Before we bought our house last year we lived in Josh’s one bedroom bachelor pad that he bought before we met. He did a lot of work to it to make it livable but thankfully there were still a few D.I.Y projects that we could do together.
One of them was the bathroom. Though it was clean, with more 500 new products and someone that likes really hot showers it began to deteriorate pretty quickly. It got to a state where saying that it needed a bit of work is an understatement, but surprisingly for under $1000 and some serious elbow grease it looked brand new.
As you can see from the before photos the tiles started to fall off the wall and we were starting to get a mould problem that we couldn’t manage so the work was urgent.
Step 1 – Cleaning
The first thing we did was add a fan, which we had professionally installed (we’re not electricians) , which meant that the future mould would no longer be an issue.
We then scrubbed the mould with bleach and let that dry for a couple of days.
Step 2 – Tiling
Josh did an awesome job and tiled the bathroom himself. We picked some factory second white tiles for $14.95 per square meter!! Josh’s dad taught him the tricks of the trade as he has done a fair share of D.I.Y but we also found this video really helpful.
Step 3 – Painting
Instead of replacing the scratched and corroded laundry trough I scraped the old paint off and gave it a fresh coat, first using a primer and then some high gloss wet area paint.
We painted the ceiling and the un-tiled parts of the bathroom with mould resistant paint
I gave the un-tiled parts of the bathroom a second coat with the same high gloss paint that I used for the trough.
Step 4 – Storage
Josh saw a great opportunity to transform some unused space above the hot water cylinder so that we could use it for towels and he build a really cool cupboard.
We removed the dryer (we never used it) and added shelving instead for storing laundry baskets, we also added a couple of smaller shelves above the trough and a hook on the wall which was the perfect space to hang our ironing board.
Step 5 – Finishing touches
One of my favourite new features was the glass shower screen that we added onto the bath that we bought for $200 form Harper’s bathrooms. We also bought a new towel rack that really made a difference.
WHAT WE’D DO DIFFERENTLY:
Josh mentioned a few times how he would have paid a bit extra for non factory second tiles as the ones he bought came in different sizes which meant he had to cut all of them to fit and it was a tedious process.
Overall this was pretty hard work but totally doable with a bit of patience and it meant that I had space for the all of my beauty products and I could have really hot showers without any stress.
X
Maja
