1st floor bathroom > shower room, ground floor cloakroom/boiler room.

The second of the bathrooms co-incided with the formation and refurbishment of the boiler room, which was also turned into a ground floor toilet with airing cupboards. The second of the main bathrooms is a shower room that presented its own problems. Far from being spacious, this room crams a lot of 'look' for such a small space. 2m sq approx.

Its position on the 1st floor was directly over the boiler room and therefore made a great deal of sense to convert both rooms at the same time.

All the walls were stripped back to brick. This was not a job for dust-haters. As the house had 140 years on it, the walls were of tired plaster that had blown in places and the ceilings were lath and plaster. This gave us a complete blank canvas for the creation of the space. Floors were adjusted in the shower room to accomodate the wetroom floor. Part of the ceiling was restored with plasterboard and the other part, left open. The roof trusses were exposed and sanded. The space had become subtley more architectural with this hidden roof space. It did mean we could hide the extractor in this space were it would be less conspicuous.

As mentioned, this was a wetroom and as such had to be prepared thoroughly and very well too prevent any future leakage. This was our first wetroom and as such, we took all the necessary precautions when installing the product. We settled on a base from 'on the level' who specialise in wetroom products along side their acrylic wall solution. Care was taken to make sure all the gaskets, around the products on the wall and in the floor, were perfectly sealed and tight.

The shower area is decked out with travertine marble. Mosaic travertine tiles across the floor going into the larger square panels on the walls. As there are no gaps between the wall tiles, the impression is of one piece of marble.

The brushed stainless steel shower pole is by Bristan and stands like a piece of sculpture, projecting from the wall in the wet area. The 'drencher', or flood head is more appropriate in these settings as they tend not to create excessive water spread, unlike power shower heads.

The walls that weren't tiled were treated with many layers of pigmented varnish. Very thin at first and becoming stronger at the end. This did 2 things: added greater protection against water damage and secondly gave a sensory quality, akin to lustre ware or silk. What the colour of the plaster gave to the room was its warmth. It made the pigmented varnish a slight tone warmer in appearance.

ground floor cloakroom.

key events would be the units that house the boiler. A lift off panel hides the unit itself whilst the larger cupboard doors conceal the drying space and the stuart turner pumps that create greater pressure for the shower, directly upstairs. The doors are panels which have been made to size and veneered with zebrano. These are set off by the flooring which was left as floorboards, but painted black.

I think the room speaks for itself. Its tidy and crisp and has a very calm and clean and delicate appearance.

ground floor toilet and boiler room

zebrano doors with inset handles

handwash sink