h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

1 Lie in the bath thinking things look a bit grotty and pull at the piece of loose wallpaper behind your head.
2. Sweep up the plaster that fell off with it
3.Decide to replaster and repaint and therfore take up the bathroom carpet with a view to keeping it clean enough to replace
4. Discover the floorboards round the loo have rotted (damn lucky it hasn't fallen through the ceiling)
5. Buy tongue and groove waterproofed chipboard in eight foot lengths to replace the floor.
6.Remove lavatory pan so that you can lay the floor (this is not a job to be undertaken lightly, if at all, but you cannot cut the afore mentioned chipboard and in any case you're supposed to be replacing the floor)
7.Put down floor,replaster and paint walls.
8. Refit lavatory pan (dashing out to buy a new joint to fix it to the U bend because cleaning the old one has caused it to disintegrate)
9.Go downstairs for a well earned cuppa, leaving the bottle of brush cleaner on the sill in front of the open window. The wind will blow it off into the pan, breaking it.
10. Go out to buy new pan. The old seat and lid will not fit. Go out to buy new seat.
11. Put nice clean carpet back. Tack it down round the edges.
12. Stand bcak and admire your work
13 Notice a smell of gas
14. Phone gas board. Take up carpet. take out lavatory. Take up floor boards(all of them - they are two foot wide and tongued and grooved remember)
15 Get gas pipe replaced
16.Replace floor and pan but not carpet, because you've wrecked it in your anxiety to get it up quickly.
17-20 Have a bath, a stiff drink - or three

I think you only did step 1. Therefore the rest can be sumarised as "Don't let your son do any of it"

In fairness, who would have imagined that the screw holes in the new toilet pan would be in a different location to those of the old pan.

I distinctly remember being involved in the first removal of the lavatory.
The holes discrepancy probably comes from the difference between imperial and metric measurements

Mothers!

Mine developed a wish that became a desire that became an urgent necessity to replace her plastic bath panels with wooden ones. Unfortunately she lives fairly near one of those DIY paradises, and was thus able to peruse at length the options available. She settled, eventually, for a nice mahogany and issued orders for her son to attend and approve her choice. Unfortunately neither I nor she had a vehicle suitable to transport these long panels and advantage was taken of said DIY Megalopolis' delivery service. They delivered the wrong colour, then they were out of stock, then she wasn't in when they tried...well, you know how it goes.

6 weeks later son is summoned to fit these panels to the bath. Now he imagined, in his foolishness, that baths were probably a standard size, and that these panels were similarly standardised. Wrong. Round trip to collect circular saw etc. Eventually the panels are trimmed to the correct size. Stupid son had also assumed the floor of this fairly modern flat might be flat and level, and the bath rim parallel to it. Wrong!. More trimming and insertion of wedging bits. Incredibly worthless and hopeless son had also assumed that the lip on the bath would easily house the edge of the panel. Wrong. Further round trip to collect plane. Indescribably inept son duly planes the panel edges to fit under bath, and assembles. Unfortunately corners not true. Quick trip to vast DIY Emporium and Palace of mediocrity secures edging strip to disguise corner non-meeting. Gooey silicone stuff applied to seal joints. Oops. Tiniest blob of sealer sticks to mahogany panel. Not to worry. Quick dab of Nail Varnish remover will take that off. So it does. Horror! Mahogany is not mahogany at all, but stained MDF board, now revealed in all its buff splendour, wiped clean of stain by Nail Varnish remover.

Mother hears words from mouth of son that she has never heard before from that source.

(Problem solved by discrete placement of bath towel!)

BTW this was a splendid (and inspirational, as you see) entry! I only hope that our intrepid researcher has no commercial interest in this 'Tub'n'Tile' product so effectively recommended!

It's probably not available in the UK - so we're safe.
The next stage was a dripping tap removing the enamel from the bath.
Washers that size no longer made so replaced by pieces cut out of a hot water bottle.
Tried to renovate bath with a product that had "joy" somewhere in the name,
Followed instructions very carefully but neglected to tell other son not to run thew hot water into the bath fast.
New enamel therefore bubbled and peeled off. Prospective tenat stayed in the place less than a week (can't think why: I thought it was quite a good effect)
Therefore bath had to be replaced. getting a cast iron affair down steepish cottage stairs not a game for the faint-hearted.
Our bath panels were black glass. I dropped one and cut my hand trying to save it. We now have white plastic to go round the white plastic bath which has new taps because the old ones didn't fit.
I don't think I'll tell you about the gas water heater that had to be replaced because it was sending out super-heated steam rather than hot water.
I agree - it's a good (a very good) article but, unless things are vastly different in OZ, I think it's fiction.

Good Article....very informative. But.....

I learned long ago that no household DIY project should be started until you understand these basics.

(1) No building in the world is square...much less level.

(2) No matter how much you spend in preparation, you will invariably find you have forgotten to aquire that ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY part or tool. This is always discovered about 10 minutes AFTER the hardware store closes!

(3) Always buy twice as much paint as you think you'll need....especially custom mixed colors. Paint NEVER covers in one coat...I don't care what the label says!

(4) And lastly.....caulking and molding are the Do-It-Yourselfers' BEST friends!

NM

*clutching sides laughing*

I can assure you I have absolutely NO interest in the product mentioned, just that I was so astounded that it looked so good and was so effective, I thought I had better spread the joy. As for its availability, I would have not a clue, so ask your local DIY store...

Thank god I didn't try floor boards, tiles, toilets, etc, etc!

I see some of you now have the full understanding of just how expensive bathroom renovation can be!

(and just for the record, this is no fiction. what was described in the article took place over two VERY hot days recently in my own bathroom. Granted it is small-ish, but it still works and still looks great!)

....Five weeks later...

As a rule of thumb, I always try to make an accurate assessment of the time required to complete the project. I take my calculations and multiply this time by a factor of 10. When hiring a subcontractor multiply by 12.

Consider these valuable hints:

· How many days can you manage with out a shower?
· How many hours can one endure not using the toilet?
· Where will you store the aspirins, band aids and ankle braces required to complete this project?

In our case, we get on VERY well with the neighbours

We went without five days without a shower or bath - luckily my parents like a mere 15 minutes drive away...

Thought I would revisit this article due to the incredulity it first inspired.
The bathroom still looks great. Although the bath tub itself has peeled with the tub n tile - perhaps we did not wash down the surface well enough. But you can't tell from a distance, and we are going to get it professionally resurfaced through some poeple I have since heard about that don't charge you much.
The only disaster we have had since the revamp was that I dropped a very heavy, glass bottle of hair product into our wash basin (about the only thing in the bathroom at the time that didn't need revamping) and it now has a mega-sized crack running from the front lip almost to the plug hole. Needless to say my husband was not impressed as he can no longer shave in his usual manner. We are debating going down the ole DIY route and patching it up or whether we should simply bite the proverbial bullet and buy a new wash basin. (I favour the latter, as well as replacing the toilet).
That's the trouble with home improvements, you're never done with them!
Happy DIY-ing, everyone

I should wait until you can get the whole bathroom suite cheap. Seems we now have the necessity to replace the taps in the hand basin. The local wonderful DIY place has gone out of business and the plumber has probably retired as well. I'm glad yours is still holding up, but I go home in fear and trepidation in a couple of weeks.

Those taps are, at the very least, 15 years old so I reckon they owe us nothing at this stage

Isn't it funny how you can ignore things like taps, fittings, etc, but when it comes time to replace them it seems like the most important thing in the world to get the "right ones"?

At least, I hardly notice our shower set anymore, and I remember agonising whether we should go for bronze or white!!!

I found myself revisiting the bathroom as well. I am glad you didn't bust a new sink because someone would really be in a lather over that.

After reading your update and inspecting my own DYIing, I realize my time calculations of last year were erroneous. A bathroom project is never finished. It's the only true way NOT to do it.

hehehe, you got THAT right.

We still haven't replaced the sink, just can't bring myself around to spending more money (tightwad, etc). And now the really old toilet cistern is leaking, and no matter how many new washers we replace old ones with, my husband can't seem to get it to stop.

Sigh, looks like we are in for another round!

*Ding ding!*

Bathroom: 1
Owners: 0

(and very tired)

At the ripe old age of 44....having DIY'ed for the better part of my life(my parents were big on it, as well)...I have come to a realization(I think its' referred to as an *epiphany* these daysLOL!!!!).

Wherever your household projects started(be it bath, kitchen, etc.), when you think you're finished...you start back at the beginning.....'cause it needs it again!

I refer to it as the real "Never Ending Story"!!!!

NM

Went home. Bought new taps for wash basin. Younger son fitted them and went away.
The following night I was sitting on the loo at about 3am (jet-lag) and thought I heard death watch beetle- sort of infrequent ticking noise, When I surfaced the following day, discovered that the bathroom carpet was sopping wet. Fitting new washers has dislodged paint/caulking under the basin causing substantial leak.
By being really pathetic on phone, I managed to get Duncan to come for the weekend and fix things, including putting down a few cork floor tiles and throwing out carpet.
"How many Joneses does it takes to change a washer?"
"All of them, and at least two of them have to fly over from Dublin"
While I was in the bath after they'd left, it occured to me that the place needs repainting...........

*Will It Go 'Round In Circles"!
He-he......it never ends. One thing leads to another...I try not to notice!LOL

NM

It's like owning a "vintage" car, where you fix up one thing which puts pressure on something else, you find yourself in constant state of renovations...