Secret Homes of Glebe: Time to makeover the bathroom

Behind the kitchen, the bathroom and laundry in our Glebe St house were the next most desperate rooms that needed a makeover. Initially the exposed brick entry below, led from the lounge room straight into the laundry! That’s what you want to see as you are enjoying your dinner!

We bricked up this entry before we moved in and removed the bricks from the kitchen entry and squared it up .

The downstairs bathroom and laundry was in an appalling state and it was hard to imagine how it got that way. There were pipes emerging from the floor in places where they shouldn’t, a deteriorating plastic toilet cistern, BAD plastic mirror cupboard thingy (that wouldn’t shut) and the worlds smallest hot water system which meant not even one person could have a shower without running out of water! When we replaced the hot water system (long before the bathroom reno) we discovered the system was designed for office use, for washing up dishes and mugs! Not for the showers that Arran has where he splashes about like a duck in the hottest water possible.

We basically never used the downstairs bath and shower (and one of the key criteria when buying the house was that it had to have a bath! That it was usable was irrelevant!) Most of the time we lived in this house the country was gripped in a drought so a bath was a luxury we didn't enjoy very often. Both the laundry and bathroom were small pokey spaces so it made sense we when renovated to open the two rooms up into a more practical space. Actually on reflection, renovate seemed the wrong word. We basically replaced everything (ceiling, roof, floor) except the outer walls so it was more of a room replacement than anything else.

Knowing this we auditioned a couple of bathroom designers to see who could come up with the most practical usage and storage for the space. We ended up going with a design from one of Australia’s largest home retailers, who really should stay away from renovation work and just sell stuff! The design was fantastic; we fitted in a full size bath with rainfall shower overhead, heated towel rail, huge vanity with lots of storage, lovely clean floor layout, a remote control skylight (to get more light in) and large laundry cupboard with doors that slid back into themselves (to save space) and a toilet with soft closing lid. The project management and quality of trade work was appalling. For such a small space it took longer and was more expensive than any of our other renovations and the home retailer company narrowly avoided us taking them to the small claims tribunal. There were so many annoyances along the way, once it was finished it was hard to enjoy the finished product, even though it looked great.