A room, a room, our kingdom for a room
It's a day which it seemed may never come. With two weeks to go till moving, we finally have a finished room (if we ignore a few minor details such as doors, a clean and some small final fittings). Which room is it? Can you work it out from the photo below?
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It's the bathroom.
Let's start off with looking at how this place has evolved. When we first got the house it was an unused room - formerly a kind of kitchen - which looked like this.
Far from the worst room in the house, but lots to do to make it useable. We eventually decided to keep the tiles to cut costs, so covered them up to protect them (and rip up our original designs - more on that later). We then proceeded to knock down the chimney breast, expand the room a bit into the void behind and put in a fake ceiling. This lot got us to here.
Then came the rough in electrics and plumbing.
And finally the long, long finishing process... sanitary installations (and constructions to house them), tiling, floor tile restoration, painting, furniture assembly, light and fan installation.... and with the last tap being fitted we arrived at this.
Our original idea for the bathroom was a relaxing spa like atmosphere using a stone texture and natural colours, but once we decided to keep the original floor tiles this changed, so we went for a more classic kind of look with some modern twists. The colour scheme was largely decided by the floor tiles - they are so elaborate we felt they form the centrepiece of the room. So we aimed for neutral colours elsewhere to complement the blue/grey/brown floor tile colours.
It's often not clear just how many different parts go into a room like a bathroom (particulary if you want to make it as functional as possible); and just how it quickly adds up in cost. This room, done from scratch provides a good example of just how complex and costly it is. So lets look at the parts one by one:
All that lot plus the paint (Dulux timeless white from B&Q in the UK if you're curious) add up to about 1700 EUR, before the cost of the works. The blind and showerglass, which we both have to still fit (so are not pictured) a further 150 EUR. On one hand we could have done it with less money by taking the cheapest sanitaryware (toilet in particular); not having cabinets; messing up our heating by getting a steel towel heater; or using 7 EUR / m2 wall tiles. On the other hand, we wanted to have a certain amount of style, so we decided to walk the price/choice line rather than just go for the cheapest of everything. At the same time, the price of the sanitaryware alone (toilet, bath and sink) in Belgian bathroom stores such as Facq can easily surpass our all-material total of 1700 EUR. In case we haven't mentioned it enough already, materials in Belgium are expensive.
We also used a lot of little hacks to keep the prices down - not just sourcing from just about everywhere but Belgium (as you may have noticed*); but also keeping and restoring the floor tiles rather than replacing them; limiting the height of the tiling; and choosing where to splurge a bit (tiles) and where to take the cheapest option (IKEA lights).
So on one hand it feels like it shows what can be done on a budget with a bit of hunting around. But on the other hand it's a warning of just how much a bathroom remodel may cost, and then there's the disruption to your house while the works go on. Once feels like enough for this particular experience!
* The key with the sourcing was to either use free/very cheap delivery; or to group up items for all rooms. No ponit in going to Brico Depot in Lille to buy one shower. But definitely worth it to buy 8 radiators, shower, 12 chimney caps and 20 litres of wood preservative :-).
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In the meantime, not everywhere is looking quite as ready. Try to figure out what the hell is going on here! Answers in a future post.
 |
| A few hints in there |
.
.
.
.
.
.
It's the bathroom.
Let's start off with looking at how this place has evolved. When we first got the house it was an unused room - formerly a kind of kitchen - which looked like this.
 |
| Forwards looked like this. |
 |
| And backwards like this. |
Far from the worst room in the house, but lots to do to make it useable. We eventually decided to keep the tiles to cut costs, so covered them up to protect them (and rip up our original designs - more on that later). We then proceeded to knock down the chimney breast, expand the room a bit into the void behind and put in a fake ceiling. This lot got us to here.
 |
| Chimney free! |
 |
| And something going on here. |
Then came the rough in electrics and plumbing.
 |
| You know. For water. |
 |
| Vent pipe and wires. |
And finally the long, long finishing process... sanitary installations (and constructions to house them), tiling, floor tile restoration, painting, furniture assembly, light and fan installation.... and with the last tap being fitted we arrived at this.
 |
| Looking forwards... |
 |
| ... and looking back. |
Our original idea for the bathroom was a relaxing spa like atmosphere using a stone texture and natural colours, but once we decided to keep the original floor tiles this changed, so we went for a more classic kind of look with some modern twists. The colour scheme was largely decided by the floor tiles - they are so elaborate we felt they form the centrepiece of the room. So we aimed for neutral colours elsewhere to complement the blue/grey/brown floor tile colours.
 |
| Keeping mainly white to not detract from the tiles. Except for the cabinet. Paint is also very subtle in colour (so subtle you probably didn't even notice it int he last photo!) |
It's often not clear just how many different parts go into a room like a bathroom (particulary if you want to make it as functional as possible); and just how it quickly adds up in cost. This room, done from scratch provides a good example of just how complex and costly it is. So lets look at the parts one by one:
 |
| Undersink cabinet with sink: 300 EUR. Mirror cabinet: 170 EUR. Ikea, Belgium. |
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| Wall lights (x2): 13 EUR each. Ikea, Belgium. |
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| Basin tap: 45 GBP. QS, UK. |
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| Extractor fan with humidity sensor: 65 EUR, Amazon, France. Recessed lights (x4) 5 GBP each, Ebay, UK. |
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| Bath tap: 90 GBP. BBC, UK. |
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| Steel bathub: 120 EUR, Megabad, Germany, Feet, drain etc extra 80 EUR. We also put insulation around it as it's steel to the water retains heat better, but we just used leftover bits of insulation for that. |
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| Shower: 60 EUR. Brico Depot, France |
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| Toilet: 165 EUR. Budgetsantiaar, Netherlands. Took 4 attempts for them to deliver the correct one undamaged mind you! |
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| Cement floor tiles (left): 45 EUR / m2 (0.7m here). Metro matt wall tiles: 17 EUR / m2 (14m2 used in bathroom). Impermo, Belgium. Finding the floor tiles for our small extension (left) to match the original ones (right) was a real challenge. It's a long way from perfect, but we think it works. At least they are the same size, and the colours are more or less coherent. The original tiles were obviously free :-). Though we used about 20 EUR of products from Ceraroc, France to clean and restore them (see the last post if your'e curious about that). |
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| Aluminium towel heater: 250 GBP. Best heating, UK. We could definitely have got a steel one a lot cheaper. But all our radiator are aluminum. We'll probably come back to the whole heating issue in a later post, if we ever get our boiler started. If there is no post in the future it means we didnt' get the boiler started and we're all freezing! |
All that lot plus the paint (Dulux timeless white from B&Q in the UK if you're curious) add up to about 1700 EUR, before the cost of the works. The blind and showerglass, which we both have to still fit (so are not pictured) a further 150 EUR. On one hand we could have done it with less money by taking the cheapest sanitaryware (toilet in particular); not having cabinets; messing up our heating by getting a steel towel heater; or using 7 EUR / m2 wall tiles. On the other hand, we wanted to have a certain amount of style, so we decided to walk the price/choice line rather than just go for the cheapest of everything. At the same time, the price of the sanitaryware alone (toilet, bath and sink) in Belgian bathroom stores such as Facq can easily surpass our all-material total of 1700 EUR. In case we haven't mentioned it enough already, materials in Belgium are expensive.
We also used a lot of little hacks to keep the prices down - not just sourcing from just about everywhere but Belgium (as you may have noticed*); but also keeping and restoring the floor tiles rather than replacing them; limiting the height of the tiling; and choosing where to splurge a bit (tiles) and where to take the cheapest option (IKEA lights).
So on one hand it feels like it shows what can be done on a budget with a bit of hunting around. But on the other hand it's a warning of just how much a bathroom remodel may cost, and then there's the disruption to your house while the works go on. Once feels like enough for this particular experience!
* The key with the sourcing was to either use free/very cheap delivery; or to group up items for all rooms. No ponit in going to Brico Depot in Lille to buy one shower. But definitely worth it to buy 8 radiators, shower, 12 chimney caps and 20 litres of wood preservative :-).
---------------------
In the meantime, not everywhere is looking quite as ready. Try to figure out what the hell is going on here! Answers in a future post.
 |
| ??????? |
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