Bath: Done

She Says:

Just to remind you how far we've come in this room:

And here we are now:

I remodeled this wall mount shelf- painted it, added the back board and hooks.  It gives us extra storage on top, and room for more towels than a traditional towel rack.

I searched high and low for this shower caddy- I wanted a stainless steel one so that it wouldn't rust.  Finally found this OXO Good Grips model at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  It was more than I wanted to spend, but I don't want rust stains running down my nice new tile, plus I had my 20% off coupon to ease the pain a bit.

HoneyDo installed this fanastic light and fan switch- the light switch has an auto night light, and the fan has a timer with choices of 5 to 60 minutes.

 The only decor I used in here is a glass jar filled with seashells from a trip to Florida.

The vanity is an Allen & Roth from Lowe's that we snagged at 40% off!

We're so happy with the way it turned out!

Finishing Touches

She Says:

Once the tile was in, grouted, and sealed, we installed the new toilet and vanity:

As you can see, even though there's still some painting left to do, we moved right in and made ourselves at home.  You'd understand if you could see the other bathroom.  It's scary in there.

Oh, and I have to give a shout out to this new toilet.  I have never had an opinion about toilets, one way or the other.  But this thing is awesome.  Like most everything else, we got it from Lowe's, and it's called... wait for it... the Clean Cadet.

I know.

But it promises to stay cleaner, longer, because of its "Powerwash" feature and "Everclean" surface.  And I must admit, this toilet needs very little scrubbing.  It just always seems to be sparkling clean!  It also has a very streamlined design on the outside, so there's just not as many places to collect dust.  I never thought I'd say these words, but I love this toilet.

Moving on...

We painted the trim Ultra White by Valspar, and the walls and ceiling Woodsmoke by Eddie Bauer Home:

And next time, we'll show you the finished product!

A Shower of Tiles

She Says:

The next tiling project is the shower.  We chose a glass mosaic:

The color is Iceland, by Bliss Tile.

Here's the first wall.

And a close up, ungrouted of the tile around what will soon be the window.

The second shower wall tiled, and a goofy HoneyDo has just cut the hole for the window!

Here's the window installed.  As you can see, it offers a beautiful view onto the back of the property.

And finally, all three sides of the shower tiled, window in.

He Says:

Never again.  Next time we do a shower, we're using a nice, sane 12x12 tile like normal people do.  The number of hours I spent tweaking the alignment of every last one of those thousands...hey wait, I can calculate this...over 28,000 individual tiles in this shower cannot be expressed.  It took a LONG time.  The mesh backing sorta holds the tiles in alignment, but not really.  Many of them still have to be tweaked by hand if you want them to be perfect.

It is a cool shower though.  I sealed the window mechanisms with silicone caulk.  The corners of the shower were also sealed with silicone.  It's really nice to be able to open the window while you take a shower if you want.

She Says:

HoneyDo finished the shower tile area, but before we could install the shower door, the rest of the wall tile needed to go up.  Since the mosaic tile drove HoneyDo a little bit crazy, the subway tile was all me.

It took a long. time.  I don't know what he was complaining about... sure, he had to lay 28,000 tiles, but his tiles were on a 12 inch square mesh... The subway tiles had to be laid one by one, like bricks.

I was surprised at how physically challenging this job was- my arms were sore for days!  But progress was made, row by row, then the mosaic accent, then one last row, and done!  The next day, I grouted them using a while grout:

Next came the installation of the shower door.  Although it went smoothly, 2 large pieces of glass being wielded around in a very small space was rather tense at times, and photography tends to be forgotten at moments like these.  So here it is in situ:

He Says:

The Dreamline door kit is simple and straightforward.  The glass is tempered and ground to a nice non-threatening soft edge.  Be aware that tempered glass is finicky.  You can hit the large flat face with a hammer and it won't break, but sometimes a surprisingly soft tap on the edge will shatter it.  So, we handled the glass with care.  The aluminum frame is sealed to the walls and pan with clear silicone caulk.

At this point we could start taking showers in this nice, new, clean shower and not in the weird dark moldy cave of the other shower.  Ahh.  Nice.

The Floor Tile Finds Its Way

She Says:

Okay, the walls are in, and once we get the floor prepped, we'll be ready to tile!

We installed a Schluter system as our waterproof membrane.

He Says:

Schluter products are awesome.  Lots of good printed info on them, and plenty of installation videos on the web.  Specifically, this is their de-coupling membrane, which both waterproofs a floor installation and prevents cracking of the tile.  Highly recommended.  Be aware that use a membrane like this takes up a LOT of thinset and you must follow the Schluter instructions as to the type of thinset mortar used. 

She Says:

Now for the floor tile-

We chose a 12x18 porcelain for the floor.  We laid out the full tiles first so we could measure the size of the tiles to be cut.

The floor was temporarily delayed while the project manager stopped by for a surprise inspection:

But once she approved, (or lost interest... it's hard to tell with a cat) we were back on track.

Here's a tip: when it comes to tile cutters, you get what you pay for.  At our local Lowe's store, they had 3 to choose from: $20, $40, and $100.  As this was my first time shopping for a tile cutter (and cutting tile, for that matter), I figured, meh, they all look the same.  Why spend $100 when you only have to spend $20?

I found out the answer to that question the hard way.  It turns out, the el cheapo one was, you guessed it, made cheaply!  If you've never cut tile before, it's actually pretty easy.  You score it first with the blade, then press down on the handle, and pop!  The tile breaks right down your scored line.  Unless you buy the el cheapo tile cutter, which just kind of bows disagreeably and chips your tile.  Ugh.  One trip back to Lowe's and $100 later, and I had this beauty:

Works like a charm.  Lesson learned.

Once I had all the tiles cut, I dry fit them all back in the room.  Then I took each one out and laid them out in the order I would be using them in the room next door.  I know, this sounds like anal retentive overkill, which it was.  But in my defense, since the defective tile cutter had eaten several of my tiles, I only had one spare tile left at the end and couldn't afford to make any mistakes.

This was the first floor tile we had ever laid, and I'm not gonna lie... it was rough.  We didn't take any during pictures because we were too intent on getting the job right.  Applying enough thinset so that the tiles will adhere.  Keeping the current tile level with all of its neighbors.  Muscling the tile into place.  Making sure the spacers stay put.  And heaven forbid if we put down too much thinset and had to lift the tile back up again, which we had to do more often than I care to remember.  But when we were done, it looked like this:

We went to bed, exhausted.  The next day, the grout:

A messy job, but enjoyable.

And here's the finished product!  It turned out beautifully, and we learned *a lot* along the way.  Now the tile heads up the walls...

The Walls Go Up

He says:

After the bathroom walls were insulated and plumbed, we installed the vapor barrier plastic and were ready to install the concrete backer board...when I decided to do one more check for squareness in the shower area.  If this area is not square, the tile installation can never be right.  Although the walls were perfectly square at the other end of the room, at the shower end it was bad.

She Says:

One of the many things you have to watch for in a reno... if you didn't build the wall yourself, assume it's crooked until proven otherwise!

He Says:

As you can see, several of the wall studs were badly warped and off-level.  Only one thing to do - fix them.  Using a long level, we measured the amount of error and sawed spacers from 2x4 studs on the table saw.  We screwed them to the existing studs and viola, the wall was fixed and ready for backer board.

After the backer board was screwed to the wood (with the correct screws-only use the backer-on screws) we set the shower pan.  We are using a fiberglass pan we bought from an internet retailer.  We checked the pan for fit and level, everything was good.  

She Says:

The shower system we chose is a Dreamline Kit- it includes this pan and a sliding door that we'll show you in the next post or two.  

He Says:

We mixed up 80 lbs. of mortar (not concrete) because we needed a smooth mix with no gravel.  We dumped the wet mortar onto the subfloor and pressed the pan into the mortar and checked again for level.  We let it cure overnight.  By morning, we had a very strong and stiff pan which doesn't flex at all when stood upon.  Perfect.

Bath Demo and Construction

She Says:

I was so eager to gut this room that I neglected to take any demo pictures.  So just imagine me ineffectually swinging a sledgehammer amid a haze of drywall dust.

Here's the whole room gutted.  In this photo, we've already built the header for the window and put it in place.

HoneyDo wired the electrical.  We replaced the vanity light with two sconces and added LED can lights above the vanity and shower.

And here's the exterior wall all snug and insulated:

The reason for the rocking toilet was, once again, water damaged, rotted flooring.  Left to its own devices, one of these days it would have just rocked its way right down into the crawl space.

Okay, maybe I'm being overly dramatic.  I guess the floor joists would have prevented a free fall.  But we added extra blockers on either side of the repair just to be sure.

Thankfully, the vanity had absorbed all its own leaks over the years, and the only areas that needed work were around the base of the toilet and the drain under the tub.  The rotten areas were easily removed and patched.

He Says:

So bathrooms are pretty important for quality of life.  Even though this house has another functional bathroom, it's nasty, and we want out of it.  So, we decided to simplify the reno of this room by not moving the location of any of the plumbing or venting.  If we were going to move any fixtures, it would require new access holes in wall studs and the roof for the vent stacks.  We'll save that fun for the next bathroom.

Instead, we replaced the water supply plumbing with PEX.  It's not a good idea (if you are a DIYer) to close up a plumbing installation behind a wall before you test it.  With PEX, it is easy and cheap to install a test plug at any point in the system temporarily.  With our handy dandy water manifold system, we can pressurize any room in the house individually for testing, which is awesome.

Okay, next, let's put up some walls...

Bath Beginnings

She Says:

Our next major project: the bath!

Here's what we're starting with:

He Says:

What you can't see in this photo is a toilet that rocked back and forth 4-5 inches.

She Says:

That toilet is a rollicking good time!

Linoleum flooring, teal tile accents, and the world's smallest tub.

Oh, and a bare bulb light fixture- awesome!

And a very sad little vanity.

He Says:

What you can't see in this photo is the incredible low quality of this particle board vanity, and the fact that it is bulging from having absorbed so much water over the years.  It has to go!  Also, you can't see the nonfunctional plumbing lurking beneath that will have to be replaced.

She Says:

As you can see, it's very small- only about 50 square feet.

So, we're stripping this baby down to the studs and starting over.  Plans include:

• Tile floor
• Walk in shower
• Vanity with lots of storage
• A window

He Says:

Even if this bathroom didn't look and smell terrible, everything needs to be replaced because of water damage anyway.  The vent is also nonfunctional and has to be replaced and routed outside, instead of into the attic...

She Says:

Looks like we've got our work cut out for us... let's get to work!