Step 700 - Tile

Okay so now we are ready to tile.

We have had several issues come up with the tile situation and I want to cover some of them because I think they will help you all understand the feat that it is that we finished this all by ourselves.

First, houses are not built square. So our walls are not plumb. That is an issue when you are tiling a corner! Especially when tiling a corner with small tiles like our chose white subway tiles. Joy. Another challenge. By the way the tiles are from Lowes. $.22 a tile. Pretty good price and we got 5% off with our consumer credit card from there. So that made it cheaper than anywhere else in town.

So we first spent about 5 days laying out the tile on the walls. I bet you many of those DIY blogs don't tell you about that process. No matter what we did we ended up with weird cuts on the end of the walls and in the corner. I wont make your brain hurt with the math but let's just say it was not easy.

Here you can see we began to lay out the tile the way we wanted it. We taped up each tile in the section to see how it would look. Here is what we started with. This about when I realized that the niche, although nice was going to be a pain.

 So then we created a plumb line above where the rubber shower pan was behind the cement board and screwed in a board to hold up the tiles as we went. As you can see we are just getting started cutting and laying everything out. Looks good right? Parker was going at a good pace and this all took him about 5 hours or prep and work. I know. It is hard.

 Once we got started though we got moving. We mudded out the edges of the niche so the tiles would lay flat on the wall. This crated a slight bump on the wall that we are hoping will not be too noticeable in the long run. I guess we should have known how hard this niche was going to be, but oh well. We rolled with it.

 Here it is finished after two days of tiling. We still needed to do the bull nose edging on the tiles and top but I thought Parker did a pretty darned good job right?

We will have spacing that is slightly off in the corner but not by much. We just had to think outside the box and I think we did a good job mitigating any huge issues.

 Here is a close up of the tile with out the grout done. Looks beautiful right? Ohh La La! In case you are wondering we used little pieces of cardboard to prop up the tile when they are not lining up right. Works like a charm.

 So in the same weekend we tackled step one of the ceiling. We added bead board! I love it. It was super hard to cut and we are going to have to fudge a bit of the space around the light. Also caulk and cover the nail holes. But we love it. Plus Parker and I got to use a nail gun. So much fun.

 Love the wide shot. Right?

It's Been A While

We know it has been a while since we have posted on the blog. A lot has been going on. Let me give you a quick update and then we can get to the good stuff.

First off Parker has changed jobs. He no longer works at his horrible retail job! WOOT!!! We transitioned this whole month of April and it has been a big change for us. Luckily Parker found a job at a great company that we hope will give him a lot of chances to grow professionally.

Next, my car died. I know. With the bathroom and the job change you would think we had enough on our plates. Apparently not. So Parker and I had to rush around and buy a new car much sooner than we had thought. Although it is great I have a brand new beautiful car that I love it was a little much to take on. We are recovering though.

So I am sure you can understand the bathroom has had to take a back burner to life. It happens, and we are better off for it, but still, it would have been great to have this all stretched out a bit more over time. Not over three weeks. Let's just say a lot of the following drink was consumed to help with the stress:

Anyway we are getting back to it with lot's more changes to the bathroom to tell you about. First up tiling and then grouting and sealing. Then we install the ceiling and plumbing and fixtures.

It is all happening this week and weekend.

List Update - There was so much more to this than we thought

So this list I made when we started was just a scratch on the surface of all the word we were going to have to do. But we are moving forward. Check it out:

      Move Parker’s closet to guest bathroom

·         Move bathroom to guest bathroom

·         Hang tarps and lay carpet protector down for demo

·         Buy bagster and other demo products

·         Cover vents to dust does not get everywhere

·         Remove medicine cabinet and other electrical fixtures

·         Remove light from wall

·         Remove mirror

·         Take out toilet

·         Take out bathroom vanity and sink

·         Rip up flooring

·         Remove door and frame

·         Remove fiberglass shower

·         Remove crown bolding (save for later)

·         Take out wall, cut half wall next to toilet

·         Call plumber to move plumbing for new shower and sink

·         Build new wall in bedroom (contractor)

·         Level flooring

·         Buy tile for floor and shower

·         Hang sheetrock

·         Hang hardy backer board for tile

·         Build shower pan (Contractor)

·         Move electrical outlets and lights

·         Lay floor tile

·         Lay shower tile

·         Grout and finish all tile

·         Paint walls (do a beadboard?)

·         Bagster pickup

·         Install new toilet

·         Install new lighting and fan

·         Install new vanity

·         Install new mirror

·         Rehang crown molding in bedroom

·         Install all new shower fixtures and faucet in sink

·         Finishing touches

·         Drink a beer (or bottle of wine depending on our mood)

A Time Capsule (sort of)

Parker and I have been busy hanging sheetrock in our bathroom. And  honestly if I never see another piece of sheetrock in my life it will still be too soon. I am over the sheetrock. It crumbles, it is uneven and it gets dust everywhere. I am over it.

That being said, we have walls now! WOOT. I am not going to show them to you all yet because we are still finishing them out with patches and stuff. When we are ready you will be amazed.

Anyway, Parker and I thought we should put a little note in the walls for the next people who renovate the bathroom in our home. So he took some time to write up a cute note telling those people about us and we left a few pictures of us (Harry included) as well. We packed it all up in a plastic baggie and stuck in in the wall behind where the sink will go. We hope it will be found by people who love our home as much as we do. But not too soon obviously!


Here are some pictures of Parker putting the baggie behind the wall.

This also gives you a hint as to what the walls are looking like these days. Let me tell you, they might look good in pictures, but they look even more amazing in person! We are really excited to get moving on to the next phase!