Monday, May 21, 2012

15 Feet from Bed.

It's been awhile since I updated on our master bathroom, mostly because it's been awhile since we did anything significant in there. Shortly after my last update we hit a stalling point. I spent a solid day with my mother-in-law helping me to finish the tile surround (going up and down and up and down and up and down the stairs to get from the bathroom to the tile saw is not the MOST fun I've had in a weekend), and then it sat like that. For....um....weeks. Because the next step was to go in there with a green scrubbing pad and hot water and make those tiles shine. And really, there is very little that sounds as un-fun to me as the idea of spending hours scrubbing every last bit of thinset off of and from between tiles so we can grout.

Except grouting. THAT sounds less fun, but really only because my husband buys epoxy grout which is about as easy to spread on the walls and into the joints as frozen peanut butter being spread onto soft white bread.

We did manage to move the mirror up a few inches to accomodate the taller counters. That was all KINDS of fun, but it's done and it worked.

Anyhow, once the tile was up and I was officially stalling to avoid scrubbing it clean, we had a few other bathroom items to attend to before we could move on. Number one on the list was a new toilet. The old one worked fine, but it was almond colored, and with all the fixtures in the bathroom being white now that just wasn't working for me. So one Saturday morning Darrick followed a Craigslist ad to a rich neighborhood not too far away to get two new white toilets. Turns out, rich people buy houses brand new and then rip out the unused toilets and sell them on Craigslist. For $25 each. When they would have cost about $150 new.

We ended up getting a second one to replace the toilet in the other bathroom because why not, right? He still had to run to Home Depot for toilet seats and lids (no way were we getting THOSE off Craigslist!) and while there he decided it was as good a time as any to buy our new countertops and 2 new ceiling fans. Why new ceiling fans, you ask. I'm not sure. I mean, we needed them but we did not need to spend that money and deal with installing them (3 hours each, anyone?). Alas, we compromised on the ceiling fans and I let him keep one for our bedroom but made him return the other for now.

I also let him keep the countertops, which look like these except without the cheest 1992-style builder basic faucets.

Once the new toilet was installed, my husband got kind of lazy. Ok, that's not entirely fair as he's been working his butt off, but it might be considered accurate to say he got complacent. I mean, once you're without a master bathroom toilet for 5 months and then you get one back....what more does a man need? He can shit in his OWN BATHROOM! And you had better believe I heard that no less than eleventy bajillion times in a week.

But this weekend? This weekend we killed it. First, my husband installed the cabinets in their place by screwing them into the studs. Then he put the countertops on them and attached them to the wall with liquid nails and added the side splash guard things (which he kept calling bumpers for some unknown reason and thusly almost drove me nuts to the point where I just bit my tongue instead of correcting him so that I could then feel very proud of myself for not correcting him when he was in the bathroom slaving away). Once those were in place, I reattached the cabinet doors and drawer fronts, and then 'we' went back through and took the drawer fronts off and re-reattached them because 'we' hadn't done it well enough the first time and they were a bit loose and crooked. And the only thing that's allowed to be BOTH loose AND crooked is a hooker in an old Clint Eastwood western.

::ahem::

When all that was done and the tiles were scrubbed too (Finally! Jeez!) Darrick installed the faucets and then we stood back and felt really special about the whole thing cuz DAMN does it look nice.

This is where I should share picures, but: (a) I don't have any uploaded, and (b) I'm waiting to show pictures when it's ALL DONE. Which at the rate we're going will be sometime in June or November.

The last thing we did? Picked a godforsaken paint color (and, sadly, threw away the collection of 3,472 paint sample chips I've amassed since January) and slapped a first coat up on the wall. And after MONTHS of going back and forth and taping up samples and even buying a gallon of paint only to hate it on the walls, we decided together on a color we both love:



Can you guess which one? Dun dun duhhhhhhhh...

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Time to update the to-do list!

- Call insurance and file claim
- Remove baseboards
- Remove toilet and cover hole
- Remove tile
- Remove subflooring below tile
- Remove flooring BELOW subflooring.
- Remove tub surround (also involves removing showerhead and closing off that pipe)
- Pull out and discard tub (also involves removing and covering drain into floor)
- Have insurance assessor look at damage and determine if it's going to be covered by insurance
- Cut away water-damaged drywall in garage ceiling
- Put in new insulation and replace drywall.
- Potential repair/replacement of subflooring in bathroom
- Potential refinishing of cabinets
- Sand, stain, buff, and poly cabinets, doors, and drawers
- Build risers to increase height of cabinets
- Buy new counter tops and faucets for cabinets
- Move sink plumbing on both sides to accomdate taller cabinets
- Move, replace, or cut down mirror to accomodate new taller cabinets
- Replace layer of plywood on subfloor, sealing together with Liquid Nails

- Install Hardi Backer over floor plywood with mortar and screws
- Install new tile
- Grout new tile
- Fix pipes below floor level for toilet
- Replace toilet flange and put in new toilet
- Removal of current counters and cabinets
- Removal of hardware (towel rack, light plates, etc.)
- Spray paint bathroom hardware to brushed nickel
- Buy new globes to cover bathroom lightbulbs
- Spray paint light fixtures to brushed nickel
- Spray paint cabinet hardward brushed nickel
- Clean ceiling to prepare to paint
- Repaint bathroom ceiling and walls
- Move existing drain and pipes for bathtub to accomodate new height of tub

-Move showerhead up 6"
- Build support box for tub to sit in
- Installation of new tub and surround
- Buy and install new waterproof drywall for shower surround
- Tile new shower surround
- Tile front of tub- Hook up plumbing to bath and shower
- Paint room- Reinstall fixtures on walls
- Reinstall bathroom lights
- Installation of cabinets (either refinished old ones with risers or new ones)- Paint and install new baseboards OR use tile as baseboard
- Installation of countertops (either current one or new)
- Put in new faucets
- Add new shower curtain and bath mats and toilet paper roll
- Look into storage options in room
See?!?!?! Almost there!!!!! I can't wait until we're done because while the coup de gras for my husband was shitting a mere 15 feet from his bed, for me it will be the first long bath in that nice new tub!

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