My bathroom project

[WhiteLotusLane]

I'll be getting around to my bathroom project and promise to take pictures.

It involves turning 2.5 x 2.5 meters of tiled desolate nothingness into something with a nice tub, some granite, wood and rocks/pebbles or rock-tiles, glass shower partition, towel cabinet, new wash basin mirror and lights all over the place. It will involve moving the door (breaking a new opening) and making the door open outward to be able to fit it all.

To save costs I am not touching the existing wash basin and toilet as they're acceptable. (Though the top of the sink is a pink-ish marble like material and I'm seriously tempted to replace that with the same black granite as will be used elsewhere around the tub & shower area.) The existing electrical water heater is not powerful enough and not of the type that can be used with a bath faucet so I'm swapping the existing one with a better one in another bathroom where it will suffice for plain shower use. I'm reusing some wood/laminate stuff and lights that I still have from my old house.

Budget is 13,500 for the tub (it's a big 'un), 6000 baht for bathtub tap & shower heads and 33,000 baht for all remaining materials and installation work, so a total of 52,500 baht. This is all set in the Chiang Mai area and it's being done by the same people who worked on bathrooms for the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi (posh place) though no doubt they'll manage to shatter my usual unrealistically high expectations in one way or another. After all I need this done on a sensible budget.

I'm buying tub & taps from Noppadol Phanit in Chiang Mai on the Superhighway ringroad, which is on the left when driving from the Doi Saket Rd intersection (San Dek) towards the Mae Jo Rd intersection.

This is the tub: Bathroomtomorrow.com though I'm ordering it plain, without all the bubbles & lights hoopla. Check out the rest of that site, some impressive (and expensive) stuff there that mostly won't fit in your bathrooms.

[WhiteLotusLane]

Pictures of the current state:


Just a shower on the wall..


Wash basin.. it's okay, though black granite on top would be nicer.. Note how low the mirror is.. all I see is basically my gut and nether regions.




Tiles.. not quite ugly enough to completely rip them out.

Encore: Pic of the view from Chiang Mai this afternoon.. nuttin to do with it:

[ChiangMai noon]

^
i thought you were in Pattaya.
That looks a lot like the view off the Hang Dong golf course looking towards Samoeng.

[DrAndy]

nice bathroom...oh, you haven't started yet, sorry

yes, get rid of the pink and replace it

try to get the classiest fittings; you can get budget ones that look and perform as well as the "posh" makes

the tiles are a bit worrying, but if you are on a budget, you will have to try to use them in your design...pink and black....hmmm

whatever, get some good lighting, it makes a big difference. A nice long light over the mirror as well as some downlights

[NickA]

Looks similar to mine, except mine has a bloody red toilet and sink (sorry, I don't mean red from blood, but bloody red, maybe better to say fekin red)....I've just done some tiling over on DD's tiles thread

[WhiteLotusLane]

i thought you were in Pattaya.
That looks a lot like the view off the Hang Dong golf course looking towards Samoeng

Spent some time in Pattaya, then thought 'nyeeeehhh' and packed up. I still like the place, but I think it's best taken in moderation. Also the hot weather and high humidity kind of got to me there. I'll probably start missing the sea soon, and the, erm, Issan culture.

Pic is of Doi Suthep/Pui taken from the second ring road, in between the river and the Hang Dong road I think.

[Marmite the Dog]

Location: Pattaya

Can you update your CP then please?

Ta.

[Begbie]

Marmite the Dog

Location: Planet of the Apes

Of course your location is accurate. How's Charlton Heston these days ?

[Marmite the Dog]

How's Charlton Heston these days?

Is that code for Surayud Chulanont?

[WhiteLotusLane]

Location: Pattaya

Can you update your CP then please?

Ta.

Yes sir.. But what if Pattaya is still my spiritual home?

[DrAndy]

then god help you

[WhiteLotusLane]

Don't worry; it was the first place I got to know in Thailand as the company I was working for had a factory in the area.. Still have fond memories of that time, but in the end I knew it was better to move on.

[WhiteLotusLane]

Ok, we're on track again. The builders went AWOL for a bit but we got them back in their chains again. Builders are like cats in that sense, you might not see them for a week and then they come waltzing in as if nothing happened, dragging in road-kill & som tam for lunch. Or they might not come back at all.

As you may recall, with the door in the existing location you wouldn't be able to get into the bathroom anymore after fitting the tub, thus defeating the purpose of having a bathroom. So we're breaking some wall to move the door.



I kind of like the big opening.. Why do doors always have to be the same size anyway; you could go with harmonica type sliding doors for rooms so you could have a large interior space which would also help air circulation.. Here though the right side will have to be reconstructed as the tub will go along the right side, with a shower partition in the left-back corner. This layout means we don't have to fuck with the existing toilet & wash basin location.



The most common place for the tub would be against the back wall, but a slightly wider tub doesn't really fit well next to the toilet, and then placing a shower cabin / partition becomes more of an issue.

[WhiteLotusLane]

Because breaking walls is so much fun, we decided to break a little bit more. This allows a little better position for the door. Currently the door frame is being fitted; the door will open to the outside as opposed to before.



Also we're fitting a nice black granite slab to the wash basin. Also decided against re-using an existing 4500 W water heater from another bathroom.. 4500 W doesn't really cut it in the winter in the North if you like a steaming hot bath, so I bought an actual bathtub water heater. A Panasonic one, 10,000 Watt. 7200 baht it was. This however resulted in a problem for the shower area: there's only one tube and a standard 'open/close' tap installed currently. The water would get way to hot to connect that directly, so the best solution would be to buy another hot/cold mixing tap, break some more wall and run an extra 'hot' tube separate from the cold one.. . . .. Decided against all that; far easier to just keep the existing shower heater for the shower for now.

[DrAndy]

. This however resulted in a problem for the shower area: there's only one tube and a standard 'open/close' tap installed currently. The water would get way to hot to connect that directly, so the best solution would be to buy another hot/cold mixing tap, break some more wall and run an extra 'hot' tube separate from the cold one.. . . .. Decided against all that; far easier to just keep the existing shower heater for the shower for now.

I hope you have a good electricity supply with all that power requirement

[WhiteLotusLane]

Yup, they're running another cable. But they're pretty good at electrical stuff, they were even going to do the ground wire without me having to ask them. As for power requirement, it's I think unlikely to run both the shower cabin heater AND the bathtub heater at the same time; also the bathtub heater would find itself on 'Medium' most of the year I would guess.

Maybe one of these days I should run all 6 airconditioners, all water heaters, microwave, toaster, iron and the washing machine (a proper Siemens front loading one) at the same time and see if I start seeing sparks, or darkness. ... I normally wouldn't do that.. Actually I don't think I ever had more than 1 airconditioner running at the same time other than when they were just fitted and being tested. Actually most of the time I don't run any airconditioners, just some ceiling fans.

I would say that the mains electrical supply is up to it though, there's some really big houses in the same compound, no doubt with serious power hungry stuff inside.

[WhiteLotusLane]

Things were going a bit slow because the same crew was doing other stuff around my house as well, plus the bathtub took some time to be delivered from Bangkok. But now things are moving again!


Re-building the brick wall next to the door frame. I'm not an expert on brick laying, but to my eye it doesn't look quite as gross as what I usually see for walls that will be rendered in cement anyway.


Putting in the drain pipe


Yay!!! The tub arrives


Building the enclosure for the tub. Good thing that we changed the door frame around to have the door open to the outside.

[WhiteLotusLane]

Rendered in cement:

[WhiteLotusLane]

Lots of things happened, most of them slowly and too insignificant to even be captured in pictures.

We had a lot of wood flooring left, so this we're re-using in the bathroom. Initially they put it in a vertical pattern, which needlessly cut up a lot fo the material. In the end we removed it all and did it again.



Same material also went on the front wall around the door. Mostly because there was enough and because we couldn't find the same style tile as was on the wall that was broken out. On the left there will be a cupboard though the designer/contractor understood its position a little different from me, so actually on the bottom left is now wood paneling that will be completely covered by the cupboard. (Cupboard will have a big laundry drawer below, and glass shelves for towels and the like and go all the way up to the ceiling, meaning the roof access panel that's there will have to be moved also)




THen for the wash basin, the mirror was way too low and needs to be re-done, and of course the basin top will be changed from pink-ish marble to black granite.



Finally, the door has been placed back. Painting needs to be done of course, fortunately we still have the same color paint somewhere.

[WhiteLotusLane]

Ok, lots of progress to report.

First I'm happy to report that I'm not reminded of living in a construction site every time I walk up the stairs; wall looks tidy again, just needs the light switch:



Then the tub seems to fit well:



The towel cabinet is taking shape, it will just get some glass shelves. We increased the budget a little but to make room for a drawer near the bottom for laundry:



The granite top for the wash basin in place:



Now, this is the last spot that's still being vigorously debated:



As you can see there's just not a whole lot of space left there for a shower area. The current plan is to go with a glass partition for part of the way next to the toilet, have a 15 cm edge right up to the bathtub and then towards the back wall, and an L shaped metal bar from the top of the glass partition towards the back wall. On the floor will be semi-rough rock-like tiles; just 4 are shown but we'll cement them into the whole shower area. (80 x 120 cm I think.. I hope that's enough.. Well see.)

[buad hai]

Wow, looking quite nice.

[Marmite the Dog]

I still can't understand why anyone would want a bath-tub.

It does look very nice though.

[jumbo]

WhiteLotusLane,
Have you used the same granite for the bath surround, if so it looks good, I will pinch your idea when I install my bath. I was stuck for ideas for the finishing edge.

[buad hai]

I still can't understand why anyone would want a bath-tub.

I don't know why, but I really love to take a bath. When I check into a hotel the first thing I like to do is draw a hot bath and just soak for a while.

[Little Chuchok]

I still can't understand why anyone would want a bath-tub.

It does look very nice though.

Back home,most Real estate agents would tell you that it is high on the list with women.

After a huge night out I used to enjoy soaking in a hot bath to sweat it out.I stopped doing this when I woke up trying to inhale water....