Something from nothing

Once upon a time there was a filthy room with dark wood panelling over wallpaper over peeling vinyl wallpaper, dead mice in the corner and no doors. Not just no doors in fact, but no hope... beyond redemption.  Or was it?

Apparently redemption looks like this. At least in part.

So where exactly are we talking about?

Would you like some hints?

OK.

• Ground floor.

• Small.

• On the way out.

• Served two functions.

You got it yet?

If not, then enough scrolling down, this is what we are talking about.

Imagine cooking in this.

Would sir like to cook or pee?

The old kitchen with doorless toilet.

In an earlier post we expressed, in no uncertain terms, just how much we disliked this room. Well, times have changed. And part of the reason for this is the sheer amount of effort which has gone into this 5 and a bit square metres. Let’s run through the evolution a bit. So you’ve seen how it started off above.  We then ripped everything out that was not fixed in place (and some things that were), digging up all kinds of hidden nasties on the way to arrive at this.

Sometimes you do ask "why did we take things off?"

As is normally the case, things have to get worse before they get better

Horrors lay beneath that paneling.. layers of chaotic wallpaper to remove.

Two things then happened in parallel. Our “undertaker” put up a partition wall at our request, and we spent days trying to clear the layers of s**t off the walls. We were only about 60% successful on the latter. This brought us to more or less here, which is probably the last you saw of this place. You probably even forgot it existed. 

Well, more or less here plus another week of stripping wallpaper. Inch by inch.

A lot has happened since then. Really a lot. In rough order, and with photos where available:

• We thoroughly desanitised and restored the tiles using our favourite methods.
• A toilet and 2 sinks have been installed

Toilet on clean tiles

• A luminous door to the outside has been installed (always a bonus to have a secure entrance)

Door!

• The walls have been plastered. We had to cheat a bit on this one, while we got most of the wallpaper off the red vinyl stuff refused to budge. So we had to have it plastered over it after a coat of primer (beton contact)
• We've boxed up most cables and pipes.
• New wall tiles have been put on.

DIY tiling job. not too shabby...

Here neither. That thing in the corner is actually a plastered piece of platic piping concealing cables and pipes.

• The painted marble skirting has been stripped and repaired

Before: once again, we ask... WHY?

After. Still need some beeswax to finish it and black silicon for the joints, but a bit better.

• The place has been painted... with an extra coat of stain block to conceal the colour seeping from the vinyl wallpaper.
• Funky light fittings and some other accessories have been installed (some of which have been reclaimed and refurbished)

The almost finished product, well...

Drum roll... (and turn left)

On one side you have a toilet-washroom

Basin with a salvaged corner cabinet turned into a mirror, and old light pendant from the hall.

Go round the corner and... (ignoring we have to put a finishing threshold on tiles on the left)

Toilet! With saved original tiles.

It's all about the llittle touches :-)

And on the other side a functional and luminous laundry room.

Laundry!

Machine, laundry basin and funky pull out washing lines

Bit of storage space beyond the machine... one day some shelves will go in there. Maybe we'll add doors and glass while we're at it.

OK, it still missing some small (and not so small) finishing touches like internal doors, putting windows in the tops of partitions and creating a border to the toilet tiles. But quite the transformation. Literally something from nothing.

Yes, we used to f.....g despise this room. Now we love it.