Highgrove living; bathroom renovations

Well, we are getting to the end of our (Stage One) renovations.

We have quite enjoyed living in our loft studio while the various trades have come and gone. As they start at 7 (or even earlier) this has allowed me to get up when I feel human, with Meisha curled up next to me, while Mike opens the house up and puts the kettle on and makes tea.

Today has been a day of cleaning, that grout and tile dust gets everywhere, and tonight we are going to sleep in our own bed again!

Graham from Insideout renovations has done an excellent job dealing with the banana shaped and leaning walls of our 1886 Queenslander. There is no way we would have been able to get the tiling looking straight and continuous in any which way!

Just a recap, the steps that our bathroom reno went through:

Disconnect power and water
Demolition of the old bathroom
Fit in the new picture window
Put up drywall (and realising the walls are definitely not straight)
Water proofing of the shower area and the entire floors
Concrete the walk in shower area to create a slope
Tiling of the floor
Tiling of the wall
Installation of the shower screen
Finish tiling around the walkin shower floor
Installation of the vanity, toilet, and shower and and all accessories connection of water and electricity

We now have a walk-in shower, the rotted window has been removed and the wall has been repaired, the bathroom is now fully water proofed and water saving tapware has been installed. And, a proper vent has been installed so fingers crossed that is the end of our bathroom mould problem!

Although a modern bathroom, we feel it still goes well with our Queenslander and is much more practical for us than the heritage style that was in there. When the house was built in 1886, it most likely just had an outdoor toilet (dunny) with indoor washing facilities limited to a jug and a basin. I.e. even heritage style bathrooms are not original to this house!

Doing both bathrooms in the house at the same time did allowed for some work to continue on one while the other one dried. So there were some long days in the process.

Things have gone very smoothly, although I did cause Graham a near heart attack as I stepped onto the newly tiled floor to look at something…..!

Now THIS is what we call a picture window

All in all it has taken ten days of work (two weeks) to get the two bathrooms done. As Graham organised the other trades, so there was no waiting or hanging around, which was great.

And the very best part of our bathroom renovations? The outdoor bath on our back verandah. I can’t wait to lay back in the bubbles, with a glass of my favourite sparkling shiraz (Black Beauty), looking up at the stars!