One of my design aesthetics is for the building to look as though it could be returned to it’s previous use without undoing all of the new elements. The vestry was the area where the minister would get into their robes (vestments) prior to a service. It was also used as an office for meetings.
For phase one of the conversion, I’m turning this area into a shower-room, kitchenette, and bedroom. The bedroom and kitchenette are relatively straight-forward. The shower-room is where most of the design and construction challenges lay.
There’s no water or sewerage connections to the church, so the nearest toilets were attached to the back of the church hall next door. (I still have the tags that were on the keys for each toilet.) The nearest available toilets are now at the park around the corner in Conway Street – a bit inconvenient. Boom tish!
The new layout will see the shower to the left of the window, vanity straight ahead, and toilet to the right of the window. I have a thing about noise so the toilet is as far away from my bedroom as possible! I’ll also be using sound-deadening plasterboard to keep the noise levels down.
One of the early layout designs I was given had the vanity squished in next to the shower so that there was wall space for a mirror above it. I’m not that vain! Nor am I an exhibitionist. As the locals have a tendency to use the grounds as a short-cut I’ll be putting a mirrored finish on the bottom half of the sash window for modesty purposes……………
I like good design but that comes at a cost. I’ve opted for bog-standard things like the hand basin, shower, and toilet which I’ll source from Trade Depot or TradeMe. The vanity cabinet is coming from BespOak NZ and the granite top is secondhand. However, I’ve struggled to find basin and shower mixers that I like.
Well, that’s not quite true. I have found a brand of mixers that I like but the prices are eye-watering! I’ve opted for an Italian brand priced between the cheap-and-cheerful Australian and well-engineered German products. No surprises there.
Yet-to-be-resolved is what type of oil finish to apply to the rimu sarking on the walls and ceiling. My choices are an interior oil that gives a milky-white finish, tung oil, and danish oil. I also need to decide whether or not to install a glass panel above the shower-room door to let more light into the kitchenette. What do you think?
Next time: The end of an era
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