Now, for those of you who are sick of the house updates… here’s another one.
So, the bathroom progresses, not at the speed I’d like, but it’s definitely moving forward. Today’s been spent doing something small which, it turns out, has made a huge difference. At least, it’s made a huge difference to me when I look at it.
When I painted the walls I painted down as far as the (original 1930s) tiles. These are cemented to the wall – and I know from elsewhere in the house there’s no plaster under that. It’s tile-cement-brick. Fortunately, I love them and think they look awesome. Also, the shower curtains broadly seem to stop the water reaching them anyway, but I’m not wholly convinced that they’re that waterproof. They have been fitted by abutting each tile to the next, and only the tiniest bit of grout has been used. I popped some grout on when I was doing the repair at the end of the bath where I’d taken out the old tiles and put in new ones, but otherwise the grout’s probably original.
The plan was to make sure that there was no water ingress at the top of the tiles, and to make things look a bit tidier, I’d run a bead of silicone along that top edge. I’d not realised what a difference this would make:
So, along the toilet-roll holder wall… before:
And After:
And similarly with the shower and heater walls:
Before:
After:
I hadn’t expected the impact it’s had – which is to say it makes the room just feel much more finished. Tomorrow I’m planning to lay the lino and plane the bottom of the door, and that’s pretty much it. There’re a couple more similarly finishy jobs. I need to paint the doorframe and the door, and once this silicone sealant’s dry I need to seal around the window frame (so that should be tomorrow, too, hopefully). Once the lino’s down I’ll need to seal around that too, and there’s still the new toilet flush pipe to install, but I’ve pretty much given in to the fact I’m going to have to replace the siphon for that to happen – which will hopefully reduce water usage (since we can install a dual flush siphon). I just hate dealing with that arena of plumbing. But hey.
On the plus side, the first coat of paint went on the bath panel:
Which again, creeps us further towards finishment.
