We’ve been working on updating the front bedroom and en suite bath.

We bought the apartment in Annagassan in July 2025, and moved in shortly afterwards. We chose to use the back bedroom as our primary, for a few good reasons. Most importantly, the back bedroom has a window that looks out directly onto the Irish Sea - the water is about 20 meters away.

The other major reason for choosing it was the condition of the front bedroom and its en suite bathrom. The shower in the en suite had a known problem - the shower pan had sunk about 2 cm/1 inch, which left a huge gap between the pan and the tile walls. Any use of the shower would result in water flowing through the gap into the walls and floor, further damaging the underlying areas.

In the fall, we were finally able to find a qualified tradesman to come out and fix up the hall bathroom. This room had only a bathtub, and the toilet and sink/vanity needed to be replaced. Dimitri (a great guy!) came out and installed the new fixtures, added a shower to the bath, replaced and added some light fixtures, and ran some new electrical circuits for the hallway utility closet and the kitchen.

In early March we went to Dundalk Deluxe Bathrooms to pick out the materials and fixtures needed to update the en suite bathroom. It’s a compact room - about 2 meters/6 feet square, but it needed a complete gut and rebuild. We went with large tiles for the floor and lower walls, a new shower pan and enclosure, new toilet, and a new sink. We replaced to old radiator with a shower rack that attaches to the radiator loop to provide general heating and towel warming.

We were leaving for a three-week trip back to Texas in mid-March, and asked Dimitri if he’d be willing and available to do the en suite work while we were gone. He was reluctant, telling us that it’s always best if the customer can oversee the work more closely, which we fully understood.

A few days before we were scheduled to leave, he called and said that his schedule had freed up unexpectedly and he’d be available to do the en suite work while we were out of town. Our apartment is quite small, and having the bulk of the heavy work done while we were gone was very, very appealing! We arranged to give him a set of keys, and he started the work a few days after we flew out.

When we returned, the bathroom work was complete - thankfully! Dimitri had removed all the old tile - a nasty, very dusty task - and installed all the new tile, the new shower, and the new fixtures.

There were a few more items on the list which could only be done after we came back - painting the walls/ceilings of the front bedroom and the en suite, and installing new flooring in the bedroom. The cream-colored carpet had stains and above normal wear-and-tear from the previous owner (and her dog), and it made sense to replace it with wood flooring.

We had to move everything out of the bedroom to allow the painting and flooring work to be completed, so we’ve spent the last few weeks with everything here-and-there in the front room. Manageable, but not ideal.

The painting was done early last week, and the flooring is scheduled for install on Monday (tomorrow) and Tuesday. Once that’s done, we can begin to move the furniture back into the bedroom, and do all the tedious jobs like rehanging pictures and medicine cabinets.

Hopefully by this time next week, the entire front suite will be ready for normal use. We expect visitors in early May, and it’ll be nice to have a freshly updated room for them to stay in.