A Clean Start

It's taken months of procrastinating, but finally I think we're about ready to sort out the bathroom. The biggest problem has been the size of the existing bathroom - 1.5 x 2.2 m - not exactly big to say the least. Because this is a Victorian house, there was no bathroom when it was built, and consequently when the owners decided to put in a bathroom, what they did was partition the back bedroom to make a tiny bathroom and a quite small bedroom.

We've gone over and over and over our options (and let's face it, we've had plenty of time to go over them - we have been dithering over this for I don't know how many months). Finally I think we have made a decision. We contemplated knocking out the partition wall and making the back room back into one big room, as a family bathroom - but then that would take us down to three bedrooms instead of four, and would considerably impact on the value of the house. We considered building an extension - too costly. Doing a loft conversion? - nope, not enough room up there.

Eventually we came to the only two decisions we could possibly make - either rip everything out of the existing bathroom and replace it (which would still leave us with a very tiny bathroom, not conducive to family life), or rip out the partition wall and repartition it. This will leave the existing bathroom about one foot wider than it is now - just big enough, we think, for a small single bedroom - and the back bedroom just big enough to be a family bathroom. This is the option we're going for.

If we move the partition wall over by about a foot, we'll end up with a bathroom of approximately 2.5 x 3 m - so roughly twice the width of the existing bathroom. With the help of the B&Q online bathroom planner, which we have been playing with ALL DAY, we think we can fit a shower AND a bath in there - though we would prefer not to have a bath at all (Ethan is the only one who would want to use it), again for house value and saleability purposes it is a necessary evil.

I have no idea how much this little venture is going to cost, but the need for it is now urgent - Sean had a shower this morning and there was water dripping through the kitchen ceiling, so it's got to be done asap. So tomorrow I will be ringing round trying to find some builders to come and quote us for the work. Fortunately there is no urgency to get the existing bathroom converted into a bedroom, so that work can wait until a later date (we will probably rip out the bathroom suite once the new bathroom is completed), so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can find a good builder to do the work fairly quickly. The other major complication is that, if we move the partition wall, we're going to have to move the boiler. Bum. On the plus side, Colin has contacts that can see us get a brand new top of the range combi boiler dirt cheap - so as our boiler is around 10 or so years old, maybe this would be a good time to change it for a better one. Having a new one installed will apparently cost around the same as moving the existing one (Phil, my brother-in-law, who is Corgi registered, says we can expect to pay between £800 and £1000 to have it moved), so if we've got to fork out that kind of dosh, we might as well do the job properly. And no, Phil can't do it for us, as we are in Birmingham and he is in London.

On the plus side, this does mean that I get to shop for my bathroom stuff. We're sort of dithering between a P-shaped shower enclosure and a rectangular one, and I want one of those fancy bowl sinks that sits on a worktop and looks really modern and arty. Then of course we have to choose tiles and stuff. It's going to be a lot of aggravation, but it will be worth it to finally have a decent bathroom instead of the shitty one we've been managing with.

I'm not sure if I'm stuck in some sort of time shift or something, but time seems to have been slipping away far too quickly (again) of late. Things have been hectic at work, and I've been knackered all week. Ethan's party last weekend was fabulous - the kids all really enjoyed it, and I would definitely recommend The Big Red Party Bus to any harrassed parent wanting the easy party option. Pictures will follow soon, I promise, once I manage to motivate myself to download them from the camera.

Talking of feeling tired, I worked late on Wednesday and then was at work early on both Thursday and Friday. I got home around 5.00 on Friday night and went straight up to the bedroom (Colin had been home all day as he'd worked all through the night on a call-out). I was sitting on the bed talking to him and Ethan and I started to feel really cold (and I was really tired), so I got into bed at around 5.30 pm and promptly fell asleep ... and didn't wake up until 2.00 am. I slept most of the rest of the night away too. It just goes to show how tired I must have been (though I am convinced I am coming down with something).

Thank God for the Easter weekend coming up, and four whole days of no work ... bliss.