Remember this place?! Well, a lot has happened since I shared these photos way back in July (most of it in the last six weeks). The room has gone from raggedy catastrophe to restful sanctuary. The whole room was taken back to the crumbling plaster, a wall was knocked down, the cupboard is now part of the bathroom and there is an actual WORKING shower in here!
The rubber plant has been moved on to the living room where it belongs and everything has been replaced in the room. We made the whole space over with a mix of new, vintage, found and recycled materials.
The walls were plastered, floors levelled and we have turned a blinding peachy 2000’s room into our dream bathroom. We did contemplate leaving the plaster walls for a while but then got too excited about adding some serious mood to our bathing quarters.
After the plaster finally set we went about painting the walls and ceiling with Farrow & Ball Off Black Modern Emulsion. At this point, we really did feel like we were getting close to having our bathroom back. We have been trying to get this room finished for so long (an entire year), whilst running our businesses and lots of unforeseen hold-ups.
We have been gathering unwanted materials from all the people knocking down the (more modestly sized) houses like ours in the village. So we had a decent amount of 1930’s panelled doors in the garage just waiting for a new purpose. We thought they would be perfect to cover the uneven lower half of the room behind the bath, so we cut them down to make wall panelling.
Bathing in between DIY jobs!
Up-cycled wooden panelling We drilled holes for our bath pipes and the raised sink taps, then painted all the woodwork with Farrow and Ball Off Black Estate Eggshell for a glossy contrast to the walls.
After having to run baths for over a year in a mostly derelict space, I feel pretty practised in the art of zen bathing. This is how the image came to my mind that a dark bathroom with textural accents and surfaces that would reflect candlelight in the evenings and sunshine in the daytime, would be quite a soothing and restful space. The darkness is like a hug that envelopes you, the steam and incense smoke rise up and the catch the light and it feels luxurious as well as calming.
After what felt like an age of back and forth, we actually managed to pin down our lovely plumber to move and fit the new toilet, fit the sink, bath and shower enclosure. A combo of disasters and crazy schedules made it touch and go for a couple of months! But his copper pipework was worth the wait, it is almost too good to be hidden.
We chose a random mix of these plain and patterned vintage style beauties from Mandarin Stone and a white shower tray to make the shower enclosure the bright corner of the room.
The vintage style mixer shower and glass shower divider panel are both from Mira. The day it went in – a week before Christmas – felt like the best day ever. Until we turned it on and our ancient combi boiler was too elderly to handle heating the water as it came through. Ice cold water – NOOOO.
Enter again our super plumber who came back on Christmas Eve-Eve and fitted a new boiler for us. It had been needing replacing since we moved in, but we managed to squeeze four and a half years out of it.
At long last, we can now use this eagerly awaited new addition to our home. A hot invigorating shower just in time for Christmas. Let me tell you, this feels like boutique hotel showering right here, they do say all good things come to those who wait and we are so happy. We haven’t even tried out the roll top bath yet as showering is such a treat!
We managed to find new taps for the sink and bath that matched the showers lever handle style on eBay. The roll top bath was one I have wanted forever but we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to spend ￡900 when we first moved here, so I waited and waited for the right one to come up on eBay and it did! We trudged over to Crowborough and wrestled and heaved it into our van then put it in the garage, that was almost 4 years ago and at last her destiny has been realised.
This beautiful old green door with obscured glass was another lucky village find, no skip goes unturned around here, we asked permission to take it away of course. It had been languishing, forgotten and grubby in our garage, buried under all kinds of salvage and tut. We had to cut it down on both sides and the top but it fits like a dream now. We will fill the holes, then add an old original lock and handle saved from the rotten kitchen back door (that we replaced) – to keep it looking suitably salvaged. I just love the spotty glass!
The flooring is also from Mandarin Stone, we chose Nero Riven Slate to keep with the relaxing dark feeling of solitude we wanted to achieve in here. It really has gone from leaky broken down horror story to sanctuary now.
For our final project, we made the wash stand out of a solid piece of Elm, that is resting on antique butler sink legs that we picked up at a local salvage yard for a bargain price. I will show you more in my reveal post as there are a few finishing touches that need to be done before the full tour. Things like door handles, shelves, pipe covers, towel hooks and some hand sewn curtains for around the sink unit.
Below is a sneaky shot. I am so looking forward to sharing the full space and our little decor sourcebook full of links for everything we bought and used, very soon. The unpaid but gifted product collaborations in this post are with Mira and Mandarin Stone.
