The laundry and the water heater are renewed and I'm declaring the renovation work in this place done, finished, over. (I know, I know, famous last words and all that - but at least I don't plan any further biggies). Here are some photos of the exercise. The status before. The pink tint of the yucky paint doesn't really show on the photos, but it certainly wasn't pretty - nor was the water heater rustbucket which didn't rate a photo. The lazy cheap-ass builders didn't use any bonding agent when they poured much of the screed/bedding for the tiles, so lots of the stuff came off the concrete slab with the tiles. 3.5 bags (70kg) of floor leveller later there were no hollow, shoddy spots left (and of course I did use bonding stuff...) Setting out the tiles was fun and worked out pretty well; only one spot behind the doors needed narrow 5cm strips, everywhere else there are full (30cm) or more-than-half tiles. My cheap rotating laser level from Aldi did sterling duties - well, the light show below wasn't necessary but too pretty not to photograph. With my heritage, sloppiness was pretty much out of the question, of course, so I simply had to paint the room top-to-bottom in white, twice - including the walk-in cupboard where the water heater sits. You can't see behind it, but I would know (and remember) had I been lazy there...

Then I laid the floor tiles, full ones first as usual. With three doors, two drains and one gratuitous corner to the room the angle grinder and the diamond blade got a pretty good workout. I'm proud to report that I didn't break a single tile.

Next step was to grout the corner for the laundry tub, and to install the new tub. At the same time I finally disconnected the old heater, chiselled out the last few tiles underneath it (two of which weren't glued, just laid there...). Then I finished the tiling in the cupboard (floor and skirting), painted behind the heater, and put a nice bevel on the top of the skirting tiles (with spackling filler). That got painted white, too :-) Grouting in the heater cabinet was next, then the silicone for the floor/skirting joint and then the new heater went in. All very straightforward. The most 'interesting' tile was the one below. Again I didn't break a single tile, but I do admit I spent a long noisy and dusty time with the angle grinder... The wall tiles were leftovers from the bathroom job two years ago, Italian porcelain (Marazzi) which I knew to be a little more prone to breaking than the floor tiles (also porcelain, Vitra Arkitekt Dotti, some of which were also leftovers).

Apart from that bit of excitement ('need three more millimeters, but will the tile take it?') the tiling around the tub was trivial and went quickly.

By now surely I don't need to mention that in my world all tile tops need bevels, or do I? ;-) A bit of grouting (my most disliked type of work, ever), silicone and paint later and there you are: one shiny laundry. There's precisely one small bit of work left to complete: I need to shorten the tap covers by a few millimeters, because the plumbing is a tad deep in the wall and the threads just don't engage. I'll take care of that on Thursday with Rob's help, on his lathe.