Let the sun shine in

Today is the longest day of the year - happy Summer Solstice - and how timely that the Velux is in so we can see just how much light it lets in. These photos were taken at 6.20pm just after a cloud burst, so not exactly the brightest conditions, but as you can see there's a tonne of light:

The Velux uses an electronic system via a remote control to open and close, and has rain sensors which means it will close automatically.

It's as if we have a megawatt bulb on but it's just daylight.... and late afternoon daylight at that. I wonder how much electricity we'll save by not having to turn the lights on every time we go in there now...

Kitchen progress

Here's Rob, Anthony-the architect and Teia-the-builder inspecting something in the kitchen. As you can see the boxing has been made in preparation for the concrete counter top to be poured this week. We've received the undermounted double sink and have the dimensions of the gas hob so the boxing needs to have shapes allowed so that when the concrete is poured, everything just slots in perfectly afterwards. I'm keen on a very high shine finish, in a lightish grey or off white. Apparently it's low maintenance and only needs sealing once a year. I still feel a little sad about my Corian, especially as the money saved isn't going to equate into a bathroom Velux as we're so over budget...

Bright bathroom

Img from wallpaper.com

This bathroom is in a Sydney house and has a few features I find quite attractive - firstly, the sliding door is transparent, letting lots of light in (and out). Secondly, the wall hung basins mean the small space doesn't look cramped. Thirdly, the wall of mirrors makes the room seem bigger (and they're practical, too), lastly, the place is flooded with light.

Hubby and I went to Grand Designs Live at London's Excel at the weekend and traipsed around it for six hours (!).It might sound like a lot of time spent but if you consider we could've easily spent 5 or 6 weekends going to various tile shops, joiners and bathroom stores then seeing them all in one day actually saved us loads of effort, arguing and most importantly, time.

We had a design session with the lovely people at Velux. We decided against having the remote controlled opening option, instead going for a second Velux in the hallway which will throw daylight down the stairs. The cost for both windows (1.3m wide in the bathroom and a standard width one in the stairs) is less than the price of one remote operated window, and opening them with a pole doesn't seem too bad when we've saving a several hundred pounds. Hopefully the Velux will mean our bathroom is as bright as this one!

Tiles and bathroom fittings

We had a design meeting with the Anthony and Amy (our architect and his assistant) and now have a heck of a lot of things to find - ie: a list of the actual sanitary items we want to see in the bathroom, the tiles etc. We had a hasty visit to a local tile shop on the weekend but it didn't stock a single sample of anything we want in our home. It was all natural stone in various shades of brown with rough hewn finishes. Urgh.

Also managed a flying visit to a local branch of the bathstore.com (which always seems to have it's entire stock on sale... don't be panicked into thinking you need to buy immediately, we've been seeing the same "sale" promotion for more than five years now...) It was easy to find a wall hanging toilet, basin, taps and heated towel rail from the selection as we identified items similar to what we've got now. I'm liking the soft close toilet seat lid though (£40), that'll make a difference with the kids.

Anthony talked us out of the beige kitchen pointing out a white one will fit with the white walls/ceiling etc and look more streamlined. And an absolute genius idea he had was to make the wall up to the stair rail continue upwards so there's no need for a banister. This works on a couple of of levels - firstly we can now have carpet on the stairs, as you won't see the ground and middle floors when you arrive (I wasn't keen on having uncovered wood on the stairs, noisy and expensive) - apparently it can look odd to have a different stair covering to the floor, aesethetically. Also, it gives lots of wall space, ideal for hanging art/photos or just making the room feel more impactful.

The photo above shows another black folding door example, in a room a little narrower (I think) than ours. Our roof will also have glass in the extension bit (about 4m all up) so the light should be similar. Speaking of light, Anthony's found a Velux roof window that is nearly 1600mm wide, so it'll effectively be the entire width of our bathroom.

The next step is to put the project out to tender to a few builders, this is going to take 2-3 weeks. The party wall survey still has to be carried out. We've had the keys for nearly a month and nothing's due to start happening in there for probably another month...

More bathrooms

Image from wallpaper.com

Here's another narrow bathroom with dark tiles. Our bath will run the width of the room just like this so it's useful to get an idea of dimensions. There's obviously a light source directly above, which shows how even dark walls can look OK, and the room doesn't need to feel claustrophobic.

This shows how our ceiling could end up, ie: with sides added to seal off the loft space, which leads up to the Velux. Obviously I'm not a fan of this colour scheme!