sill on a bed of mortar, rather than use glue. I'd also hack off the plaster on the walls where it's going and replaster afterwards for a nice tidy fit.

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 9:59 am

Cheers for that Eammon. I may ask the plasterer not to do the sill then, so the mortar has more grip than it will on new plaster.

Edmundo is coming for tea so I can pick his brains (with fava beans and a nice Chianti).

The tiles pop off the green paint OK, the lower part is a bitch and brings half the plaster with it. I think the room was half tiled from the floor, then that ghastly shade of green above. someone tiled the rest so they never had to see it again.

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