Bathroom renovations aren’t chic and fun, they’re a feral headache

Behind the scenes of those Instagram #makeovers

I was showering in my garden using a hose attached to the kitchen sink, which kept coming loose so my husband was holding it together, when inevitably the bell rang. As he turned off the water to answer the door and I was left standing outside, wet and naked in London in October, I thought, “Right, I’m out of here”. Deprived of a functioning bathroom, I have been staying with my mother in Berkshire ever since. 

Welcome to the reality of bathroom renovations, something that feels like it should be a chic process, and Instagram suggests might even be quite fun, but in actuality is a fairly feral ordeal. Both our main bathroom and our en-suite cloakroom have needed renovating for quite a while; whoever originally installed them did a crappy job, failing to insulate them properly and they were becoming all mouldy.

Now, I’ve written before about my struggles with interior design, but I got quite excited about doing up the two bathrooms. I imagined I would be flicking through some interiors magazine, marking pages with pink Post-its, and then pulling different components onto a Pinterest board. I would go tile crazy and concoct lots of lovely colour combinations with Farrow and Ball. 

But the thing is it hasn’t been anything like that, it’s been a total headache. And besides I don’t even know how to use Pinterest. 

Firstly, there’s too much choice: too many colours, too many tiles, too many taps. I eventually settled on dark green wall tiles with black and white checkered floor tiles for the cloakroom and all-white with black and white mosaic tiles for the main bathroom (the classic New York style, designed for smaller spaces). I still don’t know if I’ve made the right decision. But the whole design experience was a colour sensory overload and I never want to look at another tile - let alone bathroom - again. Still, the tiles were the ‘fun’ part. Searching through 1427 results for ‘bath filler’ on Victorian Plumbing, a website that is guaranteed to drive you to drink, is probably the least rewarding online shopping you can possibly do.

New York white bathroom inspo

We got there in the end (after a lot of panicked texts to our contractor about the ‘shower mixer’ because honestly what even is that?). But then the renovations actually started and that’s when things got feral. 

I hadn’t quite anticipated how intrusive the renovation would be - it was just a couple of rooms. The reality was we were left with no shower or bath, we couldn’t use either of the two toilets while the workmen were there, and after hours we were left with one toilet that was precariously propped on some piles of wood and a door that wouldn't close. We were also without both basins so I set up a little area by the kitchen sink with my face wash and the family’s toothbrushes. 

In hindsight, we should have made plans to stay with someone (a hotel bill on top of the bathroom cost would, quite frankly, be enraging). But I didn’t want to move somewhere too far away and give up our childcare at nursery as we had work to be getting on with. And so we thought we’d just ride it out. Terrible idea. 

Green tile inspo

Firstly the lack of a toilet during work hours is obviously a major problem. I’d get up at 6.30am to down a strong coffee and pray that it took effect before the builders arrived at 8am so I could take advantage of the makeshift toilet. I once joined a band on their tour bus for a couple of days and they told me that the only rule was that no one was allowed to poop on the bus and that anyone who did would be publicly shamed. In the end I couldn’t go for about a week after, my digestive system frozen in fear. A similar thing happened to me during the renovation. 

Oh and peeing? I’m sorry to tell you this but we’ve been going in the garden during the day if we were home. And while I did do some work from cafes, you can only really stay for a couple of hours on your own before you start getting ‘the eyes’.

I did my first pilates class in about six years at Tempo Hackney just so I could use their shower afterwards. I bought three classes for £45 making it possibly the most expensive shower I’ll ever take. No regrets.

Anyway, after a few days I realised that this was not a sustainable way to live for a fortnight and sacrificed our childcare by taking my two-year-old and moving in with my mother. My husband has remained at home to oversee everything.

There have, of course, been other issues. My husband and I came dangerously close to divorce when a black basin tap kept arriving instead of the white version and he meekly suggested we just used it rather than return it for the third time, even though all the other fittings in the bathroom were white. What can I say, emotions are running high.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Obviously it will be brilliant when they’re completed but the idea of renovating bathrooms just seemed so fun and sophisticated. I thought it was going to be a certain type of experience and then I found myself peeing in a bush. 

And if you thought I would leave you with a before and after of the bathrooms, then just know I had planned to. And then the completion date got pushed back. Obviously. Fingers crossed for next week. What a tease.

My top tips for bathroom renovations: 

• Do order the tile samples, don’t just look online. We now have to return 16 extremely heavy boxes to Topps Tiles because I didn’t like them when they arrived (too matte). Fortunately returns are in-store only and we don’t have a car. 

• Almost all of our deliveries were late, even if we paid extra for certain days, so allow plenty of time for everything to arrive, even if this means you have a bath in your living room, as we did for a week. The only way to contact most of these companies is through a chatbot so you will go slightly mad. 

• Little Greene Intelligent Eggshell in shade Loft White is an excellent white paint for smaller bathrooms.

• Be sure to go through every tiny detail with your builders. I didn’t tell them precisely where I wanted the basin in one bathroom, presuming they would simply put it where it was before. They put it about 8 inches from where I wanted it (not their fault, I really should have been clearer).

• There is absolutely no chance it will be finished when they originally said it will.

• Go ahead and move into a friend’s or treat yourself to that hotel. Just get out of there. 

What I’ve been enjoying this week…

Before I legged it to my mum’s house, I attended a dinner for a new fragrance by Liberty - forever my favourite London store - called Vine Thief eau de parfum, hosted by The Story Of Art Without Men author and writer of The Great Women Artists Substack Katy Hessel (if you’re not already subscribed, it’s a must). I'd never met Katy IRL before, but, as is the way with Substack, it brings people together. We chatted away over a long dinner (with a table setting only Liberty could come up with) and I took home a bottle of the perfume, inspired by one of William Morris’ Liberty prints. Fun fact from the evening: there are more astronauts in the world than perfumers. Vine Thief is a beautiful strawberry fragrance with notes of orris, leather, musk and vanilla. And being gifted a bottle couldn’t have come at a better time tbh, considering my hygiene has been getting fairly questionable as of late…

What I’ve not been enjoying this week…

I’ve definitely talked enough about bathroom related goings on today but my goodness potty training is hard work. On day one we went through an entire ten pack of underpants. A week later we’re on two or three so progress of sorts.

Hope you all have a brilliant weekend and enjoy those bathrooms of yours x