Bristol

Ade Okafor

Renovation writer. Has lifted more floorboards than he can count, and kept most of them.

9 stories

Original floors, a kitchen in a new room and a garden dug out of rubble, one room a year.

Painted doors, brass handles and an oak worktop: a new kitchen for a quarter of the price.

Why large tiles make a tiny bathroom look bigger, and everything else we changed.

The real budget, the order of works and the decisions to make early. The planner our contributors use.

Microcement over old tiles, four careful steps and how it looks a year later.

Clean grout, new sealant and one replaced tile. A bathroom that looks five years younger for under £60.

Light, cheap and easy to reach, and a dust trap for anything you do not use every day.

A pile behind the shed, a proper base and a herringbone pattern that will outlast us.

Two bathrooms, eighteen months and the places painted tiles should never go.

Letters from home