This weekend has been quite productive. Mum and Dad came up to give me a hand with doing the panelling in the bathroom. 16 panels, the capping trim and 3 tubes of silicon sealant came to about £200, and the associated wood, screws and N0-Nails was probably an additional £30.

Saturday saw the removal of the tiles on the two brick walls (leaving the tiles on the plasterboard wall intact, not wanting to rip the plasterboard), and the placing of the battens on the long wall. Hammer drills are wonderful tools, making short work of the cement and bricks – my little 14.4V cordless drill was definitely struggling to get the bit through the wall. It also saw the learning curve of putting the panels onto the battens – it isn’t as easy as it might seem.

Sunday saw the battens up on the tap-end of the bath and the shower end, followed by the panelling. The tap end was a bit of a nightmare, as the long wall leans in by about an inch at the top! This meant we either had to kick the base of the panelling out towards the sink by an inch or more, or adjust the rectangle the other way to get the butt-join nice and square. We opted for the square butt-join, with about a 1/2 inch of shims under the left edge of the panelling – it’ll need a fair wedge of silicone sealant, but done properly it’ll look good. Sunday also saw us misread the tape measure, and cut 3 panels at 185 cm instead of 195 cm for the shower end. Luckily, I had ordered 16 panels, not the 13 we needed for the job – a quick re-measure (and triple-check) and the jigsaw made short work of the panels.

The segment along the bath is actually 7 offcuts all lined up with reasonable precision, and screwed on to the bath support. All that remains is the capping, sealing and shower installation, and I’ll have a nice shower :)

Pics can be found in the gallery.