Bathroom Revamp

It wouldn't have been the usual start to a new year without a plan or a project in our midst. Negating the usual trends of gruelling fitness regimes and diet overhauls, I decided to delve into what I love best (well, after dance that is!)...decorating! 

TILES

Our bathroom was crying out more for a revamp than an total overhaul. The suite was still in good condition but the wall tiles were in desperate need of re-grouting and I was keen to change the floor tiles for something more interesting. Perusing the on-line January sales, I came across the ARTE GREY tiles from Tons of Tiles which have become a tad Insta-famous, always popping up on the countless interiors pages I follow. I'd liked them for ages so decided to bite the bullet and go for them. We measured the bathroom floor, imputing the figures into the handy calculator on their website to tell us exactly how many tiles to purchase. 

 What a difference re-grouting the wall tiles has made! It's like a brand new bathroom-so fresh and clean looking. I did dabble with the idea of opting for a coloured grout (grey or black) this time round but the tiler suggested we stick with white as it wasn't a full re-tile of the wall. Glad we went with white again to be honest, as it may have ended up too dark a feature for our size of bathroom. 

With regards to the floor tiles, I was adamant we tile under the sink and toilet, rather than cut the tiles to fit around them. Of course, this meant we had to have a plumber remove both before the tiler could begin. In my opinion this was a worth spending the money on and despite the tricky logistics of arranging everyone to be there on the same day (to avoid being without a toilet for too long!), I feel it was a good move as it resulted in a more streamlined finish. 

HANDY TIP ALERT: To avoid paying £30 delivery charge, I simply added 10 or so extra tiles to our order taking it to £99.05. This meant the delivery was free (on orders over £99!). In turn we actually saved money by adding on the extras and of course it's it was a safety net if any were to break! 

PALLET WALL

Pinterest has a lot to answer for I'll tell ya! I'm a sucker for an IKEA hack and I've wanted a pallet wall for ages ever since I pinned an image of one I came across on the app. We initially started collecting pallets but soon realised that dismantling them wasn't going be an easy job. Even with the aid of a crowbar, an afternoon of hard graft didn't produce much of a stock and most of the wood was too new looking as I was hoping for a more weathered look.

 

Back to the drawing board, Hubby cleverly located a supplier via Gumtree who hand picks to your specifications the correct square footage of pallet wood required for any area. For just £40 this meant we could get straight to work creating the wall. 3-4 hours of teamwork and a lot of hard work from Hubby cutting the lengths of wood to size later, we had our pallet wall...and we ADORE IT! Definitely worth the effort. 

HANDY TIP: It's best to sort your lengths of wood in to piles of similar depth. In assembling your pallet wall, the easiest way is to have each row of 1-3 pieces of wood (depending on how big your wall is) the same thickness all. Length-wise I was also keen not to have all the joins land on the one side of the wall, so after each layer was added, we took time to assess how the next row would look (picking out differing shades and grains of wood) before committing to cutting and securing into each section in to place.

SCAFFOLDING SHELF

Hubby suggested we replace our old PVC shelf with a scaffolding board to tie in with the wooden pallet wall.  A successful trip to Glasgow Wood Recycling, where the friendly, helpful staff couldn't have been more obliging, resulted in the purchase of a few boards perfect for the job in hand. As scaffolding boards only come in certain sizes we knew we'd need to join two together to replace the PVC shelf exactly. Measurements done, Hubby cut the wood to size, glued two sections together and fitted the board. Sanding it in situ then finishing it off with the metal straps for that industrial look, the shelf is a perfect addition to the space. 

HANDY TIP: When sourcing materials for DIY jobs like this, it's best to buy extra to allow for mistakes. The walls in our house run at an angle which made for much difficulty when cutting. The first attempt went a tad pear-shaped but thankfully we'd purchased enough to start over and that meant we didn't waste time having to travel back to the recycling place to source more. 

TAPS

In an attempt to spruce up the bathroom suite (which we had no intention of renewing but then subsequently ended up having to buy a new toilet...but that's another story!) relentless on-line scavenging unearthed brand new Edwardian style taps via the boot sale app, Shpock. It's amazing how excited you can get over two pairs of taps I tell ya! Making a saving of over £26 (I'd priced them elsewhere) the journey to pick them up from the seller was well worth doing. I love the look and the feel of them. favourite purchase for sure!

HANDY TIP:

If you're looking for something that is more a 'wish list' than a 'must have' item, it pays to do some on-line searching on the likes of Gumtree, eBay and Shpock to bag a bargain. I particularly like Shpock as it's easy to use and the refine features allow you narrow your search down to local sellers. You can also set notifications to your email address for new items listed that meet your requirements which saves daily scrolling.

PAINT

With the tiles selected, the pallet wall erected and a few accessories sourced, the wall colour was surprisingly the most difficult element to decide on. Hubby left that one up to me so many an internal dilemma ensued as I visited every DIY store paint aisle in Central Scotland debating over an array of 'blues'. Leaning more towards a denim shade I just needed to find 'the one'. Not a fan of traditional bathroom colours eventually, with the help of my local Homebase, I had a sample pot of Dulux MixLab paint made up in store. That meant I could opt for ANY colour of my choice, as the machine cleverly mixes it to become a bathroom paint (which has ingredients to avoid water damage). The colour of choice was CELESTIAL CLOUD 2 and it proved to be the perfect shade...well, we think so anyway! 

HANDY TIP: It pays to buy tester pots of paints you like, especially if you're planning to splash out on an expensive brand. I tried 3 colours on the walls of the bathroom before committing, as quite often they looked nothing like what they did on the colour chart and the bright ceiling spot lights in our bathroom meant the colours were very different in daylight, as opposed to when the overhead lights were on.

FINISHING TOUCHES

I'm an accessories kinda gal and I love curating bits and bobs to help add character and texture to a space. We don't have a huge bathroom and with the tiled floor being a quite a prominent feature, I was careful not to add too many other distractions in to the mix. Our cacti adorn the window sill once more, as I think a pop of greenery in any room is never a bad thing. 

Our trusty industrial porthole style mirror from TKMaxx was always making a comeback (can't part with it) and so, with the black cacti pots and black mirror, I opted for a black toilet seat and toilet roll holder to tie them all together. 

Some baskets and a wooden crate (both of which were under £5 from TKMaxx) help to hide away all our toiletries that we like to have to hand and a few candles help to create a relaxing, welcoming space. I bagged the hamper from my favourite local garden centre for £5 in the January sales.

HANDY TIP: It's worth visiting your local charity shops to pick up interesting, one-off accessories for any space in your home that you're looking to revamp on the cheap. I've unearthed some seriously quirky ornaments and home furnishings over the years which have helped to transform areas of our home. Add new life to a potted plant by re-homing it in a washing hamper or transform a picnic basket in to a cool magazine rack. Framing artwork, photographs or sentimental items (we've displayed Hubby's late-Papa's hat in a box frame) can be a cheap way to spruce up a room. You'll always find cheap frames in charity shops. 

And that my friends, is it. I'm debating whether we need to add something to the wall above the toilet but as yet, I don't know what that something is. Answers on a postcard please! Despite the usual decorating/home improvement woes (tradespeople letting you down, things breaking and there not being enough hours in the day), we've enjoyed breathing new life in to the bathroom without having the expense of ripping it out and starting again. Any one of the changes we've made would have been suffice to perk things up but we decided to go with all the ideas at once which I'm pretty happy about. Next up is our hallway, staircase and landing...might let the dust settle (and the bank balance build back up!) for a bit though before uttering the word 'decorate' to Hubby. 

Hope this inspires you with a revamp of a space or room in your home. Working to a budget can mean things take a little longer and more leg work is required but for me the satisfaction in the discovering a bargain or figuring out a hack that you've seen on-line outweighs the effort you have to put in.

Happy revamping peeps!

Weesse x

Gettin' Crafty With It!

Did you read the title of this post and immediately start singing 'Na na na na na na-na!'? If not, well then you've disappointed me greatly in your failure to spot the Will Smith reference but hey, I'll forgive ya if you keep on reading! After all, this post has hee-haw (Nada, zilch, nothing) to do with Will Smith and EVERYTHING to do with DIYing or up-cycling, as I prefer to call it!  What do I do with some time off I hear you ask? Take a chill pill, perhaps? Sit the hell down? Watch trashy telly like any normal human does? Nope, not this maniac-I get crafty! Well, not every time I have a spare hour I hasten to add but this week, I decided to get a little creative at home after some Pinterest inspo searching (if you don't know what this is.....download it IMMEDIATELY!! You can thank me later!). I've never considered myself the arty type..that was always Mimi but the idea that you can re-make something by adding (or subtracting) to it feels way more achievable that starting with a blank canvas and raw materials.

After my Pinterest-athon I realised I had a real notion for pom-poms....yup, you read correctly...POM-POMS! I'd pinned a few photos of summer straw bags with cute and colourful pom-poms attached and thought 'I could make that!'. Cue a holiday souvenir from Mimi from her recent trip to Spain in the shape of a gorgeous little straw clutch bag and I was ready to rock, armed with 180 pom-poms from Poundland (you'll later realise that 180 wasn't enough). Hubby willingly handed over his glue-gun (which he is now subsequently regretting) and I got to work. 15 minutes later et voila, the perfect summer accessory which you won't see anywhere else. That's what I love about up-cycling-you're making a one-off that can't be bought on the high street. A personal touch goes along way in defining your style. 

TIPS: You may be able to tell from the photo that the glue can be a tad tricky to work with-it gets very stringy, so best to have newspaper underneath it to project your surface and also a pair of scissors to cut the shoe-lace effect when applying. 

 I applied the glue to each pom-pom individually then placed it exactly where I wanted it on the bag. This meant if I went overboard with the glue I had another 179 pom-poms to choose from, rather than messing up the bag itself! Also, before gluing anything, I arranged the pom-poms on the bag to decide on the colour arrangement liked best and also to know how many I needed to use. 

An evening of crafting sent me into an up-cycling frenzy! Determined to use all 180 pom-poms (Only joking....nawt!) I then attempted a home decor pin I'd added to my Pinterest board. I've been meaning to change the ugly artificial flowers we had in this vase for ages, so I de-flowered the stem (sounds rude!) and glued little pom-poms along it to create a fun, more modern look for the office/spare room. Love it! 

  I then did the same with a set of battery-operated white lights (also from Poundland) to drape along our picture shelf. This room is decorated grey and white so a little pop of colour was definitely needed. 

TIPS: These would be perfect in a kid's room. Painting/spraying the stem white (Or you could use real twigs if you preferred) and attaching brightly coloured or pastel pom-poms would be so cute in a nursery or play-room. Hobbycraft sell a variety of colours all individually bagged if you're keen on a certain colour combo. The lights could be draped/wrapped around along a curtain pole or put inside a clear vase for decoration. 

Just when hubby was about to forcefully remove the glue-gun from my grip, I had an epiphany (well that's what I'm calling it. He'd say it was more pom-pom withdrawl)- the lonely cushion on our office couch was now looking rather sad in comparison to the newly-styled picture shelf above it. A rummage in the kitchen draw for a needle and thread and an hour later (I'm rubbish at sewing!) we had the perfect addition to our cute little grey sofa!

TIPS: Mark your cushion with a pen (or dressmakers pencil/chalk if you have it) where you want the pom-poms to go. Alternatively, pin them in place prior to sewing-that way you can ensure you're spreading them evenly and again, in your chosen colour combination.  

For fear of being banished from the house or sent to the doctors for EPPUD (Excessive Pom-Pom Use Disorder), I deemed it best to step away (begrudgingly) from my colourful little fluffy friends and tackle another up-cycle job I'd been planning to do. I think frames can make or break a photo or print and although I'm not one for spending heaps of cash on art or having my holiday snaps professionally framed, I do prefer to display them one step up from under a fridge magnet. 

 Our friend Linzi had the loveliest poster made for Mimi and I a few years back when we uploaded our track, 'Christmas Cupcake' on to iTunes (yup, check it out here!) I'd ashamedly housed it in a dilapidated off-white old Ikea frame, promising myself I'd get something more suitable. With a paint brush in hand and the left-over paint from last week's up-cycling of the Man Cave, I got to work this morning on bringing the frame back to life and boy, did it do the trick! A couple of coats later, this beautiful keepsake has taken pride of place on the picture shelf on the office and completes the overhaul of the space perfectly. 

TIPS: Be sure to use paint suitable for wood. If you're painting something small, buy a tester pot from your local DIY shop. Homebase have heaps to choose from. They're usually under £3 each so no need to splurge a giant tin. 

Lastly, following on from my recent #gardengoals escapades (where I've been trying to improve our back garden on a budget), I had some rope/twine left-over from stringing up solar light-bulbs (also from Poundland) on our shed. Glue-gun in hand I got to work on a old plant pot I found under the sink. The inspiration for this up-cycle came from a trip to our local (out-of-this-world!) garden centre, Silverbirch. I can't actually believe I'm letting you in on this treasure-trove of all things beautiful. Honestly, this is no ordinary garden centre...all I say is, you're welcome! 

 So, I digress....on a recent visit I'd picked up a cute little rope-detail plant pot and thought, 'ah ha!' I have the very thing at home. Not sure where it's eventually going to live or what it'll house within it, but I like that I have breathed new life into this little abandoned pot. 

Up-cycled pot on the left
(ugly artificial flowers above!)

TIPS: I found it easiest to glue the end of the rope at the bottom of the pot, winding up to the top, securing it with a blob of glue, ideally in line with where you first started the rope (means you can hind this at the back when displaying it). I then added more glue along the edge of the rope underneath the pot to ensure it doesn't unravel and fall a part. 

And that's it for now peeps. Hope this inspires you to give up-cycling a go. I know to some this may seem tame in comparison to some of the jobs folks undertake on furniture and the likes, but to me the little additions/tweaks made to the pieces I already had kicking about have made a real difference to the spaces they now reside in. It's also given me a boost of confidence in knowing I can produce something of worth with minimal time and effort, as neither of those I have in abundance when it comes to DIY. I'll be sure to keep you posted on any future 'projects' I undertake but for now, I think it best that I step away from the glue-gun for a bit before Hubby has to have it surgically removed!

Happy over-hauling peeps!

Weesse x