Master Bathroom Renovation, the Pictures.

Our new view from the master bedroom.

Restained vanities (Minwax Dark Walnut), new counters (American Standard Newbern from Home Depot) with new faucets (Glacier Bay from Home Depot), new towels (Target Home Blue Crab bath sheets and Target Home Trout Stream hand towels). The mirror is the same one we had before, but we raised it up about 4 inches to acommodate the higher vanities. 

The refinished light fixtures = love. In the corner here you can see our toothbrush holder, which is an old Ball jar. We have a ton of these, all from back before the 1950s. My grandparents live on a very old property in nothern LA and one year Grandpa found hundreds of old glass containers buried at the far end of their back yard. He saved them in a shed, and when he died my Grandma wanted to clean the shed so she asked us to take whatever we wanted. We have a few dozen really cool and unique old glass jars and containers, and I loved how this one fit in here.

The ceiling, door, and trim were all painted Behr Bright White in high gloss. I love bright white high gloss.

This is where the shower wall meets the door. We decided to tile all the way over to the door just in case water gets outside of the curtain. Better waterproof than sorry. You'll also notice I didn't do the best job every painting those door hinges. I like this picture because it's a good close up of the grout and the accent tile AND the paint color. The grout was my husband's choice and I threw a FIT about it because it's GRAY and I wanted WHITE. And it was the hugest pain in the entire bathroom, in part beause it was epoxy grout which is notoriously difficult to work with and in part because gray on white meant we had to be meticulous or mistakes would show.

When all was said and done, I still wished we'd bought white but I actually don't hate the gray. It brings a little more life into the shower and ties into the new faucets, light fixtures, and other accessories. The color is Delorean Gray from Custom Building Products at Home Depot. The link looks a lot darker and bluer than it does in real life. It's a pretty true mid-gray in person.

Those accent tiles are their own story. Originally we bought the small green tiles with the idea of making a row of them and then doing some equally-spaced square tiles above, tilted on an angle so they are diamonds and not squares. We picked up about 10 of the tiles you see above, which were actually square before I 'customized' them by cutting them into subway tile shape. The tiles were on clearance, and we bought the 10 the store had expecting it to be enough and then it took several weeks to get to the place where we wanted to start the accents. Once we had the row of small green tiles in place, I nixed placing the squares on an angle. Honestly? It felt very sparse and outdated to me. I wanted something more one-of-a-kind.

I ended up sitting on it for a few more weeks as we slowly added a few rows of white at a time. When I couldn't sit on it any longer, I knew I had to make a decision. I spent several hours measuring out spacing and taping tiles to the Hardiebacker with painters tape to see if I liked the look. I hated every combination I could create with those square tiles, but I LOVED the tiles. So I decided I needed MORE and then I could do something different with them. We went to 3 Home Depots with no luck. At the last one, a really nice lady offered to ask her manager if we could buy the samples that were grouted to a sample board and hung on the wall. Assuming we could remove all the tiles on there and they would be useful, we'd have 9 more tiles. She took my number but I never thought I'd hear from her again.

Two days later, she called. She couldn't sell me the floor sample, but she had located 14 more tiles someone had returned, now on clearance for $0.74 each. Did I want them? I did, but after inspecting them a bit and discovering some had been placed and grouted, then removed from the grout and cleaned to return (and thus had some damage) we ended up with 11 of them.

I took them home and started playing around with configurations and landed on the one above. I cut each tile in half (face down is the best way, as it reduced chipping) and laid them out and it was a perfect fit in terms of the number of tiles we had exactly matching what was needed.

Once I had the tiles all in place, I hated the two horizontal accent lines. I sat on this for over a month not wanting to grout it into place because grout would make it feel permanent and I was sure I was going to hate it.

And then one day, I looked in the bathroom and fell in love. I love the colors. I love that it's totally 'us'. I love that there is no bathroom in the world exactly like ours. I was sold.

And above we have Exhibit 2 of the My Husband Is Right Sometimes Too. I came home from work one day to find this shower curtain laying across our bed, attached to that new shower curtain rod (both from Target) and I was annoyed. I had this image in my mind of a white, bright shower curtain and here was THIS thing with stripes...and a few true blue stripes at that. Our bathroom is decidedly NOT true blue. I immediately revolted, moaning about how it was sure to not match and it was too blue and why did HE get to pick it out and and and...he told me as gently as possible that he loved it and wanted me to see it in place before judging. SURE it would be a horrible fit, I smugly agreed.

And he was right. Would it have been MY first pick? No. Not even now, knowing it looks good in there. But is marriage about ME getting MY first pick all the time? No. Only MOST of the time. ;)

The shower curtain is Target Home Aquamarine, and the floor rugs are Target Home in Trout Stream.

And then there is the wall color. The wall color was tricky in that we had green and blue and white and gray happening in here and figuring out the best match was tough. We had a bajillion samples and then one day the whole family went to Home Depot and looked together. My husband found a few he liked and we were comparing them to some tile samples we had from home and feeling like any of them COULD work, but none of them were super exciting.

I had grabbed a Martha Stewart Metallics collection sample or two before, loving the silver and pearl colors. Darrick wasn't too into either of those, but I found myself gravitating to that section again and suddenly grabbed a new color and added it to the mix of samples we were debating. It was an immediate winner for us both so we bought it and never looked back.

The color is Martha Stewart Metallics Tide Pool, and it's heaven on earth. The trick with this paint is that you have to follow their directions and not give up after one coat. Because after one coat, it was streaky and really green in most lights, though it photographed decidedly bright turqoise.

After a second coat, however, it looks amazing! You have to use a lot of paint (this bathroom is maybe 12'x12' and we used nearly a full gallon) and be patient and meticulous, but it's 100 billion majillion times worth the effort. As you could see above, it picks up some of those blues in the accent tiles in the shower. It also goes well with the green tiles, which have a bit of a mother-of-pearl sheen themselves in some lights. And it changes quite a bit depending on your angle and the type and brightness of light in the room, from definitively blue to aqua to teal to a sea glass color. The sheen is subtle (think a pearl finish rather than a reflective metallic) which I think is perfect on textured bathroom walls in a smallish room. All in all, I am in LOVE with this paint.

So there you have it. The master bathroom renovation in pictures and lots of words. I have plans to put all the details and costs together, more for my own curiosity than anything else. Ballpark, given the amount of work we did ourselves and how much we managed to reuse rather than replace, I think we spent about $1800-2000 from start to finish: ripping down to studs and subfloors and building back up again. No matter what we spent, however, the fact is simple: we LOVE this bathroom and it was a major accomplishment for us all around!

Master Bathroom Renovation, the Steps.

We still have one small step left, but it's not an essential one so I am calling this bathroom renovation complete.

Do you have any idea how AMAZING it feels to say that????

Let me rewind. When we bought our house, the bathroom looked like this:

I'll be honest and say I never LOVED it, but it didn't really bother me. On our list when house hunting was a big tub we could soak in, and this bathroom had it. It also had saltillo to match that in the other bathroom and downstairs. I always found it odd that the previous owners painted a dark brown set of stripes on that one wall and put in oil rubbed bronze fixtures while leaving the sink and shower faucets builder silver and the vanities honey brown. But all in all it was an en-suite master bathroom with a big tub and I didn't HATE it, so I made do. Truth be told, on the list of home updates and renovations I wanted to get done, this wasn't even ranked.

And then, on New Year's Day 2012, I gave the kids and bath and a few minutes after the tub had drained Darrick went into the garage to get something and saw water dripping from the garage ceiling, right below the bathroom.



So began our first ever complete bathroom renovation. We've done tile and paint and replacing faucets and fixtures before, but never a complete strip down (to the studs in some places) and rebuild.

The first step turned out to be removing the tile because it sat in front of the tub apron so it had to come out for the tub to be removed.

Once the tile was out, we pulled off the surround walls, and then we were able to pull the tub out with no effort at all.

Which is a big, fat lie. That tub was a complete pain to remove, resulting in me frantically going to get the jack for my car to try to lift one end while my husband Hulk smashed the sucker out.

And we started the process of removing the long countertop that bridged the two vanities. I loved that space below the counters when we first moved in, dreaming of uses for it. But eventually it had turned into a big gaping place for trash, empty toilet paper rolls, and dirty clothes to pile up and be ignored. So we had to remove the backspash and decide what to do with the counter and vanities.

After debating various ways to remove it in an effort not to destroy it so that hopefully it could be sold on Craigslist or donated to the ReStore, we realized we couldn't remove it without it being damaged. So it got the sledgehammer treatment just like the tub had.

This same weekend, we pretty much gutted the tub and shower area and started the work of fixing the plumbing. We still naively thought we'd be able to fix that, pop in a tub, tile, paint, and be done. We're so cute when we're naive.

This is also when I decided for sure to stain the vanities darker. Our original plan was to remove the doors and drawer fronts and leave the vanities in place, but we later changed our minds and removed them to build a base that would make them higher.

I also decided at this point to refinish the lights and fixtures in brushed nickel, since I'm not really an oil-rubbed bronze kind of girl. I still think it's one of the best choices we made, in addition to changing out the globes to lighter ones.



This was also the timeframe when we bought our tub (Habitat for Humanity ReStore purchase, new in the box) and started to prep the tub and shower area by moving the showerhead up about 6 inches and putting up Hardiebacker.

Then FINALLY we had the tub in, Hardiebacker up, and we were ready to start tiling the shower surround. This was a weeks-long process as we did it when we had a few hours here or there and it required a lot of care.

In the meantime, Darrick cut out some old rotted subfloor, replaced it, fixed the pipes below the floor that go to the toilet, and figured out that subflooring on a second floor bathroom means several layers.

And then, we had a tile floor!

Pretty soon, we had shower tile done and faucets put back in place, and then it was time to choose paint and install a new toilet and pick out accessories.

Finally, we installed tile base'boards' and painted the ceiling, door and trim pure bright white last weekend. And this weekend? A final coat of paint, fixtures re-hung, accessories in place! Unbelievably, we're done enough to call it done!

Yes, there are more pictures. And more details, including paint color and accessory information and a cost breakdown. But for today, there's this huge rundown of all we accomplished in the past 6 months and a feeling of complete joy.

Little Checkmarks.

We are officially at the 'Devil is in the Details' phase of this bathroom remodel. And you know how everyone has those people in their life who geek out about the minute details and then those people who love the big picture? I'm definitely more naturally a big picture girl, and then I lose steam on the details. It's not that I don't like details. In fact, I've bee known to get a bit on the obsessive side about certain details, running down a rabbit hole faster than Alice on 'shrooms.

But with this bathroom? The details are KILLING me, man. It's not the design details or even the construction details. It's the little crap on the to-do list that you just keep putting off until it can be put off no more.

We attended to some of those this weekend, with consensus between the both of us when Sunday night rolled around that you could hardly tell what we'd done. I mean, WE knew, but it was all stuff no one else was likely to ever notice. Even the BIG project we undertook looks fabulous but also blends in so seamlessly that you'd think it had always been there:

You see them? I call them tile baseboards, though technically that name is a misnomer since clearly they are made of tile, thus NOT boards at all. Either way, there they are and it feels like the always were. It's important to note that these pictures were taken while the grout was still wet, so it actually dried to match the grout on the floor surfaces perfectly. Which is pure kissmet, seeing as how my husband couldn't find the same exact color in regular grout, only in epoxy which he in no uncertain terms informed me he would rather staple his balls to his thigh than use for this project, so it was pure luck that he found something that ended up so damn close to perfect.

The dirty details on installing this aren't that impressive. We had a full box of floor tiles left, so we simply used the tile saw to cut them into thirds. My mother in law, the detailiest of all details people, came over to help and used the same goop behind these tiles as we used for the shower walls. She cleaned the floors really, really well and then matched the tiles up so the grout lines would perfectly mirror those on the floor. Buttered the back, stuck them in place, and used spacers under the tiles and between each one to properly place them. After the full width pieces were done, we marked all the cuts and placed those. About an hour after she finished, we went back through with the grout. She filled it in and my husband and I took turns cleaning it off the tile surfaces and cleaning the grout lines and that grout up top. Our goal was to make it as smooth as possible and to keep the heigh consistent where we could. On the walls, the top of the grout will be covered with paint. Should we decide we need to on the vanity fronts and sides we can cover the grout with matching silicon.

This area right here is between the two vanities and will have some sort of shelving filling it with a space for a laundry hamper and possibly a trash can. The sides of the vanities need to be cleaned up a bit, and the walls are all getting another coat of paint hopefully during the week.

Why did we decide to use tile instead of wood? A few reasons. One, we had the tile already. Two, it is much more waterproof (obvs.) than wood in case we ever have a leak or flood up here. And three, it is a better physical barrier against bugs. This bathroom is upstairs, so bugs have never been a problem. Other than that ASSHOLE scorpion I found in the tub once. True story: I'd been tiling the shower walls for little snippets of time for several days. I had a towel down on the floor of the tub and a stepladder in there for the high places. The day I was done, I moved the towel out and there, under the towel I'd been on barefoot for probably 10+ hours total was a dead scorpion. Meaning that jerk had been ALIVE in that tub at some point and probably been squished to death. ::shiver::

The other question might be why we decided to tile in front and on the sides of the vanities. We'd considered skipping that, but we thought it looked cleaner to do it there. Plus, when we built the risers to make those vanities taller they looked really nice, but after moving them in and out of place several times and doing other work in there they started to look less pretty. We were going to find wood to put up around them, but honestly I liked the idea of tile everywhere and I didn't want to deal with cutting, sanding, and staining wood. So...laziness = why we did it this way.

Here's a picture that's pretty true to life in terms of color, except that the vanities are not black which they appear to be. But this is how the color of the walls (Martha Stewart Metallics Tide Pool) and tile looks in normal daylight. I am in LOVE with the color as it perfectly brings out the greens and blues in the shower accent tiles. It actually sort of changes color depending on the light, so sometimes when I photograph it, it is super green and other times it's super blue. Either way....LOVE. I read a lot of review online about this paint, but didn't find it to be nearly as much of a pain in the butt to use as others said. Maybe I got lucky? It does need a second coat, which I hope to accomplish this week. I also LOVE the new WHITE ceiling. It was 'builder white' before and had weird blotches that were yellowed like maybe someone enjoyed sitting on the pot and smoking cigarettes or something. Super gross. So now the ceiling, window sills and door/door frame are WHITE. I also spray painted the door handle to brushed nickle.

Anyhow. More pictures to come later when I get the paint done, put up fixtures like the towel bar and toilet paper holder, and lay down some pretty accessories.

Updated 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

Eek! (A Peek.)

I wasn't going to share pictures until all is said and done and my last to-do list items are checked off. But I'm a fool for photos, and this morning while the light was good I snapped a few. A sneak preview of the bathroom. I think I'm in love.

Bathroom Progress.

We are so very close to being done with the bathroom renovation that I don't want to get into a detailed or photo heavy post. Instead, just a quick update to the to-do list. If all goes as I expect, there will be pictures of everything completed to share in the next week!

- 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

Yep, all we have left to complete is the tile baseboards, a second coat of paint, putting the fixtures back, painting the ceiling, choosing storage for between the vanities, and buying accessories like new towels!

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:

From: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPJjpQBhn54V9Yn_5F0FQahsCtVC1YB4nWmWV428mCfE5nX3kriBM1Ejp0ClR-dT7m7as0d0pH1KnZj7pU1EVQjNCrHLufEy0zNYLJ3_iBiq_YNNOO_jUSbod6saM1cUMSWoiB7SMs3q1/s320/Color+Swatches.jpg

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

--------------------------------------------------

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!

Almost There.

Surround, continued.

The shower surround has been a slow process, to put it mildly. A few weeks ago, we started the tiling process, which included a line of glass tile with an iridescent finish.

That is probably the best picture I have  showing the accent tile color and finish. It's so pretty in person, but it's thrown a wrench in my plans!

In a rare moment of decisiveness a week ago, I grabbed a gallon of paint I loved in the store, but next to this it looked too blue.

In the store, the blues in the tiles were more present than they are in the bathroom itself, leaving me not liking the look of this paint next to the tile. The paint is much paler in the bathroom than it looks in this swatch, but it's still not working for me. So it's back the the drawing board with paint, and though my natural inclination is to go green, I also wonder if there's some other color out there that would make me change my mind. I worry that just going with green means the other hues in the tiles won't be picked up at all.

But before I can let myself go down the road of endless paint samples again, I have to finish the tiling. I'm happy to say, we're getting there.

Tiling is a slow process, and it's made slower by the fact that there are some cuts necessary on each row, meaning I can't tile when the kids are sleeping or at night, since the tile saw gets set up outside and it too loud to run at those times. Sadly for me, the first row we needed to lay down after installing the corner shower shelves involved several cuts, both around and above said shelves, so it was put of until today. The tiling process itself is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. It starts with using a putty knife to slap some of the adhesive on the area you're going to tile. I think of it like icing a cake, where you put a glob on and then spead and smooth it as needed.

Once it's up, you use a notched trowel to smooth it and create grooves. We 'back butter' our tiles, meaning we also put some of the adhesive on the tile's back to make sure it adheres.

Then you line that tile right up and stick it in place. It can be moved around or even taken off for a while, so in some cases I put down a few tiles, add those little spacers where needed, and shift things a bit here and there. This was the tile on the endcap of the wall separating the bathtub from the toilet area. We used bullnose tiles on the end of the wall as well as on the endcap for a nice smooth finish.

We also did some rows, which can go quite quickly when the cutting is minimal.

Spreading on the adhesive.

Using the trowel to make lines in it. (I later realized that going vertically with the lines was easier and created a smoother, more even surface. You want to have grooves, but you ideally want the thickness to remain about the same everywhere because the tile sort of sits on top of this - as opposed to being pressed firmly INTO it - and consistent application means the tiles all sit flush more easily.)

Placing and spacing the tiles. It's usually recommended to use a stair step pattern or do one complete row across at a time so you lessen the chances your tiles will end up crooked. I've tiled before, so I felt ok doing a few partial rows (avoiding cuts since this was at night) and then checking the vertical and horizontal lines every once in a while with a level.

You'll notice there are no spacers below the glass tiles. Once they set for a few hours, it's pretty safe to pull out the spacers and use them in a new row rather than buying enough spacers for every row to have them where needed. I leave any spacers that are holding a space that doesn't feel 100% secure to me as long as possible. You can't really see it here, but as you lay a row horizontally, you typically set the tile about where it goes, then set a spacer in the corner of the tile and the three around it (they are shaped like a + sign, so in those corners to just push the spacer right up between the 4 tiles rather than having it stick out like those you see here. You can see a better picture of what I mean at this link.)Then I put 1-2 spacers between the bottom of that tile and the top of the tile below it, and last I add 1 or 2 between the tile and the one next to it.

To remove the spacers laying float in the corner of 4 tiles, I take a small knife and slide it between the tiles, then pop out the spacer.

After a few more hours of work, I was here:

After this picture I took a long break to hang out with the family, then added 3 more rows. We're tiling to the ceiling, so there will be at least 4 more rows of white tile and possibly another accent row, though that's still up in the air.

I'm just happy it's starting to really come together now.