Latest Designer Bathroom Ideas and How To Guides for your Home

Having loose floorboards is a common, and depending on the noise they generate, an annoying aspect of domestic space. However, this type of remedial DIY work is normally straightforward in terms of skill required, as well as the money and time to be spent.

The simplest method of all is to fit material such as folded plastic, paper, or specially cut pieces of wood between or underneath the offending floorboards. Although it may sound like a temporary measure, it may do the trick sufficiently well, and last for long enough, to not require anything more.

An additional option is to tighten the screws, or perhaps to replace any faulty or missing screws or nails which are holding down the floorboards. It may be that the screws or nails have loosened over time. A word of warning here, though – inserting new screws or nails where there were none before may be hazardous if there are electrical cables or water pipes directly below the floor.

In cases where one or more floorboards have become damaged beyond repair, it may be necessary to replace them altogether. Clearly this will work only if a replacement can be found that matches the rest of the floor. If no matching replacement can be found, one option is to replace it regardless and then paint or colour the entire floor in a different colour. Another option is to replace the entire floor using new floorboards, or to use the empty space for something else, such as placing furniture over it.

Fixing a loose floorboard can potentially lead to a larger DIY project, such as installing underfloor heating.

Before you head out to the shops to compare bed models and prices, make sure you’re prepared.  You’ll need to know three key things:  the exact measurements of your room, the size of bed you wish to buy, and the size of mattress you need.

Measure the dimensions of your room carefully.  When you know exactly how much space you have available you’ll be better equipped to shop for beds. 

Once you know how big your room is, you can set out to find the perfect bed.  But remember that a bed is much more than just the frame and mattress.  Will you have space for a bed frame, headboard, and footboard?  Is the length too much for your room?  Can you incorporate additional furniture like a night table, mirror, dressing bench, or vanity in your space along with the bed?  Will you be able to get into and out of the bed?  If you’re shopping for bunk beds, trundle beds, sofa beds, or other alternative sleeping options, can your room accommodate the extra space that will be taken up with the bed is unfolded or opened up?

Now that you’ve measured your room and your bed, be sure you select a mattress that will fit the bed frame.  An ill-fitting mattress is uncomfortable to sleep on, wears unevenly, and won’t last as long as one that fits properly.  If you sleep with a partner, buy the largest bed and mattress combination that your room and your budget will allow to ensure that both sleepers are comfortable.

An easy DIY job is laying laminate flooring. If the longest wall in the room you are working in is straight and true you can start immediately with the first row along that wall. Lay the first line with the grooved edge facing the wall and a plastic spacer in place every two feet. If the wall is uneven, lay out a line of laminate flooring and, touching the most prominent area, mark the line of the rest of the wall on the boards.

Get a scrap of wood the same width from the wall as the widest point, and use this as a guide to make a pencil mark along the length of the laminates. You should then cut the pieces with an electric jigsaw for ease.

As before, lay out the first length, separated from the wall by the spacer. Each piece of laminate will either snap together or be held in place with a little glue. Make sure you stagger the successive rows by about a foot so as to give them the appropriate look. You can now proceed to lay the rest of the flooring making sure to pack them firmly against each other.

Cutting around doorframes can be tricky, so either make a template of the section you need to cut out or saw a section off the architrave to the thickness of the board and push it underneath.  Once the floor is completely fitted you can then reattach the skirting boards or fill in the remaining gap with a half rounded moulding to hide the expansion space.

Reducing fees from experts in the building trade by acquiring some of their basic skills is a useful habit to cultivate. If you can manage DIY jobs like plastering, painting and decorating, the chances are that you can manage some simple soldering, too.

You’ll need a plumber’s blowtorch, heat resistant mat, some solder, flux and flux-brush and abrasive wool, along with a pipe-slicer and some files to remove copper burrs. Copper fittings connect lengths of pipe together or make branches, coming in many shapes (elbows, tees, straight connectors, tap connectors) and sizes.

Rub the thin layer of oxide away from the inside of the fitting and the outer surface of the pipe where the fitting will cover it. Unless you do this, the solder won’t take. Next, paint a layer of flux over the cleaned area of pipe, slip on the fitting and add the other length(s) of pipe (all similarly cleaned and fluxed). Set the blow torch to a medium flame – it should hiss vigorously but not roar, and it shouldn’t be ‘floppy’ (or it won’t be hot enough). Straighten a length of solder from the roll and hold in your left hand (if you’re right handed), direct the blowtorch at the middle of the fitting with the other hand, and wait until the flux starts to bubble. Point the flame at the edge of the fitting and lightly caress the joint with the solder – suddenly it’ll melt and seal the connection. Once all ends are soldered, turn the torch off and allow it to cool.

We’ve all done it: poured fat, coffee grounds and tea leaves into the kitchen sink, thinking it’ll all magically disappear with a quick swish of the hot tap. But sooner or later, it’s going to end as a blocked sink. Relax: you don’t have to get architects to design you a new kitchen, you can just do a little DIY and have the water gurgling away again in a jiffy. Property development is a drastic remedy for a grungy sink. And unlike other projects like painting and decorating, building or plastering, you should have this one sorted in minutes rather than hours or days.

First, block the overflow in the sink with a wet rag, pour enough water in to cover a plunger and give it a good, vigorous plunge or three. If the water still fails to drain, scoop out the water from the sink into a bucket and place it underneath the trap.  Unscrew the plastic trap collars at both ends, take the trap out and give it a good clean (you should immediately see what horrors have been blocking the sink). Replace the trap (don’t over-tighten, though) and check for drainage.

If the water still won’t drain, the problem is further along the system. Check the drain outside the house by lifting the inspection cover – if it’s full of water, you’ll need some drain rods. If the drain is clear, the obstruction is in the house – unscrew the trap again and use a toilet auger (a flexible length of wire) to push through the drainage pipe. And stop using the sink for waste disposal.

There are few bathroom remodelling projects that can have a greater impact on the style of your washroom than bathroom tiles.  With the multitude of styles, colours, shapes, and sizes available, the design possibilities are endless.  The following are some popular options to help inspire you.

A chair rail is typically used in dining rooms or kitchens to prevent wall damage caused by chairs being pushed hard away from the table.  In your bathroom, a timeless and elegant chair rail effect can be replicated using two different kinds of tile and some waterproofed wood trim.  Apply one sort of tile to the lower half of the bathroom wall, affix the trim approximately waist high, and then place the second type of tile above the trim.

A bathroom tile mural effect gives your walls instant impact.  Some home improvement stores and bathroom tile design studios sell pre-packaged mural kits that are relatively easy to apply to the wall in a day or two.  Use the mural as a focal point and install other tiles around the central design to complete the look.

Mosaics using bathroom tiles are a fun and funky design element that brings a bit of bohemian appeal to your washroom.  They take some time and painstaking work to complete, but the end result is a beautifully textured and interesting surface.  An added benefit:  You can purchase damaged bathroom tiles on the cheap and use these to craft the mosaic.

Most simple bathroom tiling projects are suitable for do-it-yourself enthusiasts and can be completed over a weekend or two. 

The bathroom may seem like an insignificant room in the house, but when you start to evaluate bathroom accessories and the accompanying price tags suddenly its significance becomes clear. The number of items available to restore or fix-up your bathroom is quite staggering and the prices associated with each item can be daunting.

However, this does not have to be the case. There are many ways you can restore your bathroom without using all your savings. For example:

Clean the room thoroughly: The two key aspects in your bathroom are the shower cubicle and the toilet. If they are covered in grime and stains your bathroom appears to be on the shabby side. You can use lemon juice, a scrubber and a bucket of water to eliminate mildew and mould from the shower and bath. For the toilet, use white vinegar to eat away the stains and discolouration.

Minor Adjustments: There is no need to redo your entire bathroom. A minor adjustment can have a major impact and give your bathroom that restored look. Check out the bathroom accessories or shower accessories section at your local hardware store and instead of buying the whole section focus on one thing such as a new bathroom mirror or new bathroom tiles. Fixing the tiles or installing the mirror while adding a new shower curtain, rug or bathroom cabinet can provide your bathroom with that extra shine and make it look like new.

Many people consider small home projects like painting or replacing light fixtures to be within their grasp, but hire a contractor for anything larger.  Of course, hiring a contractor can be an expensive proposition, and for that reason many people shy away from these types of projects.  But there are several projects that sound more difficult than they actually are, and one of these is installing an underfloor heating system in a room, or even your entire home.

Keep in mind, there may be some parts of this where you will want to hire a contractor.  Electrical work comes immediately to mind.  Unless you’re a licensed electrician, installing the thermostat and wiring it to the rest of your house is something probably best left to the experts. With this exception, you’ll find this project reasonably easy, as long as you take your time with each step.

The first thing to decide on is the type of floor covering; hardwood is out if you decide to install underfloor heating because of their expansion and contraction when heated. However, many engineered woods and all laminates are suitable, as are tile, ceramic, and even carpeting. Underfloor heating kits are available that include all the components needed for installation, and only simple tools are generally needed for the heating mat itself.

Electric underfloor heating kits includes a flexible mat that you order according to the square metres required, a basic thermostat, adhesive trowel and electrical metre. The basic thermostat can generally be upgraded to a more sophisticated model, with more timing options for the heated floor.  A thorough installation guide is provided, and step-by-step instructions are also available on several Internet sites.

Bathroom tiles are easy to keep clean and sanitized, and a bathroom is after all a place that should be hygienic. Gloss tiles have a sparkling, fresh appearance and a simple wipe down keeps them looking their best. Tiling a bathroom all around will give a waterproof, hygienic environment, especially if the tile grouting is done with antibacterial grout. This is certainly not the case if walls are papered, or painted.

Tiling the floor as well will give you a wet room which can stand up to showers, baths, spillages and keep them contained. Many modern houses are now being built with wet rooms containing shower, seat and bath.

When choosing colours it is wise to remember that having tiles all the same colour will give an illusion of far more space in a small bathroom. Light coloured tiles will make a small bathroom look much bigger by reflecting the light around the room, but dark ones tend to make the space look smaller.

Other factors to consider are that tiled bathroom floors can be quite cold beneath the feet, even when they are laid on a wooden floor. Installing under-floor heating in the bathroom will resolve this problem, and using warm colours like terracotta for the floor tiling will also give the feeling of a warm floor. Adding bath mats is a simple resolution to this but it defeats the object of having a waterproof bathroom and is not always a practical idea. The safety aspect of mats on wet tiled floors needs to be addressed too.

Along with your bath and shower unit, perhaps nothing adds more glamour and glitz, along with functionality, than a bathroom mirror.

Depending on the overall design of your bathroom, the mirror can enhance and give your washing area a sense of light and space. However, choosing the correct type of bathroom mirror is not always easy. They vary greatly in price and you should be sure of your budget before buying one.

It is important, regardless of how much you are paying, to make sure that the mirror is thoroughly sealed to its casing. If this is not the case, damp resulting from steam condensation will insinuate itself and cause it to come loose from the fitting.

However, once you have decided on the style of mirror that is right for your bathroom, actually mounting it on the wall is not as easy as you might suppose.

If you intend to fix the bathroom mirror directly to the wall, be sure to buy suitable mastic. This will help prevent the mirror from becoming tarnished when the glue is laid on the wall.

Check that you have some sort of support along the bottom of the mirror. This makes it a good deal easier to frame. In fact, such is the importance of correctly setting your mirror flat on the wall; it could well prove beneficial to use a professional fitter. Remember, if you chip or crack the mirror, then you have essentially lost your money.

Finally, be careful of the size you select. Many a bathroom has been ruined by either too large or too small a mirror.