Rock n Renovation: Our Bathroom Reveal (Kinda) and Win £200 to Spend with Soak.com!

May 1, 2019

Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. I don’t think I truly understood the poignancy of this quote until we started our home renovations. EVERYTHING takes longer than you expect. EVERYTHING costs more, EVERYTHING is more complicated than you think it’ll be and every time you feel like you’re making significant progress life throws a curve ball or another challenge at you and oh look, the bathroom is still not finished!

Here you can see what the room looked like in October, before we started the work. Now, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve been able to share any updates because, quite frankly, there’s been nothing to show. Progress has been slower than a sloth at a spa day, but finally, FINALLY we’re very nearly there. Nearly there enough to show you some photos of how it’s looking anyway!

At first, I really wanted to hold out until it was actually finished/ perfect/ Insta-worthy but HONESTLY, I actually feel like it’ll be much more interesting for you guys to hear about the realities of doing a project like this completely DIY and when you have a business to run at the same time!

IT IS A LOT.

For those of you who don’t know, we’re attempting to renovate our house with as little outside help as possible. Unless we physically (or legally!) HAVE to hire tradesmen, we (read: Gareth) want to do it entirely by ourselves. This isn’t just because of the money we’ll save but for the satisfaction of doing it! Gareth in particular is super handy with DIY stuff, and a brilliant YouTube learner (seriously, he’s taught himself to plaster, plumb, replace joists and fit a kitchen just with Google and YouTube as his guides). I’m now a most excellent painter and decorator, although I’m yet to master wallpapering. Maybe next year!

Obviously, this has its downsides. Things take a long time and sometimes things have to get put on hold while life happens… but, for us anyway, we know it’s going to be totally worth it.

The bathroom is one room that’s taken the biggest hit and is taking foreverrrr to get finished. Not only did Gareth end up having to replace all the pipes under the floor (they were a mess) re-plumb the entire room (he’d never done any plumbing before) and knock down a damn wall to fit the bath in, but the boiler decided to keep breaking every time he did something (brilliant) and we’ve had a lot of other work and non-work related things going on behind the scenes too. I won’t bore you with all those details but I really just wanted to highlight to you that nothing is ever as glossy. straightforward or easy as Instagram will lead you to believe (this is true for everything in life by the way, not just home renovations!)

A little bit about our inspo for this room: Just like our recent snug makeover, we wanted to go dark for this room. When I started planning it I was, again, really drawn to having a cosy dark space that was full of plants. And my ultimate dream was always to own a copper bath. I dreamt of filling the tub with all the loveliest bubbles, lighting candles and drifting off into bathroom bliss. The plants may still be to come but the copper bath of dreams is a reality! Honestly, I never thought I’d ever own something so freakin’ beautiful.

We’re so lucky to have partnered with some of the most understanding brands on the planet on this project. Atra Floor for the incredible vinyl flooring (it’s a faux marble effect but I think it kinda looks like the ocean and a galaxy at the same time which I love), Valspar for the paint and Soak.com for the bath, the radiators, the toilet, the mirror and all the taps.

We got the sink from Victoria Plum and the bath rack came from Dunelm. I have a few more accessories that obviously still need to be put in, but those are waiting by the sidelines until we’re finally able to start using it!

This room is very obviously not finished or dressed or actually being used yet. We still need to figure out a storage solution for our towels and all my products, the boiler (not pictured for obvious reasons) still needs to be boxed in and the mirror(s) need to be put on the wall. I’m also hoping to create a vanity area at the back end of the room where I can sit and do my make up and we need to get some blinds for the windows… But considering how long it’s been coming I hope you’ll enjoy seeing this update none-the-less!

Win £200 to spend with Soak.com!

If Soak weren’t amazing enough for gifting us such beautiful things (I’m not sure I’ll ever get over my bath TBH) they have also offered a whopping prize of £200 to spend with them to one lucky reader. If my tales of woe haven’t put you off giving your own bathroom a makeover too much then this one’s for you! To enter hop over to Instagram and do the following:

– Follow @rocknrollbride and @we_are_soak
Like this post
Comment on the post and tell us with what you’d buy if you won!

It’s that simple. The contest is open to UK followers only, aged 18+. Competition closes at midnight on 5th May and winner will be randomly selected and contacted by DM within a week of this date. Voucher must be used before 31/12/19 and can be redeemed at soak.com or over the phone. There is no minimum spend but you may be subject to delivery charges to receive your items. Prize excludes branded products and tiles.

Good luck everyone… And please wish us luck too – we’ll finish this bathroom eventually right!?

Gifted Items

Bath: Louis copper bathtub from Soak
Taps: Freestanding traditional regal bath taps Cambridge traditional basin taps from Soak
Radiators: Anick copper heated towel radiator Double panel vertical radiator from Soak
Flooring: Marble effect flooring from in ‘Deep’ from Atra
Paint: Bathroom & Kitchen paint in ‘India Ink’ from Valspar