Recycled Bathroom Fixtures

Recycling your assets

We’re all encouraged to recycle as much as we can these days. With the rising popularity of Victorian and Edwardian roll-top baths in recent years, there are now a number of companies offering bath restoration services. You can have the surface re-enamelled; you can paint the outside in a colour to compliment your bathroom; or if you are really creative, cover it in mosaic tiles!

 

But refurbishment can be costly. If you decide to buy a refurbished original, it will probably cost you much more than a brand new version.

 

 

The original baths are made from cast iron, so if you decide to ditch yours, make sure you get help to move it. It will be very heavy!

 

 

Recycling in other ways

It’s not unusual to see old pieces of furniture banished to the garden and ending up as a new flower bed or container. Sometimes this tactic has even been used at exhibitions and shows. The writer remembers a flower exhibition in Holland where a rose grower made an impact with a bed and surrounding floor covered in pure white rose heads. For dramatic effect there was one deep red rose in the centre of the bed covering. Even more dramatic because it was all unexpected.

 

Old Belfast sinks have been a garden favourite for many years but we think it is interesting to see these kitchen gems put out to growing. This one is complete with tap – presumably disconnected. Its owner clearly has a sense of humour stacking the plates amongst the white flowers which look like soap bubbles.

 

 

 

Old baths are a testament to those who have managed to remove them from their homes despite their weight. The owners chose not to renovate this old roll top bath. Instead here it overflows with summer flowers. Others have been used to create ‘ready-made’ free standing water features.

 

 

This old pedestal sink is balanced on the base of an old treadle sewing machine – two for the price of one – and has become a neat container for a pretty herb or garden plant.

 

More innovation

 

One of the best innovations we’ve seen for recycling old roll top baths is transforming them into sofas by slicing off a side and adding a seat cushion. Or turning a bath into two armchairs by slicing in half and adding a recycled wooden surround. Here the cushions seem to be sadly lacking.

 

 

It seems these old pieces are just too grand (or difficult) to get rid of completely. Will the same be true of more modern contemporary bath tubs we wonder? The range of shapes and sizes certainly make them winners in the modern bathroom.