Our bathroom renovation…
The final pieces of the renovation puzzle are currently sliding in to place over in our new flat. I make that sound so easy, but of course we’ve left the biggest, messiest and most stressful jobs until the end!
It took me a while to decide on the colour scheme in this room, but I think I knew in my heart I wanted a pink bathroom. Naturally I spend a lot of time in here, so I may as well make it as extra as possible, right? Plus, I happen to be married to a man who thinks a pink bathroom is a wonderful idea, so I would be a fool to let this opportunity pass me by.
I’ve been designing this room for a few months now – hours of measuring, googling, looking at inspiration, talking it through with our builder. I have a really hard time visualising anything, my brain just doesn’t work like that. I need to see it mapped out, so I always look to moodboards to help. I usually do this by search keywords on Pinterest (ie. “pink bathroom”, “galley bathroom”) and going from there.
Changing The Layout
Our flat is Victorian tenement built in the early 1900s, which means bathrooms and plumbing have come a long way since then! All tenement bathrooms are typically galley-style, around 4m2 long and 1.5m2 wide. You might squeeze a bath in, but rarely a bath and a shower – but I had a plan!
If we added a shower in to the window area, we could fit a small bath in near the door and then a small sink and toilet along the wall. It would be tight, but doable. By also changing the door to a sliding pocket door, we would be able to gain back a bit of space too.
I’ve bought the suite now and it’ll go in this week, so let’s hope my calculations were correct! To have a bath and a shower will be life-changing, and it’s also something I’ve never seen done in a tenement flat so I think of it as a bit of a challenge! Fingers crossed.
Mixing & Matching Tiles
As I said, I find it impossible to picture a space in my head, so things like imagining how tiles work together is impossible for me. I knew pretty much what I wanted, but I wasn’t sure if the tones were right or if the patterns would be too much in the small space. I wanted one or two tile designs for the floor (depending whether or not we could pull off a wetroom floor), and one of two tile designs for the walls – so three types in total.
In the end we were able to do the wetroom floor, so I chose one tile design for the floor and two for the walls.
I had the hardest time picking tiles because I wanted them all! I’ve followed Claybrook Studio on Instagram for many years, so I knew I’d order from them – I spent hours on their site trying to narrow down my choices.
In the end I emailed their team and was put in touch with one of their designers, Claire, who asked me to send over some inspiration images as well as my tile choices and a bit of info on our bathroom layout and she mocked it up for me! This is a service they offer to anyone, and I cannot recommend it enough – her help was invaluable and made the whole process a lot less daunting. She even put tile samples from their showroom together and took photos for me so I could see them together, she was just so helpful. Their whole team are wonderful, they made my pink bathroom dreams come true!
We ended up going with the beautiful Claybrook Semaphore tiles in Celeste, a dreamy blush pink, and their handmade Campinola tiles in Pretty Pink, which they kindly gifted to me in exchange for some photos once our project is complete.
They arrived last week and I can tell they’re going to look beautiful once they’re fitted. I think we’ll go for a random pattern on the floor with the Semaphore tiles and behind the sink we’ll go for a more uniform finish. I can’t wait!
For the shower area, I thought I’d keep it pretty light and airy with simple white long metro tiles. I’m in love with the simple spaced tile design, and I think this in the shower with a shelf recess will be perfect. There’s even going to be a step under the window which I plan to fill with leafy plants!
The Progress So Far…
The photo above on the left is the bathroom when we bought the flat, it was being rented out so it needed a lot of attention. I didn’t expect the walls to be in perfect condition, but the builders ended up having to completely redo them – something I didn’t budget for!
My wetroom floor also came at a price, but thankfully I had budgeted for this. I really hope it’ll be worth it… at least if I get it wrong I can inform you all and you can learn from my mistakes!
The photo on the right is how it looked a month or so ago – the whole room was stripped out, but since then the builders have reframed and sheeted the walls too. Yikes.
On to the details
One thing I was sure on for this room was brass details! I just prefer gold every single time. We weren’t able to get these five years ago when we did our current bathroom because they were impossible to find, but thankfully there seems to be a good selection now as we work on the new flat. I found Crosswater during a Google search and I fell in love with their brassware and vanity units, it was exactly what I was after and pretty reasonably priced too.
I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to work with them so they gifted me a few of the pieces I had picked out – including this beautiful vanity unit, brass basin taps and a mammoth brass shower head.
During both this bathroom renovation and our current bathroom renovation, I found sourcing a vanity the hardest job of all! It’s improved slightly in the last few years, but there’s still not a lot of options here in the UK – thankfully I got my hands on one I adore, but it was touch and go for a while there. This girl needs under sink storage!
We went with the Crosswater 500mm Glide II in Windsor Oak with the marble top, I can’t wait to see it fitted!
For the bath, sink and toilet I found a site called Appliances Direct that had everything I wanted within my budget, including a teensy tiny bath that just fit in to the space we were left with.
And For The Rest Of The Room
Along with the beautiful brass taps, I bought a dreamy Spark and Bell double brass wall light to go above the mirror – I just knew this would be the perfect piece to tie the space together!
I’ve also got my eye on this West Elm Arch Mirror – it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for, but I do need a bit extra storage as we really only have the small vanity for all my beauty products to sit in. That will not do!
I spoke to my joiner about perhaps building a sort of shelf area behind the mirror so it opens like a medicine cabinet, and he thinks it’s doable – I’ll keep you posted on this!
Now all the items have been delivered and have currently taken up residence in the only room that isn’t filled with rubble, and it’s time for it all to be fitted. Hopefully we’ve overcome all the obstacles and the rest of the renovation will be smooth sailing, but I know enough to know that is very optimistic! Keep me in your thoughts…
I’ll share updates on Instagram as we go, and eventually a full bathroom tour when it’s done – whenever that may be!
Are you planning a bathroom renovation any time soon? Would you ever consider a pink bathroom?
Sources: white & green bathroom / pink sink / white & brass vanity / white tiles / pink square tiles
