Bathroom circa 2008 – clean at last

After 8 weeks or so (of pain), our Bathroom has returned. Newer, fresher perhaps, but joyously usable. Gone is the skanky floor and dated bathroom furniture and in comes a shower, roll-top bath and loo – very handy for little people (and big people, I guess) to have such proximity. Our budget was not huge, so we kept costs down by completing all the preparation and decorating ourselves. The bath looks good, but is Acrylic, not cast iron, the light fitting from B&Q and the floor a simple and practical lino. We also cleared the fireplace and although slightly worn, is still well-preserved. No dead birds this time. Finally, the Pièce de résistance is the mirror, coming well under the £100 mark, yet reflecting the period of the house.

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Bathroom circa 1954

Having nearly completed our new bathroom, I thought it wise to reflect on how it looked when we moved in. Not much had changed between the last 5 months and the last 50 years – in all honesty. The carpet had to go, obviously, but then so too did everything else, eventually. Having started the project and clearing the room, one slight oversight emerged: how difficult it was keeping 3 little children and 2 adults clean with only a small sink in the house operational. Time to cash in on those free vouchers at the nearby swimming pool.

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54 years of dust

At 10pm on the day we finished sanding the floor to Joshua’s room I decided now would be a good time to remove the panel in front of the fireplace to see if the original fireplace was still there. It was. Unfortunately, so was 54 years of dust and debris from the chimney, including a recently dead bird and several skeletons of those that hadn’t made it. Talk about can of worms.

 

Day 1 – Sanding floors

First project (after the rewiring, naturally) was to create more mess by sanding three floors:

1. Main bedroom
2. Eva’s Bedroom
3. Joshua’s Bedroom

It felt good to remove the old carpets, a kind of house cleansing. The floors were typical Victorian of the era (circa 1880) – pine, around 5 inches across, and painted black quite heavily around the outside only, given that rugs were laid in the middle. The edges prove trickiest, though the circular sander was pretty effective here. Each floor took about 1 day to complete, followed by three coats of varnish. Here’s a picture of Eva’s floor beforehand: