Wow.. I’ve just realised how long it’s been since I updated the blog. To be fair, not a great deal of interest has been happening. But..

We’ve finally reached the end of our tether with the bathroom. Having spent an hour with bleach and a toothbrush trying to clean around the shower, I’ve admitted defeat. No matter what we do, we just can’t make the tired and badly fitted bathroom look clean. Replacing the bathroom was always on our list of things to do, but it’s time to reprioritise.

Choosing a white suite proved not to be too controversial, but why is choosing tiles such a nightmare. Or is it just me?

A whole weekend suddenly evaporated having wandered from tile shop to tile shop trying to find something we agreed on. “Too old fashioned”, “Too Modern”, “Too Spanish Hotel Bathroom”..

Perusing through bathroom catalogues, we’d found a ‘wood panel’ effect tile we both really liked.

Imperial Bathrooms Edwardian Wall Tile

Well, everything about it apart from the price. Fortunately, B&Q had something similar enough in our eyes, but less fortunately it was being discontinued and the local store didn’t quite have enough in. Beckton we were told had a good quantity in, so off we headed. Someone wasn’t smiling on us, as after we’d parked the car and began walking towards the store entrance, we passed another customer loading a full trolly load of the exact tiles we’d come for into their van. To cut a long story short, after visiting what felt like every B&Q in the south east, we finally had enough wall tiles to go around the room.

But that was only a small part of the problem solved. With the wall tiles sorted, we still needed someting for the floor and for the shower. Our local tile superstore had a natural sandstone brick tile in which was ideal for the walls, so we ordered those and thought it was just the floor to solve. As we were leaving the carpark, the store assistance came running over to tell us that sadly those tiles too had been discontinued and they couldn’t get enough in from local stock for us. Would we like a grey sandstone instead? It wasn’t our first choice, so we agreed to sleep on it whilst we thought further about the floor options.

Next door was a local branch of Topps who happened to have in a “Silver Travertine” that looked like it would ideally match the grey sandstone for the shower. Just as the decision should have been made, we noticed a traditional victorian effect tile which caught our eye. Having not been able to agree in the shop, we brought home a sample of each to argue over in the privacy of our own home.

So here we have the 2 options..

Bathroom Floor Tile Options

..the safe option (grey travertine) or the outside contender. Struggling to decide, we opened the debate up to the folk over at the period property forum.