As always your ideas are lovely.....I will probably need to take some better pics..its a bit of a squeeze in that bathroom..maybe just focussed on things like the timber wall, the pressed metal, the new rose shower over the bath...its not a shower recess...no room! I'll try. The bathroom has a tall silky oak and frosted glass door leading out onto a northern slatted, roofed verandah...full of hanging baskets and flowering vines creeping in through the slats from the gardens outside. Where you see that old chair is actually the doorway...to the garden verandah..I dry off out there. I can see out but nobody can see in. I can loll in the plunge bath with the door open and see the garden and the plants so its already like bathing outside. If my mastiff is inside I have to close the door or he'll get in the bath with me! I used to bathe him with me when he was a 15 week old puppy the size of a 1yr old baby. His reward was ..the plug..replaced so many plugs..then we'd both dry off on the verandah. He misses his baths with me but he is now 76K. PRESSED METAL ....Maybe pressed metal higher up the wall behind the bath is the answer...and paint the remainder of the wall peppermint...mmmm? That was sort of a colour in the kitchen when I bought it..only it was smoke dirty. The shade of mint I like is too cold for the bathroom and somehow I "feel" it to be a bit insubstantial as a colour..not enough body...just how I feel about it. Good for a loo though. What do you think of a pale Olive rather than Mint green and a washable matt rather than shiny? . When I think of Olive I can feel my hand running over it as if it were a suede. You've led me to recall a range of paint I came across ages ago...RESENE...it has some beautiful metallics...maybe worth considering. A pale Olive would go with the Shell pink colour already in the bathroom which I really do love and, WHEN I get the pressed metal all of that will be Shell.( Hermit Crab's bathroom?) Don't like mini orb for the bathroom. .,So, pressed,metal it is although$$$....all comes to those who wait and know what they want! Maybe I'll go to town and do the ceiling in pressed metal too...and maybe continue the Olive into the ceiling...it won't feel so high and so cold....mmmm need to do a sample of that weird colour scheme I think....You've go me thinking! Funny that - I did paint the boards white initially but ended up stripping it all off, it just didn't look right and felt fake...silly isn't it? FLOOR - currently its the poor man's version...(thick vinol) of large Shell, marble tiles. with light grey grout. Like it. Its soft underfoot and safe....(not so steady on my feet now). I'd love a random stone paved floor but maybe a bit impractical...but...if I did a random stone up the wall behind the bath rather than the pressed metal, I would do the floor and would choose natural ribbonstone as it is a bit sandy-feeling and not slippery. Many years ago a friend and I put up a ribbon stone wall behind the fireplace....it has a pinky hue...of course. PIC here. if that came to pass I'd grout it in grey. How am I doing bouncing off your suggestions in all directions? FOUND SOMETHING online....textured, waterproof, paintable wallpaper! Tempting! Cheaper than pressed metal! I'd love the old ladder idea but sadly there's nowhere to put it. Fluffy towels...OH YES! And candles...that's not too hard...and want one of those heatlamp/lights. Clean towels and some bath essentials have a shelf at the back of the bath. Towels in use each have their own antique brass or copper. mini rail...( long plain handles from an old chest of drawers). Brass clothes hooks for robe and clothes.....and, with the house came an antique pine slatted chair with a seat curved at the fron under the knees and a high curved back. It is designed for inside the bath for someone who needs to sit under the shower rather than stand. The bottoms of the legs where they stand in the bath have been curved to fit the curve of the inside of the tub! Some dill painted it white. I am going to strip it back to the pine and oil and seal it...Strangely, it can also be used outside the bath and stands on the floor without juggling. SO.. mydesign 1401 you've given me an overall atmospheric idea of my bathroom and I'll hang out for the pressed metal...might need to re-do the old stuff around the bath and the strip around the wall above the bath because cannot find a match...its very plain. Just squares separated with rounded edges and a circle in each corner of all the squares. Its not even very pretty... but it isthe poor man's pressed galvanised iron metal. *****Tell me what you think of the colour OLIVE...for the boards above the metal and maybe continuing into the ceiling...maybe too much?

White-tail spider in my track suit pants WHICH I WAS WEARING! I thought it was a lump of lint from the laundry, drew it out, and promptly flung it across the room once I realised... never to be seen again! How it didn't bite me and sat still to be picked up, I don't know - it must have known I wouldn't do it any harm. We lived in lots of country places, too... We were invaded by small black crickets one year, and lady bugs, another year, in your drawers, in your hair, in your pantry, in your undies... everywhere! And then the blue tongue lizard that would go in and out with our dogs via doggie door, and made itself a nest in our laundry... I gave up and left some old towels for it. Had an echidna get up into the wheel well of our car... wild brumbies in our patio... the list goes on. My husband still says that the most unwelcome visitor was his mother... I like her better than he does!

What would be great (but expensive!) is a moveable "mezzanine" level. If that can even be done. So you'd have it as part of normal floor level for majority of time, then elevate it when you need additional floor space. Like when you have guests. When elevated and in use, it would have to have additional safety features and a ladder obviously. Weird idea? lol

Wow, well, I didn't see that one, and since I tried bristle brushes anyway without success it may not have worked. What I did find, thanks to your suggestion, was this thing, which has fine grit embedded in the nylon bristles. So harder than a brush, softer than wire. The problem with my ceilings (all five of them) is that for the past 122 years, the thin pressed tin was the ONLY surface between the room and the corrugated iron roof. An oven in summer, an icebox in winter, and huge temperature fluctuations between night and day - so although the paint is only one or two coats thick, it has crazed as well as peeled or bubbled. Totally impractical financially speaking as well as impossible time-wise, to strip it back, so it's just remedial work for me. Getting rid of any hanging flakes, and filling in the tiny cracks. Togged up with eye protection, face mask, ear muffs when using the grinder, and a shower cap, I used a combination of the fan grinder below, a hand held small wire brush, the wooden handle of my paint brush, and the plastic end of a broom (when standing on the floor) to scrape flakes and crunch 'blisters'. After discussing the problem with a local specialist paint manufacturer I came away with a fantastic primer which primes ANY surface, even aluminium, bonds the paint, fills tiny cracks, and covers amazingly well. I used a soft brush. Much to my surprise it only took half a pot to do a ceiling of just under 13 sq metres. I found it was less exhausting to do first the scraping, then painting, whatever was in reach before moving the ladder. This saved a lot of double handling.. I hung my paint pot on the ladder, so just threw a cloth over it while doing the scraping. One more tip is that you can do touchups from the floor very nicely with a foam roller mini brush on a pole. The foam roller squidges into the hills and valleys of the tin patterns. I have now finished preparing this first room and only have the top coat to finish off. I don't think I'll need more than one coat, as the prep coat is so good already. I'm going to use a good quality flat white ceiling paint (they usually have a bit of black in them for better coverage). I don't pretend it will look as glorious as the original, but I'm not doing a full-on restoration, just a renovation/refreshing of a very humble cottage. I think it will still look attractive, flaws and all, and show the history of the house. Photo also below of work in progress, and the 'after' of the prep coat. If I remember, I'll post an after picture once I've finished the final coat. :)