The West Kensington Project

Bathroom Renovation in West Kensington, London

One of my favourite projects from this year was a bathroom renovation in West Kensington, London. The client approached us on Facebook back in August, and we began with a customary consultation visit. The bathroom was 3m by 1.5m, making the space to be tiled 22.5m² in total. For the floor and the hidden toilet cistern, they had chosen glossy beige 60cm x 60cm tiles. They had worked with an interior designer and ordered stunning 120cm x 120cm customised porcelain Arabescato Orobico tiles from Spain with a thickness of 6mm. They wanted to create a mesmerising feature wall with these exquisite tiles. The tiles were thinner than normal tiles and hard to get, leaving no room for error (no pressure!).

For my first steps, I used adhesive and screwed hardboards onto the floor, then I laid the electric underfloor heating system that the clients wanted and had provided (this still requires the work of an electrician once the tiling is complete to make the system functional). I used self-levelling to protect the underfloor heating from damage and put primer on top of the self-levelling before tiling. I used liquid primer on the floors and walls, applied the adhesive and then tiled the bathroom. Next, I cleaned the grout joints and grouted the bathroom, washing the grout off the tiles once it had dried to ensure a clean finish. I mitered the corners (a technique where you cut a 45 degree angle), secured it with epoxy and put silicone on the inside corners.

luxury tiles

The shower niche was already prepared. For this, I cut the tiles down to size and included glass mosaic tiles as a feature point, leaving space for the electrician to wire it up later. This was by far the hardest part, as it was very fiddly, but well worth it. The shower tray had already been fitted before I began tiling, which was helpful.

The clients mentioned to me that they were planning on purchasing a marble sink, so I showed them some of my previous work and offered to make them a matching sink out of the remaining tile they had. We discussed and agreed upon the design, style, angles, drainage and size (80cm x 45cm x15cm. I cut the required pieces with a Sigma tile cutter, mitred the edges, and cut the hole for the tap with a 35mm diamond-tipped blade on a Montolit angle grinder, then glued it all together using 10x epoxy glue. The plumber later secured the basin to the wall and connected the taps.

Overall, our clients were very pleased with our work, and their design team was able to add the finishing touches later on.