That 'big project' I've been banging on about for a few years now....

[James Harrison]

Two weeks out; larger bits have started to arrive.

Painting of the bathroom is still going on and coming close to being finished (apart from the ceiling, I'll see how I get on with other things and might get around to it before all hell breaks loose). 

[James Harrison]

Two days (and a bit) before all hell breaks loose.

Sitrep:
- painting is as done as it's going to be (walls are painted, ceiling has not been touched)
- floorboards have been sorted (of the 30 prepared, 6 are so warped that they can only be used as shorter pieces)
- all plumbing bits either on-site or en-route. 

This... is going to be either fun, or a nightmare.  Possibly both. 

[James Harrison]

Before the massive rip-out began I took a few final photographs of the bathroom as it was.  By this point the floor tiling had gone pretty much completely and the wall tiling had been taken down in a few places, and the walls had been repainted in cream. 











And then this morning, out came the screwdrivers, the hammers and the crowbars. 











It's.... not as bad as I thought it could have been.  There are some mould patches around the corner of the bath, but at least they're small patches and not covering the entire wall.  I've bought some mould remover and sprayed those areas, now it says to leave it an hour and then wash it down with soapy water so there's plenty of time today to get those cleaned up before the plumber comes tomorrow. 

[James Harrison]

Day 2 and... well, I don't have a bathroom anymore.   



The plumber disconnected the bathtub and we got it free.  Exposing a large, dampened, collapsing area of plasterboard behind it.  The tiler says this needs to be made good before he can do anything with it, so that's my job for this afternoon and this evening then. 



With the bath gone, the room suddenly feels so much larger. 



Looking back at the patch I need to fix.  For some reason there is a strip of skirting board encapsulated in the wall along this side of the room. 



Seen to better effect here.  The radiator pipes and valves have been installed and you can also see behind, the gas pipe running along the top of the joists.  Also the central heating pipes running back into the hallway - this means I'm going to have to box-out this bit.  That's frustrating.  The biggest issue though is how I avoid a clash between my floorboards and that gas pipe.



Where the radiator used to be is where the washstand and sink are going, so new pipes installed here too. 

It's been a lot of underfloor work today. 

[James Harrison]

Day 2, part 2: My Turn. 

So the plumber left and I was presented with a couple of holes in the wall which need to be fixed in time for the tiler on Thursday.



Luckily I had a few plasterboard offcuts and some adhesive.  These patched up, for a given value of, the larger hole.  That done I went out and bought a few tubes of expanding foam and filled up the gap behind. 



At the same time I filled in the smaller hole above where the new shower pipes come out the wall. 

Now, these holes are a bit of a work in progress and my thought is that once the expanding foam has had a chance to properly cure overnight I'll go back at them tomorrow with some plaster filler and finish off making good. 



In any case it now looks a least a little bit less catastrophic, compared with the same scene this morning. 

I took advantage of some of the floor being up to take out some of the rubble and detritus that accumulates in the floor and ceiling spaces, and that led on to a Time Team moment or two. 



First there was this nauseatingly gawkish remnant of wallpaper. 



Then there was this desiccated partial bar of soap.  I'm powerless to speculate how that ended up down there. 



Finally there was this impressive lump of old skirting board, including the piece of wall-mounted timber it would have screwed into. 

[SeVeNeVeS]

Not really active atm but just to let you know I'm watching with interest.

[James Harrison]

Not really active atm but just to let you know I'm watching with interest.

Thanks - I think I'm on the up now as things seem to be starting to come together rather than falling apart.  So there's going to be a bit of a flurry of activity for the next few days and into early next week.

So for Day 3 then;



The plumber came back and finished off the new pipework under the floor.  This included the new waste pipe for the washstand and redirecting the boiler condensate pipe to run into that, rather than a long pipe outside which was in the habit of freezing up in winter. 



The WC was taken off the wall and pulled forward, allowing the remaining tiles to be removed.  After a bit of a debate of how to phase the works the decision was made to start installing the new flooring, so that when the new bathtub and WC are fitted next week there's no delay whilst we fool around trying to lay floorboards. 



That flooring extends to where the new bathtub will be. 



One thing that you might be able to spot is that the gas pipe actually pokes up above the main floor substrate and clashes with the boarding.  This I suspect is why the tiled floor was laid on 12mm ply boards.  Also, the central heating pipes come out of the floor and then dive into the wall (on the other side of the wall the staircase goes up one more riser and then turns onto a corridor - so these pipes are actually under that corridor floor).  This is why I had that odd bit of boxing-out in that area originally. 

These mean that my original idea of doing away with the box out entirely isn't practical.  As these things aren't project killers I'll carry on for the moment and then see what my options are when the room is otherwise finished. 



Well, that was the plumber's first half done - not bad for two mornings' worth of work - the tiler comes in tomorrow.  Meanwhile I've spent part of the afternoon carrying on with laying the new flooring, on my own. 

This has rapidly become tedious to the point of completely and utterly    -ing me off, a combination of some boards being warped and having to be coerced to align, needing to screw the boards down which means drilling the hole, swapping out the drillbit, countersinking the hole, swapping over from the drill to the screwdriver and then finally putting the screw in, and pretty much every single board having to be cut.  It's been slow going and when I recognised I reaching the point of frustration that things were at risk of being broken through anger and carelessness I called a halt for the day. 

So we've got half the floor down at least and that's further than I was expecting to be for three days in.  It needs to be fully down by Monday - that's an absolute deadline - and if I can have that done, and the ceiling whitewashed, by then then I'll be very happy indeed.   

[SeVeNeVeS]

If I may, could I ask where the final route of the basin waste was run. I see it comes out of the floor, where does it go and how?
I seem to remember it was quite a quandary trying to decide.

Looking great so far. 

[James Harrison]

The joists are deeper than I thought (easily 10 or 11 inches minimum), so what we did was to notch them and run the waste straight across the room.

[James Harrison]

Day 4. In my planner I have 'tiler' written here, on the basis of a visit and discussion some four or five weeks back.

Well, quarter past one and no tiler. I did call them earlier and the response was 'we were going to stay in touch and confirm closer to the time' but considering I texted them last week to ask if they were still coming and again earlier this week showing the bath out...

OK, let's think about this. Plumber's coming back on Monday to start the installation. Today's Thursday. If the tiler says he can come tomorrow - and at the moment they're not answering the phone, so I have no idea if they can do that - all well and good. If one of my parents neighbours (also a tiler) can do tomorrow, all well and good. Otherwise it looks like a DIY antic over the weekend to get it done, or at least as much of it as is necessary to get the new suite in.

I got a vibe off the guy when he came to price up the work that something like this would happen, I should have listened to it.

[James Harrison]

Day 4, part 2.  Most of the day therefore has been spent in a fruitless one-sided conversation trying to determine whether the tiler is still planning to come and do the work, and if so when.  But this room is obviously on a set timescale - the tiling HAS to be done for Monday - therefore by early afternoon I was starting to look around for Plan B. 

I've luckily been able to line somebody up to do the work on Saturday, which means tomorrow I need to buy in some materials (mainly adhesive and grout).  I'm so very glad now that when I booked the tiler, or thought I did, that the plumber suggested they come back on the Monday rather than the Friday. 

Anyway, today hasn't been a total loss because I've spent a few hours finishing off the floor.  By 'finishing off' I actually mean I've got the whole lot in and screwed down.  There are some small areas that will need thinking about, once the new suite has been installed, to properly call it finished but as with everything I do here I apply the 80% rule.

[SeVeNeVeS]

Don't forget to splash a copious amount of PVA on those walls and plasterboard before the tiler arrives to do his magic.

[James Harrison]

Don't forget to splash a copious amount of PVA on those walls and plasterboard before the tiler arrives to do his magic.

I've got a list of bits the new tiler has asked me to get ready for him, PVA is on it 

After yesterday's stress, today's plan is to buy the bits the tiler has asked for, finish off screwing down the floor, and clean and repaint the ceiling. 

[James Harrison]

Day 5 then, bit of a breather...

I finished off screwing down the floorboards, I've also chiselled and smoothed and scraped off as much of the existing tile adhesive as I can, and I've touched in the edges where the walls and ceiling meet.







After four days of it, I'm getting pretty tired of having to use the kitchen sink for cleaning, shaving etc.  Having to traipse through the whole house to get things from the bathroom, into the kitchen, to use them, and then taking them all back upstairs again, it's turns a 2-minute thing into a 10-minute thing. 

Hopefully just a few more days of dealing with it and then I'm out on the other side. 

[James Harrison]

Day 6, and tiles are going on the walls.  We had a frantic few hours on Thursday ringing around various tradespeople myself and my parents have used previously to see if any of them had a contact for a tiler, the plasterer didn't have a contact but being also a general handyman came out on Thursday evening, had a look at it and said he'd take the job on.  So - seriously, huge thanks to him for giving up his weekend (and, incidentally, his birthday) to get me out the    .  It really is very much appreciated. 





The longer wall was relatively easy, and two or three hours saw it largely done.  They had a useful tool that gave them a straight and level line to work to, from the second row up.  Tomorrow they're going to take this down and install the floor-level row of tiles. 



The shorter wall - the one I had to patch up - is not level or square in any direction, and in an ideal world - that thing we don't live in - we would have reskimmed it and levelled it up before tiling.  That said however, until we started tiling we didn't realise it was so borked.  So this wall has been much slower going, with masses of adhesive required behind each tile to bring the wall out true and level.  Of course this means that the adhesive takes that much longer to set, and makes things difficult with setting out adjacent tiles because you set one square, fit its neighbour and - oops! - nudge the first tile, which slips and needs to be set square again.  The plasterer/tiler has gone out tonight and bought a bag of quick-setting plaster that he'll use tomorrow to skim the wall and try to square it up. 

[SeVeNeVeS]

Looking good but I would have gone herringbone or brickwork to break up the lines a bit. I know you want to match the washstand though.

Anyway grand job being done and bless the man for stepping in to save the day!

[James Harrison]

To say I'm grateful to the guy doesn't even begin to scratch the surface; we had to call the plumber yesterday to ask him something and we were told the room has to be ready for tomorrow for the install or it will be held up for three weeks, because of other work booked in.  So it really was that close to going completely wrong. 

I did originally want a herringbone pattern but after thinking it over a little while I decided it was going to jar when viewed against the splashback.  Naturally I'm glad I made that decision now, after what's happened. 

[James Harrison]

Day 7.  This was actually yesterday but it was a long day (we didn't finish until after 8, and had started at 9 in the morning).





Tiling is done, ready for the plumber. 

[James Harrison]

Day 8, and it's all starting to come back together. 

The plumber came this morning and has installed the shower, the bathtub and the WC. 

The shower put up a bit of a fight, having been bought from Etsy - the plumber said it looks like either a display model, or a second hand item (sold as 'new') because of the condition of the joints and a few marks and dints on the pipework etc.  In any case it was an awkward thing to put together and I ended up paying my 'blood tax' for the project when I cut my hand trying to get a few stuck screws undone on one of the support points.

The bathtub didn't fit neatly into the corner of the room.  The bathtub is square whilst the walls... aren't.  Obviously the bath had to be square next to the shower but this means that it steadily gets further away from the opposite wall.  To stop water getting down the wall and under the bath then means a change to my plans - instead of a glass shower screen I've instead got to install a shower rail and curtain (and this has to be circular to do the job). 

The WC actually broke the trend and just fitted in with the minimum of fuss. 

With all of those in we took the opportunity just to bring the washstand back into the room to get an idea of the finished project. 







Tomorrow then will see the last of the heavy-duty work and then I'm back on my own for finishing off.

[Sir Henry]

Re: your 'blood tax'

Since starting work on doing up this old house and garden, I've taken on a new motto: 'The job's not done till the blood starts to run.' Particularly true for clearing the 10 ft. high, 10 ft. deep wall of brambles and demolishing chimney stacks 'carefully'.

[James Harrison]

That's a good slogan and I might have to nick it 

Some photos will follow later, but so far today

- washstand has been plumbed in and can be used
- shower has been tested and found to leak in multiple places; new gaskets etc having to be fitted to a 'new' shower
- bath has been filled and allowed to drain, and the waste found to leak; the old one had to be fished out of the rubbish and re-installed
- the radiator brackets land just below the bottom of the tiling, so the tiling is being extended down by 1/2 a tile so we can fit that in.

[James Harrison]

Day 9 - all the heavy lifting work done, everything plumbed in and working, I have a working bathroom again.  The plumber says this is in record time too - working bathroom - wreck - working bathroom, in a week. 







There are, of course, about 150 little finishing off jobs and rough edges and whatnot that I need to sort out, but majority of it is over and done with.  I can do what's left on my own, in my own time, without the stress of thinking about timescale or costs or needing to hire in other people to do it (with the exception of the light fitting, but I'll do that when I do it). 

Phew!  I'm so glad that's over and done with.  It has honestly been the most stressful week (or week and a half) in the project so far.

[The Bullet]

Would it be possible to reverse the door?
I mean put the hinges on the other side so the door opens into the room but end up parallel with the wall.
The was it is now the door needs to be opened quite far to get round the corner of the sink.

[James Harrison]

Would it be possible to reverse the door?
I mean put the hinges on the other side so the door opens into the room but end up parallel with the wall.
The was it is now the door needs to be opened quite far to get round the corner of the sink.

It can be done, but it would be an awful lot of work. 

The simplest way would be to turn the door around, but even if I did that the whole door handle and lock assembly would need to be taken off and put on the other side.  The lock is a separate piece that isn't integral to the door, you see.  I'm not sure if it's a handed mechanism or not, but if it is I'd have to source a complete new lock (right handed instead of left hand) - and all the locks and handles upstairs match, so if I did need to get a new one that would be another challenge. 

Then the hinges would still need to be taken off and their insets enlarged across the full depth of the door.  And once that is done I'd have a door and frame that are full of screwholes, which would need to be filled, smoothed, sanded and stained. 

At the end of of it all I'd have a door with slightly wider access into the room, but I'd have also lost any privacy in there when the door is open.  I'd also have to close the door to turn the light on, as the switch would then be behind the door.  Additionally, the doors being hung to open that way is a feature of Victorian and Edwardian houses, so I'd have lost that original quirk as well. 

[SeVeNeVeS]

How much does the bath run out from the wall? from the photo 15-20mm?

How square is the shower end of the bath top and the tiled wall? (shower screen)