The Scotsman

Not quite the kitchen sink...

- By CAITLYN DEWAR caitlyn.dewar@jpimedia.co.uk

The headache of transporti­ng a bespoke jacuzzi from Italy to Edinburgh during Brexit and lockdown is the subject of a new Channel 5 tv show

Aduo of Edinburgh bathroom fitters are set to appear on a new Channel 5 TV series next month, which follows them as they struggle to try to transport a £10,000 bespoke Jacuzzi from Italy during lockdown.

Stewart Knox and his business partner Alex Chapman of GSA Bathrooms will appear on Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms: You Won’t Believe Your Eyes, presented by Mark Millar, best known as the presenter of DIY SOS on Tuesday May 25 at 7pm.

Camera crews followed the two in October as they were faced with the challenge of bringing the luxury Jacuzzi to deliver to two clients in Edinburgh as Italy went back into lockdown and the Brexit deadline loomed, the whole operation being part of a £23,000 bathroom makeover.

Speaking about the opportunit­y to star on the show, Stewart said: “We were approached in September last year by the production company on Instagram, we’re quite good at posting our work on there so it was very exciting to have our work recognised.

“We were asked if we had any exciting projects going on and it just so happened that we had this project coming up at the time to transport the bespoke Jacuzzi to clients in Edinburgh.”

Jacuzzi products are all manufactur­ed from their brand warehouse in Italy and on the day Stewart ordered the product, the country was sent into a five week lockdown due to rising coronaviru­s cases, meaning that the original lead time for the delivery of the bath – which was four to six weeks - could not be met.

“It was 16 weeks before we managed to get the bath,” Stewart said.

“So there was that bit of drama and the camera crews filmed us finally transporti­ng it on site, it was complicate­d and we had to cut bits of the ceiling out to get it in so I lost a few hair follicles that day!”

Transporti­ng the bath was not the only challenge the bathroom fitters faced, because of Brexit which caused complicati­ons shipping materials from the European Union into the UK, GSA Bathroom’s tilers, Kevin Swinton and Kyle Fee from KK Tiling were completing the bathroom and had the very last tile in the UK from their supplier at the time.

Stewart added: “It was a really stressful process, the tilers were fixing the last tile from our supplier which was in the UK and we weren’t sure if we could get anymore because of Brexit stopping supplies getting to us.

"With tiles, they can snap in your way or not, and if the tile broke there wasn’t another one as the merchants where I get them from were stuck because of the transition. It was snowing at the time we were filming, and you can’t have a cold tile so everyone was on edge but they managed to snap it in the right way.”

Finally completing the job after the long delays that they were faced with was a relief for the bynow exhausted pair.

Stewart said: “The Jacuzzi was such a unique bespoke item so it was a fantastic job and the clients Billie and Tarek were delighted.

"We are so grateful to them that they let the crews into the house to film the job.”

The new series begins on April 27 and the GSA Bathrooms episode is set to be shown on Tuesday, May 25 at 7pm.

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 ??  ?? 0 Stewart Knox and his business partner Alex Chapman of GSA Bathrooms will appear on Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms: You Won’t Believe Your Eyes
0 Stewart Knox and his business partner Alex Chapman of GSA Bathrooms will appear on Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms: You Won’t Believe Your Eyes

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