Although not the smallest room in the house, it is pretty small. I am just so annoyed that I didn't take before photos but I think it was so seriously ugly, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I mean the walls were orange gloss and mouldy! The ceilings were pealing asbestos fibro. The floors were wildly sloping to the drain hole in the middle. The laundry tub was so rusty there were holes in it and scary things lived in the area underneath!!!It even had an old pink loo (toilet) in the corner. In short it was horrid!
So it needed some clever planning to get it to work efficiently. I knew that this would involve moving the plumbing but there was no choice there. Moving plumbing always adds significantly to the cost of a job, so if you can avoid it....do! Luckily for me my plumber was on speed dial as he was always around doing something...so much so, he became a friend!!! You buy an old house that has been neglected over the years, you just know that it will probably need re-wiring and re-plumbing.
So in came my plumber to disconnect the plumbing and seal of some pipes and put in some new ones ( I make is sound easy, don't I!!!). He removed ugly pink toilet as well because there was just no room for one in the new floor plan.
Now there was some pre-planing that had to be done well before we even started, as this room was on a tiny, tiny budget! So I scoured Ebay for second hand kitchens and can you believe I found the most perfect one which was only a couple of years old, white and in great condition. It didn't have bench tops but it was only $200!!! There were enough cupboards to use in the family room studio as well! Plus I need to sell my old top load washer and buy a front loader to fit in with the plan....and you guessed it Ebay again.
So step 2 or is it 3 ...level the floor. I did a bit of research and decided to use
Ardex a leveling compound. Now I am not going to give you instructions on how to do this, read the packet and get advice, I actually did it over the mosaic tiles, which it doesn't actually say anywhere on the packet that it could do this....but it worked!!!! All I can say is that it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, I did buy a long mixer that attaches to a drill to help mix the Ardex, it is important that it is well mixed and smooth.
The Ardex drys really quickly...I mean really quickly, so be prepared. You are able to install most floor coverings after an hour. I had longer as I now had to cajole my ex (he is a carpenter) in to coming and installing the cupboards and bench tops for me!!! Luckily he is very good at what he does and with a little bit of re-building of the corner unit which didn't quite fit, we made it.
The bench tops are from Ikea and they were really cost effective. The back splash tiles are from Ebay again, lovely natural stone mosaics which were excess from somebody elses job. I also had a lot of sample mosaic tiles, stone, glass etc, so I chopped them all up, mixed them up and laid them individually on top of the others. Tiling with mosaics is actually quite easy...well small jobs are anyway :-)
The ceiling couldn't be touched as it had asbestos so very good ex, covered it with v joint mdf (medium density fibre board) panels. What a transformation! So with a lot of paint to cover horrible orange walls (paint left over from another job, the colour wasn't quite right so I re-tinted it using artist acrylic paints - I do it all the time to get the colour I want - just add a little at a time) the room was almost finished.
The final thing was to tile the floor with left over vinyl tiles from the kitchen and hallway and voile........
The cat sleeps in here too!! On the side of the cupboard is a small bench top ironing board for those quick jobs.... much better than pulling out the big one! Well that's it, small and sweet!
