Derek's DIY Disaster Thread - With Pics!

Derek W

Derek W

Derek W

Soldato
Joined
1 Oct 2008
Posts
12,737
Location
Designing Buildings
Evening all,

Well September last year I bought my first house and the previous owners had decorated it quite tastefully so i didn't have much to do but I've decided to get my hands dirty and do a few things around the house and garden.

First up is the bathroom. There's a couple of things that have bugged me so with the football season now over for me my weekends are now free to cause havoc in the house! Be prepared for some stupid questions!

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Shower curtain is useless so this has happened to the carpet / skirting board.

First up is to strip the wall paper and get the walls prepared for painting instead of papering again. Colour still to be decided.
I'm a bit confused on the removal of the radiator for painting behind it. I've had a look on youtube but a lot of the videos show the radiator being partially bled before removing it. Now the radiators in my house dont have a valve to bleed them so does this mean I have to get a professional in before removing it or is there a risk I could mess up the system if i do it myself?

I'm also wanting to add a fixed glass shower screen across the side of the bath so that the water wont (famous last words) leak onto the floor. Is there any particular pitfalls with getting this mounted on the wetwall through to the plasterboard that i should be aware of?

I bought a two door mirrored cabinet as well which I'll be mounting on the wall after the rooms painted.

Ideally i want to tile my floor as well as replacing the skirting but think this will need to wait for a wee while yet as i need to amass the tools for the job as well as the materials :D

Updates will happen as and when I get through to B&Q if my local DIY store doesn't have the things I'm looking for.

Any advice on what I'm attempting is most welcome though :)
 
Getting a second opinion tomorrow night when my dad pops round but after that ill be stripping the paper off (nearest thing to breaking something dice!)

Not too worried about colour coordinated sealant as I've used brilliant white on the bath already.

Already got some platerboard screw in wall plugs (metal) for my mirrored cabinet but since ill be hanging the shower screen off the plasterboard through the wetwall I guess ill need some extra long wall plugs? Do these exist?

A quick inspection of the wall at the bath appears to be fine. The only adverse thing is the discolouration of the skirting and carpet.
 
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the position of the curtain rail isn't too bad. I tend to wet the curtain first and 'stick' it to the wetwall / corner of the bath to create a seal but some water still leaks out. Last night i did notice that there was a small amount of water on the back wall behind the bath / below the shower. I'm hoping its just a wee hole in the sealant which I'll take a look at tonight.

As for the carpet in the bathroom, that's the previous folk! Even vinyl would be an improvement but as said, I will be looking into tiling things down the line.
 
Let the stripping commence!

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Thought that the blue paint was the final layer but no when i ripped some of the wall paper off I've taken off that layer, the lining paper and I'm back to plasterboard. Ah well all the way back I go then! Will need to get some new lining paper so that I've got an even surface for when i paint. Looks like the previous folk had a minor repair over the door as there's some normal plasterboard at lintel height.
 
well decided to go shopping today so excuse the crap pic but......

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Big box - Cooke and Lewis Bath Shower screen
behind it is a mirrored bathroom cabinet (bought a couple of weeks ago)
paint, brushes, rollers, wallpaper scorer, paint for the shed, polyfilla, lining paper extendable pole for window washing, and weedkiller.
 
imb4tman said:
Good tip. And here is one of my own since you're working on your bathroom. Before applying sealant around the bath and sink, fill them with water first so you don't end up with a gap if there is any movement between full and empty.
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got told that by one of the folk in the office. made that mistake last time so hence the redoing of the seal. Tub nicely filled this time so should cater for my 14 stone equivalent weight! :D
 
Walls all stripped back now but a couple of areas tore back to the original plasterboard rather than the 'first layer of lining paper' so I've had to cut them back for new lining paper combined with chief barker's tip :)

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I'm a bit annoyed at the wallpaper behind the radiator though but not sure whether to get a plumber in to remove the radiator so i can strip that stuff off or just leave it as an 'unseen mess'

I started filling in any holes from where i removed the wallpaper so things are progressing :)

Will be getting my dad in to help get the bath shower screen fitted as it looks to be a two man job. Other than that its a bit of prep work on the walls before masking off bits to start painting.
 
Nightglow said:
Just turn the valves off each end, you can then remove the radiator, will be a small amount of water with in it.

Will need to top up system & bleed the air when you replace radiator,which is a easy job.
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Nice in theory but I'm not sure about this central heating system as the radiators don't have a valve at the top to bleed the air out which is why I'd think its best to get a plumber in. At least they know what they're doing! :p
 
side tracked from the radiator business briefly to get a bathroom cabinet fitted.

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Straightforward enough, 4 plasterboard wall plugs, 4 screws et voila :D
Thought I'd get that in place first and i can remove it before painting the whole room. You'll note as well that the shower curtain rail is skew whiff as I dislodged it last night so its now balancing on the window facing and on top of the bit of wallpaper at the other side :eek:

Next up is to tackle the bath shower screen but I'll need to figure out the fixing of it as per Makhaira's post whilst still keeping it as a fully functioning bathroom as its my only one in the house.
 
woosed out of removing the radiator myself and got a mate to do it. trained as a plumber but is now a welder! just finishing off the last bit of wallpaper removal before adding the new lining paper and getting the joints filled. will post more pics in the next couple of days.
 
Syph said:
Did you watch him do it? I watched my dad do a rad in our house once so I knew how to do it properly myself. It's so easy and I think he'd probably disown me as a son if I left paper behind a radiator now I've seen how it's done! :D
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Unfortunately I didn't, no. I was through in the next room as i had some work to do at home. He'll be back on Saturday after I've finished off the painting in that area so might have a look to see how its done (might have to stand in the bath as the room aint that big :D)
 
Got the lining done tonight. A little bit shoddy around where the radiator was (my straight edge went wonky) but nothing that a bit of polyfilla cant sort out tomorrow evening :)

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Above the door.

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Beside the bath with the radiator bit still to do.

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Radiator.
 
Got a wee bit of an issue. Since re sealing the bath I've noticed that part of its broken again. At the corner of the bath (see reply 37 middle photo) about a 3 inch crack has appeared again in the seal despite filling it while the bath was full of water.

My question is can I prop this corner up with say a 50x50 section of timber wedged between floor and bath rim or could this possibly damage my bath. Sort of creating a localised frame. The rest of the bath is fine in terms of the sealant.
 
Nightglow said:
Looking at your photo, I would have put two bearers going across the floorboards to put bath on, avoids any movement from floorboards, & the sealant from cracking.

If you prop up bath you might stress it & get a even bigger split, most likely in the bath, when it's full.
You might be able to slacken off bath supports, one at a time & slide in a bearer, l used some 18mm ply offcuts I had & laminated 3 pieces together, 5x2 would be wide enough, might get away with 4x2, but I always prefer it wider to spread load.

Should be able to remove the sealant carefully in affected area & reseal.
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There is already a sheet of chipboard underneath the centre of the bath certainly. You can see on the photos the metal bath support, theres another one at the opposite end with a small one in the cetre of the bath but these areas are fine for support its just really the corner. I'll maybe manage to sketch something up later on for my ideas of support.
 
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After a period of overtime at work and distractions of what to do with the garden I've finally finished putting up the bath shower screen this weekend. The shelfs aren't the most secure as the holes in the wall were fractionally out so they're not fixed as tightly as they could be but happy with it on the whole. Just got to seal it at the wall and along the base of the fixed first panel and I'll be able to enjoy a shower again :D
 
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