Last Monday I shared the first post in the new Rock My Room series which will be gracing the pages of the blog every Monday for the next few weeks. I’m so sorry I didn’t respond to all of your comments on the day the post was published; I’d escaped to the Cotswolds for a short break to celebrate my birthday but I’m thrilled to hear/read that so many of you are playing along with your own DIY projects.

I thought it would be helpful to share a bit of inspiration for both bathrooms before I launch into what I got up to in the first week of the challenge. We initially considered using the same colour palette in both bathrooms before deciding that this would be far too easy and that we’d really like to make things that much harder for ourselves by choosing a completely different look in both rooms. Insert eye roll here.

Ste and I both love marble bathrooms, statement baths and beautiful brassware. But with a limited budget and minimal space as well as factoring our time constraints into the mix we knew that we weren’t going to be able to have the bathroom of our dreams in this house. We’d do a very good job of getting close to it though. With this in mind we knew we wanted a statement bath and double sink with some soft off-white tiles in the family bathroom and then a decadent walk-in shower with an all-grey colour theme in the other bathroom. As the shower would pretty much take up all the space at the end of the room there would only be space for a single sink.

The below is what we were hoping to channel…

The Tiles

Given that the shower room is likely to be the domain of Ste and I for a few years (here’s hoping anyway) we decided that this was where we were going to channel the opulent vibe. Think grey marble and a fancy walk-in shower. I’d ordered samples of tiles prior to beginning this challenge and the only ones that I was really impressed with in our price range happened to be from Topps Tiles.

Ste and I decided that it would be a sensible idea to actually go and see multiple examples of the tiles in the flesh rather than just relying on a single sample in isolation. So that’s what we did last week. After much umming and ahhing and a huge amount of patience exhibited by a lovely man at our local Topps Tiles store in Kings Heath (thank you Nick!), we finally settled on the following tiles for the bathrooms. I have to say, before I go on, that I was so incredibly impressed by the service I received when picking the tiles, the choices on offer and the amount of knowledge that all the staff possessed, that I felt really rather assured walking out of the store.

In the end we picked some off white large tiles in an tumbled finish called Nimbus Limestone for the floor and wall behind the bath in the family bathroom. We’ve also opted for the Dorsaf Tumbled Tile for the floor in the shower room with these grey Lemon marble mosaic tiles in the shower. The shower room will have chrome and the bathroom hopefully will have matte black fittings respectively. I really wanted to go for hexagon shaped tiles on the floor but Ste talked me out of it and I can’t decide whether this is a good or a bad thing yet…

The Fixtures & Fittings

Ok so we did cheat a little bit and purchased our bath before Christmas last year. We opted for the mini Picasso design from Lusso Stone and whilst we were there we also bought this double basin to match. They’re all made from resin which gives them a soft, matte feel but which means the bath is ridiculously heavy. So heavy in fact that we’ve had to take the bannister and spindles off the stairs so that we can slide the damn thing up towards its final position. I’m actually a bit worried about whether it will come through the ceiling below.

Despite this initial sneaky buy we still had to purchase two toilets, another single basin, three sets of taps, a floor standing bath tap and all the fixtures and fittings required for a walk in shower which has meant I’ve spent the last week at my laptop ordering various bits and pieces like this toilet and this basin for the shower room. I won’t bore you with the details of each of the individual components right now but suffice to say we have managed to fit the shower tray this week and bribed the plumbers to come in and fit the cisterns for the toilets and the radiators on the walls. The rooms feel like they’re beginning to take shape.

What Next?

We have the tilers booked in for next week as well as putting our carpenter on standby to hang doors and fit architraves. I think next week will mark some real progress where the plastered boxes will start to begin to look like actual bathrooms. I’m so excited!

How are you getting on over at your pad? Anyone rocking their room during February and March?