Well, technically it’s vinyl, not lino. But it’s close enough.
Anyhow, yesterday was spent planing the bottom edge from the door (yes, Kathryn and I really did plane the door rather than me just hack the bottom off it with a saw) and then I spent a large chunk of the day laying the lino. All of the day really. It’s a small room with a fiddly-bastard toilet in it. And having tested my theory I found that I was correct – the toilet is on what turns out to be a small pedestal which is, I think, glued to the floorboards. So we opted for laying the floor around it, which meant that I had to cut the vinyl to fit. I’m aware that this is not the ideal solution, but it’s the one we chose on the basis that I really, really didn’t want to move the toilet and by extension the cistern (because moving the pedestal on which the toilet’s base is sitting would probably have resulted in its destruction, lowering the toilet, and then requiring the cistern to be lowered).
This was an experience which was almost as much fun as I’d imagined. Only the bit behind the toilet where I was dangling arms outstretched across the toilet seat, and my chest crushed, and my head wedged under the cistern / against the back of the toilet trying to trim the lino to fit against the wall, was more fun than I’d imagined. As the faint smell of 70 year old toilet* worked its way into my nose I decided that, like wallpapering, this was a task I wasn’t planning to repeat.
At any rate, having got the lino down…
…I cleaned up the tiles under the sink and switched the old, grey, plastic plumbing for some chromed metal (and a 90 degree joint of plastic-chrome effect). Having scraped the tiles clean and wiped some bits down with meths I spent an inordinate amount of time putting masking tape around the room…
Several miles of Frogtape** later:
And then came the sealant. The miles and ever-loving miles of sealant.
So we’ve gone from this:
To this:
I’ve got a bit more to do, there’s the bit around the window, and lamp needs to be put up. And the doorframe painted. And I’m going to paint that black plinth under the toilet white. And we want to put some mirrors up. Oh, and I’m thinking I should paint the copper pipe white. Otherwise it’s done.
We’ve decided to leave the existing flush pipe and flush (because it’s white and innocuous), and the flush kinda-sorta-works.
Unfortunately, in the process I’ve really, really, really hurt my shoulder. I don’t know how, or why, but lifting it up or abducting it in any way causes me quite a lot of pain. I can do it, but I think I’ve sprained something. This is not good, not good at all.
* no matter how often you clean it, if you get that close to a toilet that old, it smells.
** Kathryn suggested trying Frogtape in the last house, I think. It’s vastly better than any of the other masking tapes we’ve tried and I’m a convert. I was very cynical at the time, and didn’t really want to fork out the extra for a 4-quid roll instead of a 50p roll, but the difference in finish and in lack-of-damage to paint has been worth it.
