World's smallest bathroom: now bigger, better and with a bidet!

Okay, okay, the bathroom isn't quite ready yet, the house is still a building site, but since you're asking... Ta-dah! A quasi-new bathroom reveal blog post, just for you!

As a reminder, a BEFORE picture of the crammy, 170cm x 168cm small bathroom. 

Head end of the bath with the mysterious boxing on the right-hand side. Empty pipes inside, leading to nowhere. Was it an aborted attempt at a wall-mounted shower? We'll probably never know.

Now, a look at one of 'those' toilets, plus an oversized radiator and the exposed and awkward pipework (which was hidden in boxing when we moved in)...

 

The lovely old sink that we were sad to see go. But it was a price we were willing to pay for a single tap with mixed hot and cold water - how advanced. (Old sink went free to friends of friends nearby, who need it for their place, so all's well that ends well.)

The infamous doorway, which is so very close to the step down to the landing, leading to the odd person slipping down the stairs involuntarily...

And now, opening the door to the new luxury soaking zone:

The re-used door, with a brass rim latch from somewhere else in the house and a Bakelite door knob from a job lot bought on eBay.

The door frame with so-called 'borrowed light' (the glass bit at the top) was successfully removed and moved. It now sits where the top end of the bath used to be. The door's been stripped and the borrowed light has been re-glazed with 'restoration glass' that still has that nice wobble effect. Next summer, I'll paint the door white. 

The pièce de résistance: a floor-standing bidet. At some point, we had thought about installing a handheld 'douche' thingy. (Our designers named them 'LSE bidets', as I had seen one installed in the new LSE Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, near the faith room, I guess for religious ablutions.)

What's still missing is the ingenious storage triptych, which I'm hoping to build with a friend who's heavily into woodworking. It'll be a shelf either side of the radiator (see photos below) with doors on one side and mirror + shelf on the other. 

The sink, bidet and corner toilet are all by an Italian brand called Hatria. The series is called Hatria You and Me, and they're super space saving. They were a bit tricky to install (as neither the wall nor the floor, even though they're newly constructed, are properly square). However, I don't think we could have achieved the space and look with anything else out there. 

In case you wonder, the left one is the toilet. And you sit on it at the angle suggested by where the bowl is. And if you look closely, you can see that we don't know where to fit the toilet roll holder yet. #firstworldproblems

So the basin tap, bidet tap, shower head and shower mixer are from the Ideal Standard Silver series. They're absolutely lovely and go very well with the circular design of the Hatria You & Me china. Due to a lack of space on both sides, you can see that we had to mount the tap on the basin with the lever facing forward. It means the hot is to the right, which is not the norm, but that's fine for us.

Here you can see the Bisque Classic towel radiator in place. Looks good, but parent company Zehnder does a slightly different design that's cheaper.

In this photo you can just about see the Ideal Standard M1 rainshower fixed head. Luckily, the water pressure gamble paid off. We only have about 1 bar of pressure, but with the flow restrictors removed, there's plenty of water raining down on me. One of the first things we did when we moved into the house was renew the mains water pipe. Without that, I don't think we would have had enough water pressure - we would have had to install a pump. 

And another couple of looks at the radiator. The shelving/cupboard unit is still missing. Hoping to build this soon. Fingers crossed...