Bathroom First Fit Complete

After what feels like weeks of working every waking hour on the bathroom it's now at the point where I can leave it alone for a couple of days and catch up on life.

The trouble with the bathroom as a project is that you can't waste any time in getting it finished. It needs a quick turnaround. Especicially when you live with two girls. For a while the only toilet in the house was the one downstairs, which has no door and is basically in the hallway. Not ideal. There was also a period where we were having sponge baths stood at the kitchen sink, having to get other people to rinse our hair with measuring jugs.

This is all over now and we can toilet, wash and scrub teeth in the bathroom, which now looks like this (image on right is as it was when we first viewed the house):

It's far from finished but it now functions as a bathroom and I can relax for a while. I consider this the "first fit" where I get things in place and eliminate leaks and problems. I now have a lot of "boxing in" to do and the shower to fit.

The room itself looks pretty much the same as before - in that everything's in the same place. We made several improvements though, such as removing the false sealing and all the plastic cladding around the window. The door has moved out in to the corridor to make more space as well as the partition wall moving 6". All in all I think it makes a much bigger-feeling room.

The room has been dragged from the 80s (the bath was stamped May 1986 on the underneath!) in to the noughties. The feel is very much retro Victorian and is very much "now". Whether this look will date any time soon I don't know. Let's hope not.

There are more photos here. One of the photos is of Karen (legs in pop socks) trying the bath on for size in InSitu. This was almost a year to the day ago. Since then we've been buying all the bits needed for the project and storing them about the house. The idea being to spread the cost and soften the blow. Now we've got all the expensive part out of the way I've been wondering what the total cost was, which I'll try and work out roughly now:

• Bath and sink : £1100
• Taps: £200
• Toilet: £750
• Tiled floor: £120
• Plasterer: £400
• Shower (including basin and enclosure): £500
• Lights: £160
• Fixtures and fitting: £400
• Sundries: £500
• Total: £4100

Not cheap by any means, but far less than we could have spent on achieving the same result. As ever our approach has not been to cut any corners but to source decent quality stuff at a good price. It's amazing how much cheaper things become when you shop round and know where to look.