This might not take long.
On the back of a very short offering last week, I find myself a little under the weather as I recover from a rather dramatically unwell tummy (I won’t go into the details, as some of you might be eating and even if you’re not…)
There is news, however, so, why don’t we?
Model Cons
The first item on the agenda, pretty much the only item on the agenda over the last three weeks, is our bathroom. Don’t worry, I’m not referring to my recent malady, but the remodelling we’ve just had done.
The work in question constituted ripping out the remnants of the avocado green suite that was there when we moved into our home, as well as removing all traces of the council ‘improvements’ that were implemented when I was diagnosed with MS (some seven years ago, now), and resulted in a hybrid of seventies ‘style’ and ‘buy it cheap and knock it in quick’ bodge job with half the bathroom decked out in low cost plain white tiles and the other half in that nauseating remembrance of a bygone era.
All of this was done in the first week, and as James, the guy doing the work, took the room back to bare brick and floor boards, left us with a bit of a building site. We had a working toilet, but that was about it. No other mod cons. You can see how both those states looked below.
Slippery Slopes
Over the start of the next week, James concentrated on rebalancing the flooring, which, due to a a mixture of the original bathroom having a, well, bath, and the bang up job the council appointed cowboys did with transforming it into a (very) wet room had a camber set away from the drain, erecting the splashboards, sorting out the piping, and fitting the built in shower bench.
This took a while.
However, while James was working his magic, we also had the electrician in, a guy Tina (you know, the wonderful woman I’m so very lucky to be married to) thought was called Mark, purely based on James referring to him as ‘Sparky’. (His name is actually Kurt). This meant the end of week two saw us with a balanced floor, working lights, splashboards throughout, and even started the erecting of my super-duper shower bench.
The Seal Of Approval
This week, there was still a bit to do, the sink went in, the shower was fitted, the flooring put down, a new toilet put in, the shower bench finished off, and the whole place sealed and made watertight. It meant that the pleasant, personable person we’d been making brews for turned for one glorious day, into a small platoon as the ever amazing James, the reoccurring Kurt, and a couple of guys who specialised in fitting the swanky waterproof flooring all descended on us. Wisely, we ducked out at this point and decided to treat ourselves to brunch at a local garden centre where we stayed until the field had thinned.
And that was it, bar a bit of sealing, and some tidying. Looking at the bathroom now, it’s difficult to picture just what has been done to transform it (well, it would be if it wasn’t for the pictures). The result is amazing though. A patchwork background has become a unified canvas in subtle, stone-grey and shiny chrome with dark flooring, and a white, spotlit ceiling . The wonky toilet that would shift when you sat on it is now a taller, sturdier model, the sink has a half-pedestal to allow me to get underneath it, the shower is a plumbed-in rainfall model that makes the Aldi Basics electric model we had look and feel like a leaking tap, and, thanks to the custom made stone-effect bench beneath it, I can sit directly under it rather than the water-adjacent positioning of the council-led Netto clearance shower chair.
As you can see, it’s a game changer.
Over the start of the next week, James concentrated on rebalancing the flooring, which, due to a a mixture of the original bathroom having a, well, bath, and the bang up job the council appointed cowboys did with transforming it into a (very) wet room had a camber set away from the drain, erecting the splashboards, sorting out the piping, and fitting the built in shower bench.
This took a while.
However, while James was working his magic, we also had the electrician in, a guy Tina (you know, the wonderful woman I’m so very lucky to be married to) thought was called Mark, purely based on James referring to him as ‘Sparky’. (His name is actually Kurt). This meant the end of week two saw us with a balanced floor, working lights, splashboards throughout, and even started the erecting of my super-duper shower bench.
The Seal Of Approval
This week, there was still a bit to do, the sink went in, the shower was fitted, the flooring put down, a new toilet put in, the shower bench finished off, and the whole place sealed and made watertight. It meant that the pleasant, personable person we’d been making brews for turned for one glorious day, into a small platoon as the ever amazing James, the reoccurring Kurt, and a couple of guys who specialised in fitting the swanky waterproof flooring all descended on us. Wisely, we ducked out at this point and decided to treat ourselves to brunch at a local garden centre where we stayed until the field had thinned.
And that was it, bar a bit of sealing, and some tidying. Looking at the bathroom now, it’s difficult to picture just what has been done to transform it (well, it would be if it wasn’t for the pictures). The result is amazing though. A patchwork background has become a unified canvas in subtle, stone-grey and shiny chrome with dark flooring, and a white, spotlit ceiling . The wonky toilet that would shift when you sat on it is now a taller, sturdier model, the sink has a half-pedestal to allow me to get underneath it, the shower is a plumbed-in rainfall model that makes the Aldi Basics electric model we had look and feel like a leaking tap, and, thanks to the custom made stone-effect bench beneath it, I can sit directly under it rather than the water-adjacent positioning of the council-led Netto clearance shower chair.
As you can see, it’s a game changer.
I'm Worth It!
The ability to sit directly beneath a proper shower, pumping out properly hot water is amazing. It means showers have stopped becoming a necessity and started to be an indulgence and the amazing, spacious, calming environment around said experience means the bathroom is now my favourite room in the house. I may move in.
So, have the last three weeks been disruptive? Yes. Has it been expensive to get where we are? Also yes. Is it worth it…Hell, yes!
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Hey, there! If you enjoyed reading any of the above, why not take a look at some of my published work? Below you’ll find links to a number of short stories I’m lucky enough to have included in anthologies. I’d love to know what you think.
New Tales Of Old
Death Ship
Pestilence: Drabbles 1
Reaperman: Drabbles 3
The Musketeers Vs Cthulhu
Eldritch Investigations
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