Brighten Up Your Old Bath With 3 Easy Tips
Replacing a bathroom suite is quite a major DIY project, and if like many British homes you only have one bath or shower, being without washing facilities while the work is done is inconvenient. The disruption puts many of us off updating our bathroom design, but with a bit of lateral thinking it’s simple to completely transform the centrepiece of your bathroom with minimal cost and fuss.
Bath Panel Replacement
The appearance of your bath and entire bathroom can be transformed by replacing the bath panel. Bath panels are available in a huge range of colours, and just because your bath is white doesn’t mean you have to stick to white for your bath panel. If your bathroom colour is predominantly white, you can instantly make it more cheerful and warm by adding a bath panel in orange, yellow or red. Some bath panels come with LED lighting around the base, which can also help make your bathroom look modern and more welcoming. Or recreate a Victorian style bathroom with a traditional wood panel effect bath panel. The possibilities are endless.
For small bathrooms, look for special hinged bath panels which open up to reveal pouch storage for keeping bath toys and bottles of shampoo hidden away when you are not using them.
Bath restoration
If you’re lucky enough to have an old fashioned enamel bath, it can be hard to keep it looking as good as new. Over time, enamel can become scratched and dull, which is one of the main reasons why the vast majority of the baths sold in the UK nowadays are easier to care for plastic. A traditional enamel bath is a huge selling point in your bathroom, and it is worth spending the money to have it re-enamelled. You will need to get an experienced tradesman in to do the job, but it should only take a day to complete the work.
Re-enamelling the bath also gives the opportunity to change the colour of your bath if you would like to, and the process will get rid of any chips and scratches in the old enamel. It will cost around £200 to re-enamel your old bath, and the expense is well worth the investment, especially if you are thinking of selling up in the near future.
If your bath is plastic and is still looking a little worse for wear, touch up sticks and scratch removal creams are available from large DIY stores and plumbing merchants and can be used at home to get your plastic bath looking as good as new.
New taps
Most baths are pretty much the same size and shape, and the one thing which makes our baths individual is the taps we choose to go on them. Replacing the taps is not a huge job and can easily be done in an hour or so by someone with basic DIY knowledge and tools. Any DIY store or large plumbing store will have a good selection of taps to choose from, and it would be worth changing the taps on the sink at the same time as the bath taps to match.
Before you start attacking the old taps with a spanner, make sure you have turned off the water at the mains. Carefully remove the old taps from your bath or sink and make sure that the new ones fit perfectly in the gaps – some very old bath taps will be different sizes and can only be replaced with other vintage taps the same size. Once you have removed the old taps from the bath, putting the new ones in place should be relatively straightforward. Most tap kits are sold complete with fitting instructions and all of the washers and other fittings you will need, but if you get stuck the internet is always a good point of reference.
Websites like Youtube have thousands of videos showing the process step by step, and many manufacturers and retailers of plumbing items have videos explaining the products too. Once you have replaced the taps and tightened everything up, switch the water back on and check for leaks.
If you found this post useful, you may also be interested in - How to Remove Bath Rust Stains - Don’t Fly Tip Your Old Bathroom – Recycle! - The Baths Buyers Guide.
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