We Renovate Our Tiny Bathroom! DIY Room Makeover in an 80s Timber Cabin

We've just bought the world's smallest bathroom. This is it. So this is the project. This does not tick the Lucy wants to jump in at bathtub challenge. This does not meet that requirement. You're not going to test it out? No, there's like all sorts of stuff going on in here. All right, come and check out the toilet. Oh, yeah. So the toilet, it's so small the bathroom and the toilet doesn't actually fit in there. So we've got a separate toilet. Huzzah! That's it. That's it. How good is that? I mean, actually, feature window to look out onto, you know, the happenings in the deck. Oh, that works. Does this and then, oh, now we're back outside again. Yeah, dual entranceway to the toilet. I mean, not everyone has that, do they? So we are finally getting around to renovating our bathroom. We have actually been living with the bathroom as is for quite some time now, but it got to the point where we both kind of just cracked it and decided we needed to fix it. So there are a few problems that we need to solve. Firstly, it is very small. There's actually nothing we can do about the size because we're not changing the floor plan at this stage. But we can just be smarter with how we maximize and use that space. Secondly, there is no storage and that vanity is in such terrible condition. Thirdly, the bath and that raised ledge, the way it's been installed, it's just such a poor design. It's so close to that floor mounted vanity that it's just created these awkward corners and surfaces that just pool water and it collects dirt and grime. And it's so hard to get in there and clean it. I just hate it. So I want to streamline that and fix that. And then look, aesthetically, it's not great. The tapware is old. The shower is quite literally being held up by a piece of wire. There's no ventilation, so no fan. There's just a really dodgy old heater. And to be honest, it's just really uninspiring. So basically what that all means is we're going to have to start again. Demo time. I was just looking at this lovely shower head that's being held up with a piece of wire we've been sharing for quite some time. I'm quite happy to get rid of that. Yeah, that piece of wire is a necessity because before I put that in, it wouldn't stay up. This rusty rod. Do you know what I'm actually most excited about? Because we're going to change and put a wall hung vanity. We're not going to have this anymore, which I can't even clean. Pretty gross down there. It is so disgusting. And it's just like giving me so much anxiety. There's mold. The walls are warped. I just need you to go for gold today. Jono, can you do that for me, please? It's going to look a thousand times worse before it looks better. Yeah, OK, let's go. See ya. What can you find in there? Is that a cockroach on that back wall? Doesn't look like it's burnt at all. Who does it? Who leaves a sticker and barcode on it? For 25 plus years. This bathroom has been redone at some point, you know, and it used to have dupe rock. Now it's got plywood. Anyway, whatever it is, it's crap. Get rid of it. Do you reckon this will come off or in a million pieces? Oh, can you please be careful? I don't want bad luck. I'm going to have to break it. Oh well, lucky the old liquid nails won't look as good as it is right now. This is coming straight off. I like demoing crap bathrooms because I've had to demo some newer stuff and everything's put together so well. This stuff just comes apart. Oh, happy to oblige. All right, so this is my vision for the bathroom. I've mocked up my designs using the Ries Imagine 3D planner. As you can see, we're keeping quite a similar layout, but I've actually added in a few more elements to the room. And I've been able to do this by just being a little bit smarter with some of the product choices. For one, I went with a wall hung vanity because I wanted quite a wide 900 millimetre vanity. But I also wanted to have easy access to the floor for cleaning. And then the bath I chose is a bit bigger than the existing, which is great because I could quite literally not even lie flat. But I'm ditching that unnecessary ledge. Basically, I just want to reduce the amount of surface area and really streamline that bath as much as possible. And I'm going with an offset basin on the right to allow more room to fit a mirrored cabinet on the left, and then that way I'm able to add much more storage. I've also played around with some ideas for that separate toilet. Again, not much room to work with, but if we ditch that door to the outside, that'll actually give us a lot more options and we'd be able to fit in a very small basin and a mirror in there. So then it actually starts to act like a proper powder room. However, for now, that is very much stage two. We're not going to get to that in this renovation. However, that is my vision and that is where we're going. Looking good. Yeah, looking good. It's a good base now. So, new floor, new walls to go in. But first, we need to work out the bath layout, the shower layout, cabinet layout. Oh, I've already worked it out, babe. Don't you worry. But exactly where it's going. So I can add some strength and bits to screw into later. All right, let's do it. Measure up the bath. You know where it's going? Well, I know where it's going. I'll build a little frame. We'll sit it in, test it, and then we'll work out the rest of the junk. Junk? Yeah, bits and pieces, stuff going everywhere. So for your taps and stuff, they're all going back in here because this is kind of where they were. How high do you want your taps for your bath? And then the shower, I'll just make it as high as I can. So it doesn't hit the ceiling. Little bathroom update, we've actually pulled out the window. Why do we do that? Well, we actually saved a few of the old windows out of the lawn project. And Lucy decided it'd be nice to not have a aluminium window full of mould and to put in one of the timber windows from lawn. So I've cut it out. I'm going to put some new supports in. I have to trim all along here because it's a little bit taller and probably the perfect day to get it back in because it's absolutely piecing down. Well, let's get into it. How do you like this bathroom? Oh, it's pretty good. It's going to be better when you get up here and finish it. Guess what, dog? Can't steal my insulation anymore, can you? Got walls on the walls. Come on, Lucky, come on. Fancy new bathroom. It actually started to look like a bathroom. We've actually got a bit of progress. We've got walls on, we've got your ceiling on, lights are in, fans in. Time to waterproof and get the fun stuff happening. Yay! Tiling, then fit off. Dusty's here. What's he doing? Oh, he's here for moral support. He's here to steal all of my offcuts and insulation when he can. He loves chewing insulation, which he shouldn't do. Good work, dog. All right, let's go. Time to get out. It's time to get waterproofing down. Now I've received all the materials for the bathroom. So I want to walk you through all the different material choices I made so you can get a bit of a feel for the look I'm trying to create. For starters, I am wanting to have a very matte finish in this bathroom. I'm going to be doing that through the choice of tiles, things like the basin, right down to even the type of silicon I use. So let's first get started with the tiles because these are probably what I'm most excited about in this bathroom. This is the floor tile. So this is a Spanish ceramic tile. And I love the earthiness, the deep, rich brown, orangey tones. And I also really like the fact that there's a lot of variation to each tile. And I've chosen a slightly smaller tile. So this is actually 225 millimeters square. Before, there was a 600 square tile. So this will mean more tiles will actually exist in the space. And because of that variation, it's going to have a lot more texture and a lot more movement going on on the floor. So now for the wall tiles, I have chosen two colors for my wall tiles, but again, I love this texture that's in this tile. It's got this beautiful little imperfection. I love this burny green tone to it. And I'm going to be pairing that with this off-white as well. So what I want to do is have the green on the lower half of the bathroom. And then I also want to be bringing in this off-white to sit on the upper half. So that will wrap my shower. I like the fact that these feel quite rustic. I mean, they've got not perfect edges. There's nothing too polished about them. So it creates a bit of a nostalgic feel to this bathroom, which is what I'm after. I am going to be bringing in some paint into this bathroom and I wanted something that would cut through a lot of the color and the texture that I've brought in with the tile. So I'm choosing a really fresh neutral. This is Dulux Natural White. I'm bringing in a touch of timber through the vanity, and I'd also love to bring in a timber tray for the bath as well. That will help to warm up the space even more. As for hardware, I have chosen the Kato ERA range in brushed nickel. And this is from Reece. I really wanted to keep to an older style for my hardware because there's nothing modern about this home. So I wanted to avoid all modern styles and really stick to a nostalgic touch. Now, there were a few different options when it came to the hardware, but ultimately I've chosen the Gooseneck Curve and I also chose the Lever Handles as well. I just really liked the softness and the simplicity of these. And then literally to finish everything off, we're going to be using the Cellies Wet Area Matte White Silicon. This is new. It's matte. It will create a softer finish and ultimately it's just going to be the perfect way to complement the overall matte look of this bathroom. Still like your tile choice? Yeah, I love my tile choice. Well, that's lucky because they're going down. Oh, so good. Oh, they're warm. Are they? Yeah. It's doing its job. So what are you doing? You said you don't want... I took out the one I didn't want and then everything else is kind of random. But I quite like the randomness that you've already put in there. I just have to work it out as I go. Yeah, don't overthink it. You also want really tight gaps. Yeah. So I've done that, set out to fit perfectly. And then I just have to... It's not that big enough to worry about. Jiggle the gaps to make it fit. And I'll cut that row at the end. Good work. So the floor will go down. Dusty, don't eat my glue. Dusty, no. I'll get this first row in and then get it all done. Let's go. Good connection. That was a good connection. How good was showering outside at the start of winter? It couldn't have been finished sooner. Jono, put it that way. We are in the depths of winter, so very happy to finally have a new bathroom. Is it still a small bathroom? Yes, it is. But do we actually enjoy spending time there? One hundred percent. Like a bit of a game changer, isn't it? It's the best room in the house now, even though it is small. It's the tiniest room and it's the best room. It's the only room that's fully sealed up because we completely gutted it in the end. So what started as a quick fix turned into a full fix, including new window, new walls, insulation. And look, speaking of game changers, that window, I'm so glad that we actually switched that out. We repurposed a window that we kept from the lawn project. And at the time, yes, I made your job harder. Jono, apologies. However, how nice is it to now have a larger window? You've actually got ocean views without having to kind of strain your neck. And it lets a lot of beautiful light in. It's at a better height. Other game changers, underfloor heating. Pretty good. So my next job, because the underfloor heating is good. Yes. Except we get a hell southwest wind, which is icy cold and it blows straight under the house. So I'm going to spend a few days crawling under there and insulate under the floor to make it work better. Do I need to help? You never help with that sort of stuff anyway. Excellent. I'm really happy with how all of the colors and the textures came together. I love the color and richness of the tiles. The floor tiles work beautifully against that green of the bath, wrapping the wall and then how it transcends into that off-white. It's quite calming, but it's very colorful, isn't it? It's very rich. It's very inviting and intoxicating. And I kind of, I love it. It's much more engaging than just that all-white that we had going on before. Good combo of colors for this house with all the timber and stuff going on. Yeah, I think so. And speaking of timber, we brought timber in through the vanity. So that was actually the Cato Arc 900 vanity. I went as wide as I could. That uses a black butt timber and then a matching Cato Arc mirror cabinet. But we chose the 600, didn't we? Because we didn't have as much space on that left side. But we were both like we have to put some level of storage in this bathroom in order to make it a functional bathroom. We needed storage, but we also needed somewhere to put some hooks. Exactly. And we've also got a PowerPoint in there hidden away, which is actually really good. So I love being able to hide away PowerPoints whenever we can. I love the hardware. So the Cato Era in the brushed nickel. I think the brushed nickel and also that older style tapware is quite fitting for this home. It's not too showy. It's definitely not contemporary. It's kind of like the perfect level of plush. So the style's not contemporary, but the fixtures are a modern cartridge style quarter turn that works well. That actually work. I also really like how that gooseneck tap drapes over that semi inset basin. So that's on vivo. It's called Whitehaven. So it's not a solid matte white. It's got a little bit of texture in it, which I think is, to be honest, wherever I can bring texture, I could because I wanted to kind of add a bit more depth into that space. But I really love the way that's low lying, that's semi inset into that vanity. Functionally, it actually works better than a countertop mount one because you actually get more space under the tap. 100 percent. And obviously being offset to the right allowed us to have that room. More bench space and more bench space. Exactly. Good choice. Thank you. Hi, dog. You might need to get down from there. You want to talk to me? Oh, my God, that's hilarious. Dusty keeps sneaking in while I was renovating, especially when you weren't here to distract him. He kept coming in and nicking bits of offcuts and bits of insulation. That was fun. Dusty hates it when we're doing anything that doesn't involve Dusty, basically. What are you doing without me? Yeah, I do love the bath. It's not my dream bath. I'm going to be honest. We all know probably what my dream bath would look like, but it's not that. However, I can lie flat in this one, which is a step up from where I was. So I'm taking that as a win. And thank you for making me a bougie little timber tray. There's little touches like that. It's simple, but it just makes your bath time just that little bit more special. So thank you very much. I actually like having a bath now. That's good. Yeah, I don't like showering over a bath, so I want to get on to the next bathroom. Yes, we've got much more to do. We have to finish the powder room, but you want to do the laundry. We want to create another bathroom. We want to do the kitchen. We want to do the living room. We need to do the attic. There's lots. I did the bathroom without having a second bathroom and we showered outside, but I'm not pulling out that toilet until we've got a second toilet in the house. That's fair. All right. Well done, Joe. Well done. Good. Done. Finished. Very proud of you. OK, see you later.