Guest Bathroom Make-over on a Budget

The wonderful people at Tile Africa recently contacted us to do a little make-over project for them. They invited us to come to their showroom and pick out a few things on a small budget and then do something amazing and transformational with it. Now since we don’t shy away from a challenge, we immediately started planning!

The guest bathroom in our old farmhouse was really nothing to write about, its checker-board floor being its only redeeming feature. The basin was horribly small and impractical and the untiled shower – although roomy – sported a very silly shower head. These were definitely the first 3 things on our list: a shower head, a basin and some tiles. This bathroom is also adjacent to my husband’s office (which incidentally is also the guest room!) so we opted for a more masculine space rather than a frilly powder room look.

So there it is! All fresh and manly and cool.

The shower was tiled with a simple 15x15cm matt Johnson tile with a black metro tile dado. The black detail was continued around the perimeter of the room with a timber dado rail, painted black to match. Above we opted for a lovely deep blue (Plascon’s Oceanus) – this colour is popping up everywhere in my house now! – which rather than making the tiny room feel smaller, it actually seems to enlarge the space. Below the dado we kept the original off-white, but finished it off with a black skirting. The skirting and dado are such small details but they make all the difference and give the room a simple finishing touch.

I have to admit I am very proud of what we did with the basin. Margaux found a wonderful picture of a Victorian-inspired basin with an antique pipe-work detail around it. Since we love creating looks on a budget, I went to the hardware store and with the help a very clever sales assistant, we built the whole structure right there in the store using plastic piping and irrigation connections. I sprayed them all black and installed it below the sink – and I absolutely love it!

While looking for all the relevant pipes and things I also found these industrial tap fittings which I immediately fell in love with. Fitted to a simple plastic bracket, they make amazing hooks behind the door – an essential in a small bathroom.

The shower head was the splurge of the day but it really makes all the difference. The rose diffuses the water into soft rain and the shower head can be tilted to adjust its angle – a perfect shower experience.

I prefer to have a plain white shower curtain, especially since it’s such a small space, but hanging a fabric curtain in front of the shower curtain just softens all the hard lines in the room. I installed a shelving bracket on the wall and threaded the curtain over it. This geo-print was bought from PEP at a steal!

To finish off the room Margaux sourced some Delft images on the net which we them put in 0ld picture frames that I painted white. The random collection of frames really pops against the blue wall with the delicate blue prints adding some pattern to the solid colour.

BUDGET:

1. Shower head and arm: R900
2. Tiles, grout & bonding liquid: R900
3. Basin: R700
4. Paint: R140
5. Dado & skirting and adhesive: R450
6. Pipes for basin rail and spray paint: R196
7. Taps and brackets for clothes hooks: R45
8. Shower Curtain: R120
9. Curtain and L bracket: R116
10. Other materials & miscellaneous: R117

TOTAL: R3684*

Tile Africa’s very helpful staff assisted us to work out the quantities of all the materials we needed – thank you Carol at Paarden Eiland branch for all your help!

This has to be one of the biggest transformations that we have done to date and we love it!

Happy Renovating!

*Because we do most of the work ourselves, there are no labour costs in this budget. For this project however we did enlist help for the tiling and painting.

Tile Africa supplied materials to the value of R2500 for this project.