A House Update: The main bathroom before and after - from orange to nautical!

My dream for a long time has been a nautical bathroom. And finally I have one. And it might be my favourite room in the house right now.

Our bathroom when we moved in was an orange monstrosity – ‘like weeing in a tangerine’ was one description we heard. See – it was very ORANGE!

The plan for this room was that we’d make it over quickly and move on but it’s never that easy is it?

Once we started stripping the wallpaper we realised that the walls were falling apart and needed replastering (that’s the story of our lives in this house!) the bath that was made for tiny people, oh and we had a bit of lead piping.

As the plan was a quick and easy refurb, we’ve not switched out the sink or the toilet, and I’ll be honest the plan was never to switch out the bath either, until we started having to use it and realised it was genuinely the smallest bath in the world, so to counteract it we bought the biggest bath we could and now Flash has a swimming pool at home! All of this meant everything took longer and became more of a ‘job’ than a quick fix although hopefully now though we’ll not have to make any other changes to the room for quite a while.

And now, it looks and feels a little bit different – don’t you think? I was worried about over doing the nautical theme so I’ve had to reign in my nautify-ing! But I am so happy with it.

There are a few bits of the bathroom that I love more than the rest though – the driftwood shelf, the boat shelving until, my wallpaper and the tiling round the bath.

The shelf is a joint effort between my vision and my dads brains and capability. I had a beautiful piece of driftwood that I wanted to use as a shelf, and I knew I wanted it floating, but all the options I’d seen included visible brackets or rope. So in true dad style, I gave him the wood and told him what I wanted and he came back having bought brackets from a random website in Europe (if he ever remembers where I’ll update this – he is not blog friendly!), having spent an age drilling carefully into crumbly driftwood and had figured it all out. Due to the size of the brackets we used we’re 100% convinced that if the house ever falls down, the only thing left would be this bit of the bathroom.

The tiles were all installed by Jim. It was a learning curve and we debated getting an expert in to do it a few times but what is YouTube for if not teaching yourself to tile? It’s his first attempt at tiling and grouting and I think you’ll agree he did a great job. I’ve done some tiling before and it certainly was no where near as good as this! He also put the shower screen and the shower rail up too. And now I know he can do it, there is no excuse for us not to start on the shower room next door!

The boat shelf was the first thing we got for the house. Waaaaaaaaaaaay before we bought the house my mum found it at a local auction and popped an offer in on it, and won. It lived under the spare bed at their house for about a year until we got the bathroom to a point of putting it up. Now it houses all the bits we need easy access to.

The wallpaper is another thing that has been in my life for a long time. I’ve had a sample of the Mini Moderns Whitby in washed denim laying about for the longest time, and I wasn’t sure that having wallpaper in the bathroom was the best idea but it seems to have held up pretty well so far. It makes me smile every single day and having the pattern mirrored on the bath screen is something I love too. I think it’s the big thing that ties the room together!

In true ‘Emma and Jim decorating the house’ style – it has taken a LONG time to get this room sorted and it really wasn’t the cheap fix we’d hoped it would be (probably down to me choosing some more expensive things for the room!) but I think it’s been worth the wait, and money, in the end. What do you think?

Shopping List

Big Stuff – Wallpaper – Mini Moderns Whitby in denim ** Paint – Dulux Timeless bathroom paint ** Bath/shower-tap mixer/bath screen/radiator – Victoria Plumb ** Tiles – B&Q. **

Smaller bits – Mirror – Ikea ** Blind fabric – Trago Mills, Falmouth (the blind was made by Jim’s Mum) ** White Wood Storage Unit – Dunelm Mill ** Anchor towels and bath mat – West Elm ** Boat storage unit – found at an auction by my Mum. ** Fish hook – found at a market in Binic, France. ** Driftwood shelf made by my dad **

Pictures – Helford River water colour – Seasalt ** Shipping Forecast – James Brown

Random accessories – Most of the accessories were found around the house or gifts, but to the best of my knowledge – Fake flowers are from TKMaxx (their fake flowers are amazing btw) ** Jug as a vase was a gift from a friend ** The gaslamp is from Toast a long time ago ** Candle in the pot is from Sainsburys ** Anchor jar from Next ** Glass storage jars Matalan ** Boat on shelf Matalan ** Rock from Portscatho beach **

A House Update: The main bathroom before and after – from orange to nautical!

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