How on Earth...

...do people without bath-showers shave their legs?

For years I have been cursing having a shower over a bath, it was such a pain to clean, get in and out of post surgery, and was just a thorn in my backside. It has been a good 9 years since I have had a non shower-bath combo!

But, now that I have a freestanding shower, I am at a loss of how people shave their legs without
a) cutting themselves
b) falling over
c) sitting over the drain hole


Does anyone have answers for me?

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Bathroom Beauty

I love this bathroom, but I can't quite remember whose it is. I know it is from a blog I follow (sorry to mystery bathroom owner, it was in my inspiration file, but I just can't work out where from to credit you).

I love that custom vanity though, oh so much storage! I would love something similar in our new house, but with a laundry hamper cupboard in the middle.
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Bathroom - FINISHED

Oh. My. God. Stop the press. The husband and I have finally finished renovating a room! You have no idea how excited I am about this!

Whilst off work between Christmas and New Years, I opened every door and window in the house, found myself a face mask, and painted the skirting boards in the bathroom with some low odour paint (Dulux Aquaenamel in Semi Gloss for those interested - has the appearance of enamel with the ease of use of water based paint).

A couple of hours later I pulled off a mountain of blue tape, to be left with lovely painted skirting boards in crisp Hogs Bristle Quarter.

Oh how lovely it is to sit on the loo and not look at a 'must do' task. Not that you needed to know that. Pin It

Bathroom Envy

I have been reading Brooklyn Limestone for a little while now, and one of my all time favourite renovation they have completed was their Master Bathroom.

Is that not the most serene room you have ever seen?

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Bathroom Tile Inspiration

I am still on the hunt for bathroom tiles that I like. I am not holding my breath given that I still haven't made a decision on the tiles for our kitchen!

I liked these, but given the area we need to cover, I think it might be a bit much (plus I think it might have been wallpaper).

This was cute, but the husband shot it down as being too 'loud'.

I thought these could tie the kitchen and bathroom together, given they face each other, so it would be consistent. Maybe with some 300x600 beige tiles?

Or I could do something like this I suppose, but something is holding me back from loving it.

Any other suggestions?
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Have you seen these tiles?

I am in love with these tiles

However I want them in a beige colour. Any ideas on where I can find them? Or inspiration on the interwebs?
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Bathroom Opps?

Remember when I mentioned that I chose a round bath for our bathroom, and how it caused a few dramas?

Well I have another drama to add to the list

See all that water under there? It's not meant to be there. And that black stuff? It is wet timber that shouldn't be wet. Turns out that a tiny hole in the grout had got bigger, and over the last 4 years, got worse. Very much worse.

So we have some options
1. Remove the bath, tiles and shower and start again by adding a new bath, a separate shower, and having to redo all the plumbing which requires digging up half of the slab.
2. Replace the bath and tiles, leaving it as a bath/shower combo.
3. Put the weatherboards back on the house and bury our heads in the sand.

Given that we plan to live here for at least another year and a bit (depressing thought, but thems the breaks), Option 3 isn't going to be the best option for us, or for the person who buys the house when we sell it.

Option 1 would be ideal, but we hadn't counted on having to do this, finance wise, and it would basically mean re-doing the bathroom from scratch. Essentially it would mean spending another 10K on a room which has already been renovated. Something we don't really want to do.

So it is Option 2 for us! We went to the plumbing store today and got a brochure on baths. Lady Luck was on our side, as we found a rectangle bath (as opposed to our round edged bath) that would require minimal alterations to the walls, no change to the depth, and is longer than our current bath! Best of all, the plumbing is right where it is required to be!!!

Thank you Lady Luck! Now I just need to find tiles we both like, and a new tap that controls the bath and shower in one.
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If I had my time again - Bathroom

We have come a long way in our renovations, and at times it feels like we have been here a lot longer than 6 years, and other times it seems like it has only been a couple of years since we first unpacked those few boxes (the husband started with very little, and the 'house move' consisted of a trailer and a ute. In one trip. That is it).

And there are things we have learnt along the way. Mistakes we have made. I don't think anyone ever has "THE PERFECT" house, the one without flaws. And I guess it is those flaws that make a house individual.

So here we have bathroom mistake number one. Oval bath should not go in rectangle hole. Ever! As punishment for doing this, one shall spend vast amounts of time cleaning extra tiles and drainage.

Our shower is over our bath - as we thought our bathroom would be small and not be able to accommodate a separate shower (WRONG!), and now we have a daily battle with the water that pools on this ledge.

We also have the unusable space at the opposite end of the bath (this space is however handy when bathing small children, as it saves having to bend down to the ground to dry and dress them). Basically this ledge is used to hold decorative items, and towels when we shower. It is such a waste of storage space :(

I guess we learn from our mistakes, and believe me, the husband and I have learn from the bath incident.

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April Loves...

Ok, so we all know that I blog about things I like, things I want, things I think you might like. But there are a few things that I love to buy time and time again, as they make me happy.

From Mummys Favourite

Hand Wrapped soap bar from the latest MOR collection - the Emporium range. Unwrap a remnant of 17th century decadence and indulge with this creamy triple-milled soap. Inspired by the exquisite ornamentation of bygone days, it will leave skin feeling velvety soft! 

I first fell in love with MOR soap when I receive a bar as a gift for attending a friends wedding. I treasured it, and only used it on the days where I wanted to feel (and smell) special. Unfortunately the husband got desperate for a bar of soap one day, and used it to scrub himself clean. I eventually hunted down another bar and hid it from him. And then I was addicted. I am currently using the Frangipani soap (pictured), but the last bar was Snow Gardenia, which was devine! Best of all, it the smell will always take me back to the memories of my dear friends wedding.

Do yourself a favour, pick up a bar if you ever find the chance.


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You know you live to build/renovate when...

You have the perfect taps chosen prior to even buying a block of land!

My current love is these taps, as featured in the beautiful Crown Metropol

If only I could find them in a store :(
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Bathroom Painting - ALMOST TICK!

Before (these were taken last year prior to the kitchen reno, hence the old lino): 

Now:

The flat white paint was a huge mistake in our bathroom. I really don't know what I was thinking when we painted it. I blame it being one of our first renovation gigs!

Given the rest of our house is Dulux Hogs Bristle Half, we decided to paint the bathroom that colour to keep it consistant (it also means we don't have millions of half empty paint tins in the shed - much to the husbands delight, more shed space for him). Our bathroom comes off our kitchen, so to keep things flowing nicely. The green feature wall has stayed, though it needs touching up in a few places. I am still in love with that colour, even after 4 years

So there you go, a freshly painted bathroom. It is a warm and inviting now, rather than clinical and cold feeling, which is a nice change, given we are coming into winter! Now to paint the trim and put the laundry door back on its hinges.


PS - Want to see how our bathroom started out back in 2006? Read it here! Pin It

At My House

This week at our house we are patching all the new skirtings in the bathroom, ready for painting. I am hoping that I can convince the husband that we should paint the bathroom this Friday seeing as though we have the day off work (and because Kerry comes for dinner on Sunday).

Click on over to Buttons by Lou Lou and play along.

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Kitchen Tiles - TICK!

After a week of walking on glued but not grouted tiles, it was starting to wear thin. Even when being careful to lift my feet, I would occassionally stub my toe on an edge. Hence a call was made to my step-dad to come and help with the grouting. Coming home on Friday I was greeted with this beautiful sight:

But, me being me, that wasn't good enough. I needed one last thing to be done by the husband. I needed the kickboards installed. Luckily we had set aside this weekend to do jobs around the house. Saturday we achieved little, mainly due to him being called in to work (convenient much?). But Sunday was the day. He had a choice: kickboards or paint the bathroom and do the skirtings. He chose kickboards.

And the bathroom

For the first time since renovating our bathroom three and a half years ago, we have a secure toilet. See, we never bothered to screw it to the floor. It was meerly held to the floor by the sucky black pipe underneath. EVERYONE who used our loo commented on how it rocks, but it never really bothered us to spend a grand total of $12.35 (screws - $1.30, floor plugs $2.50, drill bit $8.55) on fixing it to the floor. But with tiles in, it has now been secured, and no longer rocks.

So, it is now fair to say that our kitchen is 99% finished. The last two tasks are installing a phone line behind the freezer, and putting the handles on the new rangehood cupboards (which were finally replaced AGAIN, and third time was the charm). The bathroom needs a little bit of work in the coming weeks though.

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Powder Room

One of the houses we are currently considering has a powder room (or half bathroom). And as soon as I saw it on the plans, I thought "oh, it could have stripes like John and Sherry's", as shown here.

I do love powder rooms, they are so much more practical.
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A Kitchen Update

I am loving that I live in Victoria this weekend, as it is Labour Day weekend, which means 3 days off! Very handy if you want to tile your kitchen and bathroom.

Excuse the mess on the benches, it has been raining and everything had to come inside. And I am yet to clean all the excess gunk from the tiles.

We ran into a few issues along the way. Like our slab being less than level in the bathroom. It is workable, just a bit more fiddly than desired. And then there was the skirtings in the bathroom, which had to be removed, and eventually replaced. Oh, and how could I forget the realisation that our washing machine has been leaking water, and caused some dampness in the wall. Nothing is ever simple in our house!

We still have a few tiles to lay, mainly all the fiddly ones that require lots of cutting (and swearing as we break more tiles), and the grouting to go, but we're hoping it will be done by tomorrow night. Then comes doing all the skirtings. AGAIN!

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Bathrooms

I have never really been a fan of plantation shutters, they just never appealed to me. However, in the last few months I have grown to love them in bathrooms.

Whilst I am looking for inspiration, tell me, where do you hit up for beautiful photos? I am drawing blanks of where to look, other than Google.

PS - All images from Google

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