Customer Tile Style Profile: Charlotte’s Bathroom Facelift

Our Customer Tile Style Profile feature takes a closer look at some of the amazing renovation and redesign projects our customers undertake using products from the Tile Mountain range. This instalment sees us catching up with Charlotte Fitzgerald of Brighton, who jazzed up her tired old bathroom using our Skyros Grey Delft, and Metro White to create a modern take on a classic style. We had a quick chat about how the project went and what renovation plans she has lined up for the future.

What were the circumstances behind the project?

I bought the house 12 years ago and it was beginning to look a bit tired all over, so I decided to give  the whole house a complete overhaul. It was a nightmare living through the renovations, but now the property is fantastic – and me and my partner didn’t even get divorced!

Was your choice of decor & colour scheme influenced by the tiles you chose, or did you pick the tiles to fit in with a style you’d chosen for the rest of the room?

I chose to use various different shades of grey (not quite fifty shades!) across the whole house, so wanted the bathroom to match. Now every room has its own personality, but it works together as a whole.

What made you decide that the tiles you chose were the right tiles for your project?

I collected lots of samples for the floor tiles but as soon as the Skyros tiles arrived from Tile Mountain I knew they were the ones. One thing I really like is that each tile is made up of four smaller tiles, but instead of just being a pattern of four tiles, they have grooves which are grouted, so when they are laid they look like individual tiles. I got a sample of a similar tile from another company but they were just flat and printed. I love that they are mismatched but work so well as an overall look. Brick tiles are something I’ve always wanted on the wall, but I didn’t want the regular ones, so that is why I chose Metro tiles. The ones I opted for are longer and I think they look more stylish.

How long did the project take to complete and did you do the tiling yourself or hire a professional tiler?

The whole house took about four months in total, and the bathroom itself took about two weeks in the end because of a drama with some plaster (see photo above). I used professional tilers, but did all the painting myself. The only thing I kept from the old bathroom was the bath. You can see in the photos it was white with black legs, but I painted it grey and the legs white. We are really pleased with our kitchen too, and used Tile Mountain’s Dunsen Grey tiles for that, and we absolutely LOVE them too. They are nice and big, which makes the kitchen look bigger.

What part of the project was most difficult and why?

We had friends coming to stay for a weekend towards the end of the project and I wanted it finished before they arrived. We had some green wallpaper with birds on it on one wall behind the sink (which was such a bad idea for a bathroom) and it was all peeling off showing the green paint underneath. Having stripped wallpaper off two other rooms really easily I thought it would be a breeze… until the plaster fell off the wall!  In the picture you can see it ended up looking like the world map as a load of dark blue came through which must have been there for donkeys years! I had to get an emergency plasterer in and of course the room wasn’t ready for my friends’ visit.

The other nightmare we had was leaving the tiler to lay the tiles ‘randomly’ while I went to work, only to come home and find that two identical tiles had been laid next to each other right in the doorway. It drove me mad for a couple of days and I had to get him back to chip one out and lay a different tile!  He couldn’t believe he had done it, but he said he looks at the joins and grout and level, not the pattern, when laying. It was unlucky that he was laying them in rows and it just happened that the exact same tile came out right next to the existing one.

Do you have any further decorating projects lined up?

I am completely obsessed with renovations and decorating now. We are going to go for something bigger next time. We have bought an old disused barn and have planning permission to turn it into a house. However this time we won’t have to live in it while we do it up!

What advice would you give to people considering undertaking a similar project?

My advice would be do as much as you can yourself to keep costs down, like painting for example. And make sure you are around to keep an eye on things – you wouldn’t want to come back from work and find two identical tiles next to each other!

What would you say to people who are thinking about buying tiles from Tile Mountain?

I am so glad I found Tile Mountain. I love that they send free samples, as you just don’t know what something is like unless you have touched it and looked at it in different lights. Thank you Tile Mountain for giving my bathroom the WOW factor!

If you’d like to see your project featured in our monthly Customer Tile Style Profile, simply leave a review of the products you bought and share photos of your completed tiling project on our Facebook wall. If we use your photos on our website we’ll send you a crisp £10 Amazon voucher for your troubles and even make you internet famous for a bit in this very feature.