A Partial Bathroom Renovation in Ealing: How to Change Everything Without Changing Everything

Beyond Fine: Ealing Bathroom Renovation Case Study

Partial bathroom renovation · Victorian house, Ealing, West London · Concept design to completion

24 October 2026

TL;DR

The project: a top-floor bathroom in a Victorian house in Ealing. It was perfectly fine, just not them.

The approach: a partial renovation. We kept the floor, the shower tray and the built-in drawers, and changed everything you notice.

The numbers: about £6,500 for materials and labour (excluding design fee), and one week on site.

How to change everything without changing everything:

Keep what works. Good bones and clever storage earn their place.

Let one hero piece lead. Here, the Amara basin set the whole colour story.

Soften the contrast. A white with a whisper of pink made black and white feel sophisticated, not stark.

Fix the niggles. A small rethink, like moving the mirror, can solve a problem you'd learned to live with.

Got a room that's fine, but you want something beyond that? Let's talk about it →

The bathroom that was perfectly fine

There's a particular kind of bathroom nobody ever complains about. Black and white tiles, a nicely patterned floor, everything clean and working. Nice? Absolutely. Exciting? Well... not so much.

That was the bathroom tucked under the eaves on the top floor of this large Victorian house in Ealing. The previous owners had done a perfectly decent job, the kind of finish most people would be delighted to achieve on their own.

The trouble was, "perfectly decent" isn't really my clients' style. They love colour, they love a bit of quirk, and they have high expectations. And honestly? So do I.

So here's what this project set out to prove: you don't need to rip everything out to get a room that feels completely new.

The bathroom BEFORE the transformation

The brief: make it nicer (with one non-negotiable)

This project ran alongside a much bigger job in the same house: a second en-suite we stripped back to the brick, changed the layout and all. This one called for a lighter touch.

The brief was refreshingly simple: make it nicer. There was just one firm request. Somewhere in this room, there had to be a basin from the London Basin Company. Almost any of them would do. (Obviously! Have you seen them?)

The real challenge was keeping as much as possible while still making the room look completely different. It's a top-floor bathroom partly under the roof, so the ceilings are low and the angles are interesting. In its favour, a generous Velux window pours light in from above.

What we kept, and why

Good design isn't always about ripping things out. Some of what was already there earned its place:

The patterned black and white floor tiles. Still in great condition and full of character.
The shower tray and screen. Perfectly sound, so no reason to replace it.
The built-in drawers. Genuinely the best idea in the room. The previous owner had tucked storage into the eaves, so the drawers disappear into the wall. Clever, and worth keeping.

We did seriously consider stripping out every wall tile as they were not really making sense as they were. In the end, however, we kept the small panel of black tiles around the black-painted drawers. Then we added more of the same tile, creating a dark backdrop for the star of the show.

Starting with the basin

With a black and white floor and black wall tiles staying put, the first decision was the basin. Everything else followed from it.

We chose the Amara basin by London Basin Co, a sculptural statement piece that turns a functional object into the focal point of the room.

The Amara basin from London Basin Company

The Amara is a soft pink bowl covered in an intricate metallic dark grey pattern, and that's what made it perfect here.

The pattern ties it straight back to the floor and the wall tiles.

The pink brought something the room had never had: warmth. It also led us to the new pink wall tiles, which replaced the stark white (with the weird black trims). Pink and black, it turns out, were made for each other. It makes the space sophisticated without making it overly feminine.

The secret is in the white

Here's my favourite detail, and you'd never spot it, unless you look for it.

Black against bright white is a harsh contrast in any case, and harsh isn't sophisticated. So the walls and ceiling were painted in a white with the faintest hint of pink. This was the genius colour Downtime from COAT Paint.

It's so subtle you can only see it if you hold it next to pure white. But it softens every edge, links the pink tiles to the rest of the room, and makes the whole space feel considered rather than stark. It makes all the difference.

The mirror that shouldn't face south

Then came a problem I didn't see coming. The old wall mirror faced south, which my clients had learned is bad feng shui. They were prepared to live without a mirror, since this bathroom isn't used every day and sits next to a guest room that already had a mirror.

But I don't love a compromise when there's a better answer. Instead, I proposed a tall, narrow swivel mirror with lovely metal hardware, fixed to the wall beside the basin rather than behind it. That wall sits close enough to the basin that the mirror is perfectly comfortable to use. And it no longer faces south.

One small change, and a niggle my clients had accepted simply went away.

Swivel mirror on the wall from Graham & Green

From mood board to finished room

Even a partial refresh requires (and deserves!) a proper design process.

For this bathroom, I provided:

Concept mood boards to set the direction and get the colour story right.
Full elevations of every wall, so nothing was left to guesswork on site.
A 3D rendered model, so my clients could see the room before a single tile was ordered.
A complete FF&E schedule covering every fixture, fitting and finish.

The bit that never makes it onto Instagram

No renovation is entirely smooth, ever, and honesty is more useful than a glossy fairy tale.

Beautiful basins are worth waiting for, but they do make you wait. The Amara was on a long lead time from the start, which we knew before ordering. Then it was delayed further. The rest of the room was ready and waiting for its centrepiece.

When it finally arrived, connecting it through the new ready-made vanity unit needed a fitting that wasn't in the box. Of course, this happened while I was on holiday. Of course it did!

The client and plumber sorted it out in my absence, and the cherry on top finally made it into place!

What it cost, and how long it took

This transformation cost around £6,500 in materials and labour, excluding my design fee. Even with the luxury basin that cost almost £1000 and some more high end choices, that's a fraction of what a full bathroom renovation would cost, which is exactly why keeping the right things matters.

Timeline:

The design process is always longer than people anticipate. I can put together a bathroom design in a few days, no problem. But that's only one part of the process. I involve my clients at every step, from presenting the initial concept and gathering feedback to making revisions and finalising the details. Each stage takes time, and it's worth allowing for that rather than rushing straight into the renovation.

On site, the renovation itself took one week, plus a wait for that basin.

The result

Same floor, same shower tray, same clever drawers. A completely different room. Where there was a perfectly fine black and white bathroom, there's now a space with warmth, wit and a real sense of personality.

Here's the whole room, pink tiles and all.

I see potential in every space, even the ones that are already "fine".

Fine is fine. But if you've read this far, I suspect you're not really a "fine" kind of person, and your home shouldn't be either.

If you want something beyond that, I'd love to hear about it.