Next morning (after the events documented in the previous post), Slick removed the plumbing and began to take down the wall. Porch/dining area and bathroom were about to become one.

Isn't the morning sunlight flooding through that window glorious? It was especially so to us, having used that room almost entirely by artificial light for most of the past eighteen months. Below, at the beginning of Day 3, Alick can be seen sweeping the floor after Slick had taken down the plywood wall. In the photo on the right, if you look through the wall frame, through the dining room and past the fridge, you can see Llick in the kitchen. Since we closed off the original entry into the kitchen by putting in the new bathroom, we had to make that opening through to the kitchen. It was much more convenient for transferring food onto the table, however.

 

  In the above photo, the last piece of gyprock is coming down, opening up what was the bathroom to the lounge area. As you can see on the left, nobody has yet worked up the energy to empty and move the crockery cabinet.

 

You will see in the above photos that Slick is opening up the toilet room, too. The toilet,as seen on the right, is no more. Its stained ugliness dictated a swift and effective end. Somebody had fun.

 

 Ah, never say we don't have fun - every now and again. This piece is obviously part of the ceiling, which was destined - one way or another - to change. At this stage we were still undecided whether to create a cathedral ceiling over the dining room, or somehow fit in a little attic. If fact, we were also playing with the idea of putting the new kitchen in this bathroom/toilet area - a new idea for us. Up to this point, we had been planning on putting the new kitchen in the big room on the south east corner of the house; however, council regulations had made things complicated. We had by this stage discovered that, unless we spent the large, precious quantities of money and time necessary to lodge a development application, we could only put bathrooms and kitchens in areas that contained existing plumbing. We got away with moving our bathroom because it was put in the kitchen; we now knew we would be able to legally move our kitchen, as long as we put it where the bathroom had been. The question now was, How can we fit within the council regulations and at the same time make this work for us within the plan of the house? How can we put the kitchen where the bathroom was, yet make it an efficient and usable space?

 

As you can see, the space was not large. Not for a kitchen for a family of nine. If you also look back up at the photo taken from the lounge room and imagine the pink room beyond as another living room, it will become obvious that putting the kitchen in where the bathroom had been would also create a bottleneck between one half of the public living space and the next. All these things and more we pondered in between our progressive deconstruction of the old bathroom. To discover our eventual resolution of these issues, you'll have to wait on coming posts!

 Here are some photos (finally) of the finished bathroom:

 The above photo is taken from the doorway into the bathroom.

  

  

 From the doorway, only this time down close and personal with the floor.

 

 A view of the various light sources. The candles are more for decoration than anything, though they come in useful in black-outs, which are not an uncommon occurrence here.

This photo was taken while standing on the edges of the bath, facing back towards the door. (Obviously!)

The sink, using the flash. Did I mention before that the washbowl has a special glaze?

Standing on the bath still ...

So, this is our bathroom. Since I just took these photos today, I can say 'this IS our bathroom'. And it WAS our bathroom too. Over the past two years since its completion, not much has changed.

The completion of this room represented the conquering of a stage in the renovation. It was the first room to be completed and it was the room that had to be done before anything else. Completing this room meant the beginning of the rest of the renovation.

So you can imagine the relief and excitement we felt due to these reasons, but cast back to my post on our old bathroom and you will understand a little of the wonder and appreciation we also felt for this fresh, clean, light-filled 'water closet'.

Next post will reveal the Demolition of the Blue Bathroom...

Plastering. Oh what joy. One, incidentally, that I had not yet experienced. However, my sister, Blick, sweated out most of her plastering apprenticeship in this room.

This room is a monument to her perseverance and resultant skill. It was not an easy room to begin a plastering career in.

Normally the installation of cornice along the top of the wall means that the plasterer doesn't have to concern himself with the join between the ceiling and walls. It is all covered up. However, as we were creating and plastering our cornice ourselves, the plasterer of this room had three horizontal right-angle corners to deal with on top of the four vertical ones. Two concave and one convex. The final surfaces of that cornice consist almost entirely of applied plaster, I am sure. The original gyprock was but the skeleton awaiting flesh!

However painful, the creation of this different cornice effect was necessary and, indeed, attractive in the end. As can be seen, at this point the cornice has been created and half plastered on all four walls. The intrusion of the beam above the door is now invisible. Voila! Three identical replicas built, and the original problem has disappeared.

  

Here you can see that the shower base and tiled 'back' are installed. Two narrow glass panels and a glass door will complete it. The door is destined to angle across the front corner, saving room.

 Yes, our shoddy old 'kitchen' lights are still our source of artificial light in the bathroom. Not long after, the electrician came and installed one of those three-in-one things, consisting of heat lamp, fan and normal light. He also installed a wall bracket light over the bath.

 

And this is the bath. A bath with a history.

One day Mum and Dad headed off to buy a free-standing cast iron bath. Of course, our almost non-existent budget was boasting it's customary several thousand less than several thousand dollars, so second-hand was our only option. Wandering amongst old baths galore, her keen eye on sharp lookout, our aesthetics director could find nothing suitable. That is, none except that ancient bath way down the back, full of ash and rubbish, rusted beyond belief and apparently leg-less.

Lets be blunt: it was a wreck. But, it had the Right Shape. Slick put to use the haggling skills he'd learned in Mexico so many years ago, and bought it. Are we crazy? Well, judge by the photo above.

Did you know that a glossy enamel paint is applied to trains? No? Neither did we, till we started researching places that might re-coat our bath in enamel. It's true, though, and that is what now covers our bath.

It wasn't quite as straight-forward as just rocking up to somewhere for a spray job, unfortunately. First the bath had to be laboriously scraped by the team as someone had hand-painted the bath - and it hadn't worked. At least it showed us how pointless that avenue of endeavour would be. All that paint had to be taken off and even chisels were out before the end. Paint removed, we hauled it in to the enamelers and left it, waiting for the call that would let us know they'd found time for it. The call finally came and we picked it up (including the four odd legs - nothing like a bit of eccentricity!), lugged it home and polished it with the special cloths that were provided. This took off the last tiny nibs.

Finally we heaved into place, connected the plumbing and stood back to admire our new bath.

To be quite honest, our bath isn't the same as your average several-thousand-dollar new cast-iron bath. The enamel is thinner than the original enamel, as our enamel is a two-part paint product. This has meant, in practical terms, that it is much easier to chip or scrape the finish on our bath. Two years later and our bath now bears small scars from clumsily handled metal plugs and various other accidents, but it is certainly in full working order.