The tiler is booked, so this weekend we started the job of removing all the old tiles from our bathroom. Here’s a ‘before’ photo:
Unfortunately the task of removing the tiles proved not to be as straightforward as we had hoped (it never is!). We bought our house in the height of the UK obsession with TV property programmes (Changing Rooms, Location Location, Location, Property Ladder et al) from a guy who had clearly bought the house at a good price and then spent 6 months doing it up. Except he seems to have run out of steam halfway through and obviously cut corners wherever possible…so most things in our house superficially look nice, but they hide a wealth of DIY sins which we keep on discovering!
The problem in the bathroom is that he applied tiles straight onto plasterboard, which means that big chunks of plaster came off with the removal of each tile. So now we have a lovely hole in one wall! Great, huh?
So we took a trip to the DIY store for a new piece of board. Unfortunately at least 2 walls in the bathroom potentially have the same problem, so we decided that the tiler will have to tile over some of the old tiles rather than risking another disaster and more holes in the walls. The new board will have to be treated for water-resistance before the tiler arrives. More work and more expense for us!
Tune in for the next thrilling installment of ‘Karen vs The Bathroom Project’. I have a feeling it’s going to be a bumpy ride!
You have so much more sense than me! I recently moved in to a new place with my boyfriend and he had to wire in the electric cooker, bleed the radiators and do every DIY sort of thing that required some sort of prior knowledge about houses and how they are put together.
Hi Linda! I confess that I am also fairly useless at these things. But I really want to learn better DIY skills so I keep taking on these little projects! I played it safe this time by getting a professional tiler in to do the bathroom, but one day I hope to have enough knowledge to tackle things myself. In the meantime, that’s what the professionals (and boyfriends and husbands) are there for!!!