new bathroom advice

[jasper]

Following a flood which messed up our already shabby bathroom and shower soom I have decide to do the job properly and completely redo both rooms.The insurance will cover decoration and floors so it seemed daft to decorate around our horrid old stuff.
Anyone redone a bathroom lately/ any advice or pitfalls to look out for? Recommendations on EVERYTHING including flooring appreciated.
I really can't be doing with this hassle at the monent.
Thanks.

Quick tip about mosaic tiling - yes they are expensive so just buy enough for a horizontal "stripe" half way up the wall with white tiles above and below. We did this in the shower and also put mosaics as the splashback above the basin.

Quick tip about mosaic tiling - yes they are expensive so just buy enough for a horizontal "stripe" half way up the wall with white tiles above and below. We did this in the shower and also put mosaics as the splashback above the basin.

We got gorgeous ceramic mosaics from Tower Ceramics in Camden (recommended by a couple of people, one on Mumsnet I think & one in real life. Spooky.) which worked out about 30 quid a square metre, & she then gave us trade price 'cos we offered to pick them up from the warehouse. They are soooo beautiful - a mixture of grey, cream & black. We went for grey floor tiles in the bathroom & black ones in the shower room. You're in Scotland though, aren't you Jasper? London reccommendations not much good then.... Bath etc. from B & Q (website) who were fine though did tend to deliver everything separately which was annoying. Sorry to go on, I'm a bit obsessed with our new bathrooms....

We got ours done this summer. Cost a lot - £5500 - but that's cos we had two dreams. One was rubber flooring and the other was a stainless steel double ended bath with wall mounted taps. The rubber flooring is fab - so easy to clean, and so hygenic. And we have it up the side of the bath, so it looks great too. And just thinking about that bath ... I'm off to have one as soon as ds gets up from his nap.

That did include completing our shower room first, totally gutting old suite (which had no bath), including moving plumbing and then full tiling, lighting, cabinets etc.

And we got a self lowering toilet seat and one of those half and half push button flushes. I reckon we will use them as the ultimate potty training bribe!

Sofia, please help! I want slate tiles for our kitchen floor.It's a long narrow room with french doors at the end so I don't want to make it more corridor-ish - any tips? Any pitfalls with slate tiles? Also the room is north facing so it is quite dark. Will dark slate make it feel too gloomy? Cupboards are painted wood in pale cream, walls are white.
Re: bathrooms, we have a tiny bathroom tiled with mosaic tiles which we got very cheaply from a supplier called Edgar Udney in Balham, S London. It's a swimming pool tile supplier and much, much cheaper than fired earth etc. However, I also like plain white. My mum just put in those brick shaped tiles in her new kitchen and it looks v Living Etc. Def grey grout on tiled floors not white otherwise it looks yeuch! We got our double-ended giant bath from bathstore.com quite cheaply. Wish I had a shelf built in alongside the bath as part of the bath surround (no room ) as PPH recommends. It would have been v useful.

Self lowering toilet seat..cool

I used the mosaics. I bought a job lot of cheap white tiles (about £80 for enough to tile 3 walls) Plus about 1m of mosaic tiles (£30), this made 16 smaller tiles which were randomly scattered. It looks fab. The 4th wall is painted one of the colours from the tiles (an aqua blue) I am just about to finish the last bits by putting a new bath panel and doors on the cabinet - paint them white and use the remaining mosaic tiles in blocks on them.

Last word of advice, don't get your dh to lay a floor, mine did such a crap job around the loo it moves all the time!!

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I do nearly all the DIY at home and my speciality is mosaic tiling. I use broken tile for mine, it's way cheaper than buying tesserae. Wrap the tiles in a cloth (an old sheet will do) and smash them up with a hammer. Draw your design on the wall and try pieces for size before putting them up. Instead of spreading the wall with adhesive, butter the back of the tile pieces, that way you can do the smallest of gaps and your pattern is visible.

Always select tiles of the same thickness to get a good result.

Thanks everyone for your ideas. RobinW the floor I had to remove because of the flood was cork tiles and they were quite good - not too hard to lay, looked quite nice, and nice and warm on the feet. My reason for not getting them again was just to have a bit of a change.

How do you seal a slate floor?
That was just to get your attention
Thanks everyone for your help. The bathroom is nearly finished but I don't know how to seal the slate floor. I read on another thread you have to do it three times when new. How? And with what?
SofiaAmes thanks for directing me to bathstore.com where we bought the stuff. Their products are beautiful.However their customer service is hopeless, they don't know much about their own products and their delivery promises are fiction but it has been worth it in the end

Haven't got a clue but I would love a new bathroon....and kitchen....and study.....and family room.

Would this help?

This one says it doesn't have to be sealed though!

Lou33 thanks very much for your help.
Anyone else got a slate floor? Do you like it and did you seal it?

we've got one in the kitchen. sealed it when we got it, but that was over 2 years ago. it could probably do with it again now. i really like it, looks great. we got a whole series of products from plasplugs for cleaning, sealing etc. they were from b&q/homebase. actually, i've just gone to look at it properly & it's still pretty shiny & has had heavier wear than your bathroom will. seem to remember sealing involved nothing more than spreading the sealant round & leaving it to dry (dp might remember this differently though...).

Sorry jasper, I should have forewarned you about their absolutely hopeless customer service. I keep swearing I'll never go back, but their stuff is so nice and so cheap, I do.

You should seal slate or it will stain. We used Lithofin Stainstop MN on ours in our kitchen (and elsewhere). It is an impregnator and therefore doesn't change the color of the stone. It stands up well to the kids and the pot banging and food throwing etc. We sealed the stone with 2 or 3 coats (apply generously and outdoors - it stinks) before laying it and then another 2 coats after laying so that the grout got sealed too. Don't worry, if you've already layed it. It's still sealable, just be prepared for OPEN windows and seal off the room if you can. The smell is really toxic.
If you want the "wet look" there are other products, but you should do samples and let them dry before doing the lot. It costs few quid, but well worth avoiding surprises. This website seems to have by far the best prices (and great advice): stone sealers

By the way, if you are resealing a floor, it's very important that you know what went on it before and follow manufacturers instructions on whether to remove old sealer and what to remove it with. It's a bit like coloring hair, it can really go wrong if you do it in the wrong way/order.
Hey, aloha, I just realized that I never responded to your post in sept about slate in your kitchen. Do you still need advice?

Speaking of which, anyone know how to get black mildewy stuff off limestone tiles?

countess dracula, try this site as recommended by Lou below. Type a few search words and you should get some answers.

SofiaAmes, know what you mean. Despite their hopeless customer service I am already planning further purchases from them
You are the second person to recommend lithofin stain stop as a not too shiny sealer so I will go with that, and thanks for the link.
Hope you had a good trip - the magazine article was lovlely by the way- v cute kids.

Thanks Jaspar

Jasper even!

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