Half Built House Exeter – Balancing a home with a new en-suite and main bathroom

The big decision to rebalance our Exeter HBH and tackle the first floor as well as the ground floor kitchen and dining room had a massive impact on time, stress levels and the budget. Things change on a day to day basis when you’re trying to turn a poorly laid out building site into a well designed, gorgeous home in less than two weeks, let alone when you have a standing start on day one to get all the materials, supplies, sanitary ware and finishing touches. Oh, did I forget…. and do some upcycling, restoration and design trickery at the same time. It’s a wonder I’d any hair left by the end of this one!

My somewhat solitary decision to turn firstly the existing bathroom into a shower room off the master bedroom and secondly the fourth bedroom into a bathroom for Amie meant moving walls, extra plastering, more plumbing and more tiling, but I absolutely think it was the best thing for the house and our couple. Chris got his super sized shower and Amie a place of sanctuary after months of upheaval. I wanted to keep to a fairly neutral palette of black, white and greys to the first floor, so the couple could add their own colours and personality later. In the bathroom the gorgeous once yellow fireplace surround was thoroughly cleaned down and then sprayed black, a very glamorous feature for some angel winged bathroom candles. The brilliantly affordable Topps Tiles black gloss tiles to the main bathroom gave a reflective and glam feel to the floor.

I’d found some old cast iron brackets at Toby’s Reclamation yard, brackets which were originally designed to hold up an overhead WC cistern. They’d rusted and discoloured but were the prettiest bird design – a quick dip in cleaner, a scrub with a wire brush and some black Hammerite spray and WOW! the perfect bathroom brackets for a 6mm thick glass towel shelf over the bath.

I’d pinched some of the old bathroom to make to new bathroom bigger, but it still left space for a 1200 wide shower tray and cubicle in the new en-suite shower room. Sounds so easy when you put it like that but it had involved quite a lot of wall moving work!

When you’re designing an en-suite it’s all about the detail as most en-suites aren’t exactly huge! We simply did not have the room for a loo but as there was one in the main bathroom and one downstairs this didn’t exactly matter. All the more room for a marine-sized shower and a basin with storage 🙂 The rather sexy AND British made Infinity shower tray gave a large enough space for two and the elegant sliding door was sleek and smooth. A touch of warmth was added with oak shelved basin unit from TC Bathrooms. The linear grey wall tiles from Topps linked in with the linear design to the ground floor #attentiontodetail

Plus we utilised the recess from the original window for a cheeky shower gel and accessories storage area – bonus!