Wednesday 29 January 2014

My Bespoke Bath Panel!!

I know that this isn’t to everyone’s taste, but I wanted my “new” bathroom to be special, girlie and me! I am, by habit, a shower girl, partly because the bathroom was looking decidedly tatty and not convivial to taking long baths ….. but I know a long soak would help me to relax more ….. and so I thought, if I had a bathroom that was more “romantic”,  I would use it more and therefore be more relaxed ……
So with the plain white tiles, floor tiles, basin and loo are on  order, (I am keeping the bath), my part was to “fiddlefart” the MDF bath panel ready for the big push.
Bespoke Bath Panel
It took a while for me to work out the size patchwork square needed to be, maths not being my forte.  In the end they worked out to be 4.75 inches by 4.75 inches, made from 12” x 12” sheets of my favourite papers of all time, My Mind’s Eye, Stella and Rose.  The floor tiles  are  a light grey and all the patterns I selected have a grey element in them.
Bespoke Bath Panel. 2
The gluing, using PVA took me about 3/4 of an hour to complete and I was so thrilled that there wasn’t a wrinkle in sight and everything fitted together beautifully, nothing was out of kilter, which is very unusual for me!
Bespoke Bath Panel. 3
Then followed coat after coat of quick drying, clear satin finish varnish (Wilkos), I forget how many coats, but as the panel is going into a damp environment I didn’t want to risk it going soggy, so my reasoning was the more coats the better.
Bespoke Bath Panel.4Bespoke Bath Panel. 5
And then, before the final few coats of varnish,  can you believe, I went round each patch with a black pen putting in faux stitching to add a little definition ….. I just couldn’t resist it!
So that’s the main panel done, next weekend will be spent doing exactly the same thing but for the much smaller end panel. I think/hope it’s going to look OK …. but only time will tell!

4 comments:

Mrs B said...

Hi Helen. I love it! I think you will start a trend with this bath panel. Why do people always ignore this boring part of the bathroom? (We have often continued the theme onto ours, but never to this extent-and we have only used various vinyl shapes not papers.) It looks fantastic. Why shouldn't it last, as long as the edges are really well sealed so the damp can't seep in! And if worse comes to worse and it doesn't you can just strip it off and do it again, sure you won't need to though : ) Take care.

marc said...

its going to look good and the faux stitching finishes it off well done you its always best to have a white bathroom as you can inject the colour with mats shower curtains/blinds and towels bath panels or by painting the celling that way if you get feed up its minimal cost to change it also the bathroom looks clean and fresh its going to be you and that what your home should always reflect is you that's the most important thing if you like it and can live with it then go for it I myself like very much what you have done big love marc

Chloe's Nan said...

It's looking good, can't wait to see the end result. You never fail to amaze with your talent, especially the bejewlled mirrors x

Cheryl W said...

I think this panel will add a certain air of "merriment" to your bathroom - and why not? We ought to be merry in every room of our homes. Can't wait to see the finished room. I do hope you'll share loads of pictures.