FLYING CRANES

Crouching tabby, hidden pipework. 

Motivation to continue with toilet project – zero!

I'm wearing an invisibility cloak

The saga of the downstairs cloakroom continues. If this was a TV programme we’d probably be on series 6 by now, producers having milked every ounce of sweat from this project. What should have been a week’s work for a professional bathroom company is now entering its 6th month and with every day that passes, the desire to pull on my DIY clothes wanes.

Yep, I do have a special outfit for these tasks. It’s as grubby as hell but when you’re scrabbling about on all fours in lofts, gardens or jumping up or down ladders like Challenge Annika then it’s perfect. Hasn’t been washed in months, possibly years. There’s no ‘whooosh of freshness’ in this T-shirt or once black leggings. They do Pong!!

Not that I care because as far as I’m concerned what you do in your own home is your business, a bit like wallpapering toilets. Some people do and some people wouldn’t in a million years. I’m doing it because I fell in love with this most gorgeous wallpaper and just had to have it somewhere in my home.

It’s called Flying Cranes Navy by Grandeco Life and in my view, it’s just fabulous.

Flying Cranes

Large blousy white peony type flowers ramble across a rich deep blue background colour. Gold geometric shapes peep out from behind jade green foliage. White long necked cranes with delicate feathery wings flap across this papery landscape adding a touch of oriental style. The photos don’t do this paper justice, it truly is beautiful.

I’ve teamed up Flying Cranes with a deep blue shade of paint called ‘Keep The Peace’ from Valspar. 

'Keep The Peace' perfect match to the wallpaper

Not wanting to complicate my life by attempting to wallpaper the back window wall, I’ve painted it dark blue and just wallpapered the side walls.

Before painting

Painted back wall

It’s such a small room it took just over 1 roll to paper both side walls plus the section above the doorway.

Hanging the paper

Pattern matching not too bad if you use the bird wings as a reference point. My wallpapering experience is pretty much zero and although I followed all instructions, some join lines were visible after drying.

Looks great on the wall

To minimise the visibility of these, I used a small brush and some of the navy paint to carefully touch up the worst offenders. Apply the paint minimally then lightly dab with a soft cloth taking care not to rip the paper. There. You can hardly see the lines!

If I hadn't been recycling the unused teal kitchen tiles, I probably would have used white metro tiles with navy blue grout under the wallpaper as I feel that would also have been a great decor combination with these flying cranes.

Now there’s just the issue of unsightly pipework to deal with.

What to do with all these unsightly pipes?

To reduce the amount of pipework that might need boxing in, I’ve decided to make the most of the exposed pipes by incorporating some of them into the overall decorative scheme. Since the wallpaper features gold geometric shapes, I’ve painted the pipework in gold metallic paint. 

Don't hide pipes - paint them!

Gold pipework looks nice against the teal tiles and will compliment the other gold fixtures/fittings such as taps and lighting.

CLOTH EARS

Hard of hearing. Eh? What’s that you say?

Since hitting 60, little changes once unnoticed have stealthily been making their way to the front of the decrepitude queue. Lustrous locks once an unruly mane are now thinning. Eagle eyes once able to spot a cat hair in a cookie needing Mr Magoo spectacles. An almost photographic memory fading like an old polaroid picture. Every day another component part stiffens, fails or falls off completely.

The arrival of that most unwelcome house guest, Mutton Jeff, is the latest manifestation of advancing old age. Yet has anyone else noticed that free hearing tests once foist upon you with gay abandon by opticians have now slipped into the murky shadows? I fear hearing health care is now going the same way as NHS dentistry.

Having noticed the TV volume gradually increasing over time, I asked my optician for a free hearing test and here’s where the story starts to get a bit complicated.

Private or NHS hearing test? asked the overly helpful bespectacled assistant at my local branch of Specsavers.

‘Errrr… which ever one is free’ I replied.

‘They both are but it gets tricky if you make the wrong choice then need hearing aids’ their response.

The explanation that followed went something like this:

If you want a free NHS hearing test, you first need a GP referral. Once you have a referral, a clinician then has to examine your ears to make sure that you a) have two of them and that b) they are not full of wax. If you are wax free then you can have a hearing test. Should it transpire that you need a hearing trumpet, the NHS will then provide it free of charge.

If you want a free private hearing test, you can book an appointment straight away but if you then need the trumpet, you’ll have to fund your audio orchestra out of your own pocket.

Better pray you don’t have wax in them lugholes because I can’t imagine the NHS is going to offer you any free syringing for that. The Ancient Mariner had ears waxier than Yankee candles a few years back and ended up having to pay for de-clogging. And why do you think that was? Because in the future, hearing healthcare will no doubt be privatised and NOT provided free by the NHS.

For a long time now, small services previously provided free and gratis by the NHS usually in local doctors’ surgeries have very slowly been disappearing from the menu. Ear syringing is one such service and unlikely to be the last.

For a free NHS hearing test expect to wait, an average timeframe that looks something like this:

• 5 weeks to see your GP to discuss matters/request the referral
• 1 week for the referral to reach your optician
• Another 2 – 3 weeks to see the clinician for the wax check
• Followed by an extra week or more for the hearing test appointment

My advice is that should Mutton Jeff pop up on your doorstep unexpectedly, make sure you begin this process before he’s fully unpacked his bags, kicked off his shoes and helped himself to your secret stash of chocolate or you’ll end up having to make your own ear trumpet out of an empty Pringles tube.

So whilst I wait for my clinician’s appointment (even though my GP checked my ears and declared them totally free of wax), I’ll munch through a tube of salt and vinegar Pringles just in case I have to go down the do-it-yourself cloth ears route.

Remember this - if it says FREE hearing test on the tin, the question to ask yourself is whether or not you want to wait ages for it or pay for any treatment you might need afterwards.

WALL TILING

Sssshh! Tiling. No questions asked. He was never here. Would you like a coffee? Nope. I guess invisible tilers don’t drink on the job unlike myself, chugging down enough tea to quell the summer drought that’s brewing after the driest spring on record.

Tea - an essential part of DIY

It’s a cash in hand job – a rarity these days but a blessing for those of us on very tight project budgets.

Having ordered more tiles than needed for our kitchen refurbishment, the spares are being used to half tile the walls of the downstairs loo. I hope we have enough because these tiles originally came from Homebase which is no longer trading so it might be a right bugger to have to source any extras if there aren’t enough.

The plan is to tile the lower walls to about 1.15 m high from the floor then wallpaper the upper half of the wall.

Before tiling

Fit skirting board

I’m topping the tiles with a black box tile trim to tone in with the darker elements of the wallpaper. I had thought of going for gold but then decided this might be too garish. Nice to have gold accents but too much ‘bling’ might not age well and that’s what you’ve got to think about. Am I still going to like this decorative scheme in 20 years’ time? ‘You might have kicked the bucket by then’ the other half chips in. True!

Square box tile trim in black colour

Tile trim purchased from CTD Tiles, Chichester

There’s a growing trend to use coloured grout that blends in with your tile colour rather than going for a contrast. As my tiles are speckled with dark blue bits then I thought a blue coloured grout might look quite nice, blending in with both tiles and the background navy blue colour of the wallpaper. However, dark blue grout is not generally available in High Street outlets so instead I’ve chosen a colour called ‘Tornado Sky’.

Tornado Sky grout - 1 bag does a small cloakroom

Tornado Sky is a dark grey grout with a blueish tinge to it. Think moody thunder clouds. It has given our tiles some contrast but the finished effect is not quite as stark as using a lighter coloured grout.

Tornado sky grouting

With the tiling complete, the next step is to wallpaper the upper half of the walls.

Wow that's a big tile cutter

Tiles on 

Getting ready to grout

Tiling finished - looks great!

FLOORED

Phew! That was close. The man from Tapi gave our cracked riddled sub floor the thumbs up then proceeded to stick down the new LVT flooring so my compound anxiety has dissipated like a fart in a thunder storm.

New LVT flooring

With so many flooring options to choose from I could have gone for lovely ceramic tiles (too cold) or a beautiful engineered wood floor (not waterproof). A cheap click fit laminate might have done the trick (not recommended by the fitter as prone to lifting) or traditional lino (too old hat) but instead we’ve gone with something called LVT.

Looks like oak - colour Morzine 

Compared to laminate flooring, LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tile) offers better water resistance and durability making it a more resilient and cost-effective choice for areas prone to moisture or heavy foot traffic such as a cloakroom. Once glued to the sub-floor, it is never going to move out of place.

LVT looks like wood flooring, feels warm under foot and is less ‘shiny’ than some of the cheaper laminates out there. How well will it cope with continual footfall? Only time will tell.

Now that the downstairs loo has a new floor, it’s time to prepare for the next step in the project – skirting boards then tiling.

Floor done, skirting and tiling is next