New Bathroom - Buying Tiles

We are *finally* getting our new bathroom...! The quote is in, the taps have been chosen and work is due to start in the next couple of weeks, this does of course mean that for the duration we will have some considerable upheaval to put up with (not least of which is having no means of taking a bath - I guess I'm going to have to use the showers here in the gym in Canary Wharf, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it)...So Saturday we spent doing the last of the little jobs associated with the upgrade - choosing the tiles - which (one would have thought) should have been reasonably simple, however, we really did end up going all around the houses...first stop was Rogers Ceramics, a little independent tile shop at Gatton Point, which was a really tiny place and didn't seem to have a single kind of tile for under about £25 per square meter (and as we needed 20 square meters that would have cost us about £500!)-

Next up we stopped in the Homebase in Reigate, nothing *really* grabbed us, but they did have nice plain white tiles for £7.99/m2 (or about £160 for the job) - so a step in the right direction...if only they had more than 4 boxes in stock we probably would have finished the process right there and then...

Anyway, we headed on to Dorking and Wickes next, where they had even cheaper white tiles (£6.15/m2 - or £123) and again (unfortunately) only 6 boxes in stock...!

Flyingpops went to the information desk and asked if they could order up some more, and the answer was no, they only way we could guarantee getting the whole lot from a single batch was to order them to be delivered, which would cost an extra £40! Most unhelpful...and so we ended up in Tile Base (just down the road from Wickes) -

- where the staff were extremely friendly and helpful (in stark contrast) -

- they had a *huge* palett of white tiles (all from the same batch) for £6.50/m2 (and it was "10% off day") meaning we got the whole lot for £117!  We even got a few sheets of embellishments for 99 pence each (down from £5)!

Flyingpops mum came (briging her estate car) to help us transport them all home (thanks Nanjan!), as there was absolutely no room in the Bug, and they are all now stacked up at the bottom of the stairs waiting for the work to begin! How exciting!