Back-to-brick renovations · King Street, Stoke-on-Trent

Back-to-brick renovation — King Street

Rooms and bathrooms stripped out and rebuilt from a very low base

Location: King Street, Stoke-on-Trent

A finished bedroom at King Street, with a double bed, a long fitted desk and a sloping ceiling

The brief

A full refurbishment of a property that needed everything doing. The bathrooms in particular were well past patching up — they needed stripping out entirely.

The challenge

Starting from a very low base. The original bathroom was dark brown and gold floor-to-ceiling tiling over an old suite, and there was nothing worth keeping in it. That's more work up front, but it does mean no compromises get built in.

The result

Bathrooms rebuilt from bare walls in white marble-effect panelling, and rooms with a fitted desk run and good headroom under the pitch.

Before & after

Drag the handle.

Same room, same angle. This is the part that's hard to argue with.

The same bathroom finished, with white marble-effect panelling, a new bath, basin and WC

The original bathroom before work started — dark brown and gold tiling, tiles stripped off the wall and debris on the floor

What we actually did

The bathroom

The before-and-after slider above is the same room. Dark brown and gold tiling floor to ceiling, an old suite, and tiles already coming off the wall.

Rebuilt in white marble-effect panelling with a new bath, basin and WC.

Panelling rather than tiling is a deliberate choice here: it goes in faster, there’s no grout to discolour, and there’s nothing to re-grout in a few years. Modern panelling has closed most of the gap on tiling for looks, and it wins comfortably on maintenance.

The rooms

The desk in the finished room runs the full length of the wall rather than sitting in it as a separate piece of furniture. It costs less than a desk, it takes up less floor, and it gives two people somewhere to work.

The ceiling slopes under the roof pitch on one side. Rather than fight it, the bed sits under the low side where the head height doesn’t matter and the standing space is kept where you actually stand.