Sunday, March 4, 2012

Bathroom Reno: New Beginnings

Yesterday morning, after the room had been completely emptied, the plumber got to work. His first job was to set up all the water supply pipes for the shower, bathtub, basin and toilet.

You never get to see the pipes, because they're inside the wall, but I'd call this artwork.

The drainage pipes in the bathroom will be a bit tricky, and the plumber will need access from underneath. So, R & the builder made a mess of my kitchen by cutting out the plaster from the bulkhead.


The bathtub. That was another story! I left home just before lunch to go to a friend's birthday party (via another friend's for a shower), so I missed all the action. I phoned R at about 2pm, and he said they were just putting the bath in. At about 5:30 I was just about to leave my friend's house and I hadn't heard from R, so I assumed they'd finished up and he was having a nap. Sadly no. He rang just before I walked out the door and said they'd only just finished the bath now, and he was desperate to get out of the house, away from the mess and have a shower, so he came round. (Many thanks to our gracious hosts!!)

Reno tip #3: Talk to the builder about bathtubs before you buy one. If your cheaper tub takes 3 hours longer than it should to be set in, it's not really cheaper!

We didn't realise until we'd pulled the bathroom walls down that the duct in the corner was much bigger than it needed to be to hide the pipe that's there. Our bathtub is a small one (only 1500mm long), but with the extra space created by having a smaller duct we could have gotten the more standard sized 1700mm one. Oh well. Live and learn. It just means that there'll be a bigger shelf at the end of the bath.

That's as exciting as it gets for now. This morning I swept, vacuumed and mopped (plaster dust and wood chips everywhere!), while R went to Bunnings to buy all the sheeting to go on the walls. Later today we'll need to decide on and buy our lights and exhaust fan.

There's a bit of electrical work to do, and the plumber will be back tomorrow to connect waste pipes for everything, then the sheeting will go up. Tiles and waterproofing are next, & we'll paint sometime in there as well. Then comes the fitting off, which means attaching the taps etc. Oh, and the vanity and toilet will be connected somewhere in the mix of it all, but I can't remember when.

And then it's all done! Easy peasy. Ha. Hopefully!

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