DIYer Saves £5,000 Turning 'Rotting Room' Into Stunning Moroccan-Themed Bathroom
- Kirsty ripped out her ‘rotting’ bathroom plagued with damp and rebuilt it from scratch without professional help
- She completed wall plastering, shower, sink and bathtub installation herself with the help of her partner, housemate and Dad
- Most of her supplies were sourced from Facebook Marketplace to keep costs low - including £30 taps, a £40 bath and a £35 toilet
- The project came with its fair share of challenges, from washing outside with a hose for months to the bathroom taps not working
It’s easy to avoid or put off major projects in the house if they seem to rely on tradespeople getting involved with tasks such as plumbing or plastering - but imagine how satisfied you’d be if you managed to do everything yourself on a tight budget?
That’s what Kirsty Cheyne, 26 from Sheffield who is a Biology student and part-time barista, did when she realised her bathroom was home to huge amounts of damp and mould. Speaking to money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk, she explained how the room was completely transformed.
‘This project took months and months of gruelling hard work. There was so much problem-solving and suffering involved, including washing outside with a hose for months and several plumbing issues cropping up. After living in a van for a long time my partner and I were so ready for a functioning bathroom - some people may see the room as a place to poop and nothing more, but for us it’s such a sanctuary for relaxing and decompressing.
‘We completed the whole renovation in an environmentally and budget conscious manner by using as many second hand items as we possibly could. The cost of the entire renovation - including tools, materials and briefly hiring a plumber for £80 because we thought the job was beyond our capabilities - was £1037.50. When we had been researching new bathroom installs online prices were anywhere between £4,000 up to £6,000, so I am immensely proud that the project was done for this price.
‘We were never under any illusion that we might be able to afford a professional to fit out a new bathroom - it's just not on the cards financially for us. When we started demolition, we had no more than £500 between us. A benefit of doing it yourself is going at your own pace and stopping at any time if you need to catch up on money; there's no contractor to contend with.
‘I think the decision was also helped by our desire to build our own house completely from scratch with our own hands at some point in the future - we saw this project as a bit of a practice run.
‘I've always been inherently attracted to DIY projects. I love to create and shape my environment myself and there's something wonderful about being self-reliant and knowing you can fix a problem without spending lots of money you don't have on tradespeople.
‘Blue fish-scale tiles inspired the design - I found them on Facebook Marketplace weeks before I started work on the bathroom and they were just so stunning I couldn't believe someone was selling them so cheap! I let the tiles lead the design. The small number of them led to the "feature wall" look in the shower.. the intense colour of them led to everything else taking a more muted tone... the shape of them led to the gently tropical, Moroccan feel of the room!
‘I sourced everything I could from Facebook Marketplace. I love the idea of keeping money in the community and reducing your environmental impact by allowing old and unloved things to have a second life. I always got anything that I couldn't source on Marketplace, like sealants and plumbing fittings, from Screwfix.
‘From Marketplace, I picked up a sink tap and bath shower mixer tap for £30, bathroom paint for £6, laminate flooring for £20, a bath for just £40, a free vanity unit and sink, blue fishscale tiles for £20 and cream tiles for £20, grout and tile adhesive for free, a toilet for £35, a £10 light fixture, an over-bath shower screen for £20, a shower head bracket for £5, a glass shower shelf and toilet roll holder for £5, a giant picture frame for £10 and back-of-door hooks for £2. The most expensive item was the towel radiator, which cost £100.
‘I started with a rotting room that smelled damp, so the first step was demolition. The demo showed the expanse of damp damage around the bath, so an extra step I wasn't expecting was replastering! After two weeks of plastering, I could get onto the painting and installing the floor. Then came plumbing which was an absolute nightmare of leaks everywhere, all the time. My record number of trips to Screwfix in one day is four. But perseverance and YouTube tutorials got me through!
‘Plumbing was the biggest challenge. It's just absolutely terrifying to cut into a pipe for the first time. I dedicated a huge amount of energy to problem-solving, thinking outside the box, and just learning via YouTube tutorials.
‘We had a few problems with the taps we purchased from Marketplace - the biggest being that they didn't work. Eventually, I figured out the fix - I discovered what a tap cartridge is and then realised all of them needed replacing.
‘I also had to work out how to stop all the leaks in the pipework. Turns out I needed a better tool for tightening the joints - a telescopic basin wrench, to be exact - but it took a huge amount of energy and time.
‘If I had to do this project again, I would just buy the right tool to begin with. Some jobs just require specific tools, especially with plumbing, and you're just going to waste multiple hours trying to get by with every other conceivable tool you own. In the end, I always gave up and just bought the right tool. I must've wasted a full 8 hour day collectively over the project just trying and failing with the wrong tools!’
Tom Church, Co-Founder of LatestDeals.co.uk, said: ‘Kirsty’s stunning bathroom renovation is a testament to the power of perseverance, along with proving that you can complete tasks such as plumbing and plastering yourself if you allow time, patience and the courage to take a plunge. Kirsty has done an amazing job by teaching herself all of the skills required for this project, especially when times got tough and there were plumbing issues which took a long time to fix. I hope she’s very proud of what she’s achieved for years to come.’
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