Braaaaaaaains

Unfortunately, we're both ridiculously tired, but at least our goals were accomplished this weekend. Walls are painted, floor, shower floor, and shower walls are grouted. Grout is a pain. Grout is even worse on a vertical surface. I don't get it. Why do people tile? This is dumb.

At least I totally understand plastic shower surrounds now.

Tomorrow should be de-hazing the grout from the tile and potentially sealing the grout on the floors, and if all goes well, drilling holes in the top of the vanity for the sink and faucet.

I should also probably get around to wiring up switches, but I have no idea.

Sleep.

Please stop the ride from spinning

We're entering the weekend, but enough changed that I wanted to give some element of "before".

This week, we (and by we, I mean mostly my wife), finished setting the tile in the bathroom. My job was mostly "cutting the tile" and "retrieving crap from somewhere else" and once in a while, "mixing more !@#$ thinset".

The plumber called back and should be able to finish off fixtures before our friends arrive next week. The electrician was wishy-washy, so I bought some supplies at the local big box home improvement store just in case I feel like getting electrocuted this weekend.

So, this weekend? Grout, grout, grout, paint, stare at vanity in wonder and fear. More updates soon.

I am so sick of mixing thinset

Seriously. So sick of mixing thinset. And, you know, the rest of this tiling thing. :P

Another quick update. Thursday, we started laying down the shower floor tile, and made it through the pieces that didn't require cutting. This weekend, we finished with the cut pieces, finished the bottom row of the shower wall tile, and put down all of the floor tile that didn't require cutting. Tonight, I will be cutting the remainder of that tile, and scrubbing the shower walls to get ready to seal them before grouting.

This week is a mixed bag due to work and other commitments, but at some point this week, I will be putting down that cut tile, and hopefully, measuring/cutting/placing the tile on the shower curb. Hopefully, the plumber calls back, too, as I'm not really looking to get something to cut copper pipe. At least I'd feel okay if the electrician couldn't make it out.

Slow going, and going slow

Augh. This is slower going than we thought, and the lack of motivation on our part isn't helping anything at all.

This weekend, we finished tiling the two side walls of the shower, as well as set up the border trim on the edges of the shower. In the middle of it, we had to make some runs to the tile shop and the local home improvement store, and dodge some rain in the meantime.

We are running behind, so we'll have to make up some time somewhere else. I'm not sure we've cleaned the house in two weeks. :\ Hopefully we can still get finished in time...

One almost down

Last weekend, I wrote about getting everything primed, and laying out the tile. That did, in fact, happen, but no pictures were really required, so no post was made. The ceiling was painted with a semi-gloss white to help keep moisture down, two coats of primer were put down, and my wife did layouts of tile for the three shower walls. I then spent Sunday night applying Goo Gone to my arms and face.

Good times.

This weekend's work was delayed due to a couple of mistakes. We bought a corded drill to connect our thinset mixing bar to, but didn't buy one with a big enough chuck. I tested the drill this week, but didn't try to connect the two until the day of reckoning. I didn't fiber tape and thinset the seams between the backerboards yet, so that had to be done and dried before we started. We also didn't silicone caulk the gaps between the glass block window and the backerboard, either, and that had to be done. So, Saturday was filled with trips to Home Depot and Ace Hardware, combined with completing those activities, and fitting base boards to start tiling from. Luckily, that went pretty well, and it was a nice, sunny day on top of it.

Sunday was then reserved to tile. Naturally, it was cloudy and raining off and on. :) A couple of the newer pitfalls is realizing that our slate-ish tile vary not only in thickness but up to 1/4" in height and/or width. The other fun part was the huge slope due to our 1.5 story house making tile cutting fun AND awesome. At least we killed one tile saw blade. The unfortunate part is that by the time we were hitting the last pieces, we lost our source of light, so the wall is still down two pieces.

I'm tired. More tonight!

Little Lessons Along the Way

I learned something new today. Always read the instructions, even if you think you know what you're doing. Today, we used some high strength oil-based Kilz to prime the ceiling of the bathroom. As it always is when rolling or brushing stuff on the wall or ceiling, the primer ended up in hair, on hands, or on face. The thing we didn't realize is that when using Kilz, you should have gloves, goggles, whatever else on, because otherwise, it is not coming off. That was fun.

Pro tip: Goo Gone works wonders on Kilz that is permanently attached to skin.

Anyway, sheet rock was taped, and we primed the walls and ceiling today. Looks even more like a room now. Tomorrow, ceiling gets painted, and we finish laying out the tile. My wife has a plan!

More updates as they come.

P.S.: My wife just commented that my last line regarding her having a plan means that I have an out if it doesn't work out. That's not the case. That's just my acknowledgement that I wasn't happy doing the task, so she took it up.

Also, if it doesn't work, it's totes her fault.

Oh, look, the bathroom is still not done.

I questioned even making a post here, since it's almost embarrassing. The last entry talked about how it had been nearly a year since starting the project, and now it's April of 2013, and there still isn't a bathroom. After fighting with trying to get a shower pan in and so on, we distracted ourselves into a different project. I mentioned that we learned last time that we either need to do everything ourselves or hire out, and so...

We hired out for a nearly completely new kitchen. The only work we did ourselves was pulling crap down or putting up insulation, and the only things we kept were the lighting, some of the handles, and the refrigerator. It went well.


From this...

To this...

So, once that was completed, we had to pay attention to the bathroom again.

I finished adding studs to the new holes in the wall, the ones that used to be a giant attic door, and the old shelving. Fun fact -- the roof vents to the attic didn't go to the attic, they went behind the shelving box. Behind the shelving box was about 4 inches of clearance, and then more insulation. So, at some point, many many years ago, birds nested in there. I'm sure the owners at the time heard them. So they capped the vent. That was fun to discover when pulling out the shelving box. At least it had been many, many years.

Anyway.

We got someone to do the shower pan.

After a bunch of cleanup, we then got someone to sheetrock. They also put up the tile board at the same time, since it was easier to just get them aligned.

Taping is happening tomorrow (likely through Wednesday). With any luck, this weekend, we prime the walls and lay out the tile. Weekend after that, we'll tile the shower. Weekend after that, we tile the floor.

Hopefully.

Just have to be finished by mid-May. :)