Interior Designer Updates Bathroom with Easy Bathrooms

Interior designer Stephen O’Callaghan recently transformed the bathroom in his 1940s home using Easy Bathrooms tiles and products.

We caught up with him to find out what inspired his project…

Describe what your bathroom was like before:

The bathroom was actually only five years old. It looked quite nice with grey, matt finish tiles and an oak wood vanity basin unit with matching bath panel.

But what I hated about it was the shower enclosure – it was difficult to clean because it had lots of plastic gaskets, which all gathered dirt.

Ultimately what happened was we had a leak, so I decided to re-grout, but when I started doing that the whole bathroom started falling to bits and in the end, I thought, ‘let’s just re-do the bathroom’, and this time do it exactly as we want it!

What kind of property do you live in?

We have lived in our home around five years now, it’s a detached house from the 1940's.

When we moved in, the bathroom was originally at the back of the house with a separate room for the toilet. We knocked those rooms together to make a bigger bedroom, then moved the bathroom to be in a smaller room at the front, simply for better use of space.

What was your inspiration for the project? How did you decide on a style?

I wanted to inject a little bit of Hollywood glamour into the bathroom. I love old movies and retro styles, so I knew I wanted marble tiles with gold accessories.

I took inspiration from visiting Easy Bathrooms showrooms, which have some brilliant displays where you can see and touch the products. I took some images I found online and tried to choose the products I thought would suit best.

Why did you choose these particular products and tiles?

I’ve always adored marble, and actually always wanted marble tiles. I think it’s because I love luxury bathrooms you see in movies or in hotels etc. It just says "quality" or "expensive", and luckily marble style tiles are in fashion so there are a lot of affordable options available!

The rest of the products were also chosen to fit in with my retro glamour theme. So, I made a list of items needed and then I sketched those out on paper at first, and later on the computer so I could get a visual, and see if what I had chosen would work well together.

What’s your favourite part of your new bathroom?

I love our 'Stonehouse' vanity unit! I took it to be professionally re-sprayed to the exact teal colour I wanted, and then sprayed the feet gold to go with my overall vision. It looks brilliant!

I also adore the gold tile trim we used on the back wall between tiles as a feature.

Did you meet any challenges and how did you tackle them?

Plumbing the mounted bath tap was difficult because it requires a lot of the unit to be buried inside the wall.

It was time consuming and difficult, but in the end well worth the effort!

Anything you would do differently next time?

Make sure I book a holiday to go on after its completed! As far as the products chosen and design, I’m really happy and wouldn't change a thing.

If you could give someone about to renovate their bathroom one piece of advice, what would it be?

I’d say plan how the work will be done and take advice from the professionals.

Staff at the showroom can help you with all of that, for example, including putting together computer visuals. It’s well worth utilizing their many years of expertise.

Full list of Easy Bathrooms products used by Stephen:

Sandhurst black and white star ceramic tile (£35 per m2)

Stonehouse floorstanding vanity unit (£699)

Orbit countertop basin (£104)

Zadok rimless, close-coupled toilet (£480)

Isleworth freestanding slipper bath (£1,512)

Zia round LED bathroom mirror (£289)

Scalpello marble-effect wall tiles (£33 per m2)