Laurie's World

Oops–forgot to put up some pictures of the finished BR! Just a couple odds and sodds to finish up (putting thresholds on the 2 doors, putting the closet door back on, touch up ceiling paint where I nicked it with the wall paint, paint corners in skylight, tiny bit of caulking around tub TBD) You know I can never be totally done anything. There is still one cover plate to get out on the kitchen too  ; )

I know Troy loves the new bathroom–but he is very excited about the new grown up foray into REAL bathmats. See how the little things can become such wonders??

Can you believe it?? After much blood, sweat and tears–the tiling is done. Yes, there WAS blood and sweat and sort of tears. I know that the grouting will not be a picnic–but what a joy to know the tiling part is done.

Here are the pictures of the tub area…I gotta tell you–I thought this would take me a couple of hours and I had all kinds of plans for all the other things that I was going to try to get to today–including working on refurbing the shower doors, maybe hanging some towel bars. BUT, this tub area took just over 6 hours. Lots of cuts–and the design consultant and myself decided that a slate listello would look nice (to “tie it in with the shower”). SO that took some extra time to put in. That and all these tiles needed to be trimmed and the corners mitered etc etc etc.

The spacers are all still in there–and I was out of steam so have not wiped up the mess yet or cleaned the thinset off the tiles–but this gives you an idea at any rate!!

OK—so it was my plan to be all done the tiling on Thursday or Friday and to be grouting today or tomorrow–but for some reason I am behind schedule and am still tiling. Hmmm…

BUT–I really AM close to being done…I tackled the tub today–I am proud of my progress…got all this done AND a trip to the Lowes for more tile  : ) I was going to use 12x12s–but after consulting with my design expert (the one in the family that can “visualize” imaginary  things)…we decided to go this route–I suspect his “vision” was correct  : )

So I had to go down to Bellevue and exchange the 12x12s for 6x6s–that is OK, my back needed a break anyway…

It is crazy that this does not look like much–but it took me pretty much all day!! There were a lot of cuts and the angled pieces on the step were a challenge as they are totally visible against the wall–no baseboard to cover up awkward cuts…

and the view from the privvy…check out my new heat register : )

So tomorrow I put the wall tiles up around the tub and then I am done!! Except for the grouting as Jackie just reminded me. I am planning on using the 6x6s on the walls, just like the steps, with the decorative 4×4 inlays…Yeah–those were fun too!!!

Spent the last few days getting the tile down in the bathroom. I am pretty pleased with how it is going…here are some pictures! I have to do around the tub and the step to the tub, one corner with the heat register, and the outside of the curb of the shower…SO CLOSE!

Finished demoing the tile off the tub steps and cleaned that up and then decided no time like the present to get that backerboard down. As much as we like the beat up dusty plywood look  : )

Now anyone who has ever used cement backer board can attest to its very heavy weight and messy awkward installation…so…Instead of using the traditional wonderboard or cement backerboard, I used a product that I found at Home Depot. It cost $100 for the amount I needed instead of about $60 for the cement products…but it seemed worth the additional cost when I realized that I could carry two rolls of it PLUS my coffee with no trouble…Hahaha

It is called EasyMat^® Tile & Stone Underlayment. In theory you just unroll it and cut it to fit and then peel off the back and stick it down. There is an optional step you can take (which I did since I am all about the “proper technique”). They provide a couple bottles of something called a preprimer which you just paint on the floor and let dry for 30 minutes and then presto–your mat will stick like glue. So once I got all my pieces cut–I got it stuck down. It looks pretty good…I will take a picture before I start laying tile so show it.

Thanks to BK helping me out…We were able to get the whole floor cleaned up and all the mastic scraped off by Friday night…It is looking good and ready for new backerboard–wahoo

OK…so I am starting to wonder when I will learn??? I have done some crazy things in my life–but deciding to demo the floor in the master bath has to be one the most difficult and insane things EVER! After doing much research into the different methods to tackle this problem–the consensus was, that the easiest way would be to rent a hammer chisel and to chip out the tile. Sounds simple right. Well, it basically comes down to kneeling on the floor, and jackhammering the floor out two inches at a time. The concrete “wonderboard” underneath crumbles into a dusty mess…the wonderboard is nailed down in addition to being glued to the subfloor with thinset. So I am about 80% finished removing the tile (only) and I invested 7 hours in this yesterday. SO today I have to finish the tile removal, around the toilet, the closet and the tub steps. Then I have to tear up the wonderboard–this is be equally horrible I am sure–more on this to follow after I complete the task.

This the view from the window end of thebathrooom…you can see my fancy tool. Those who know me, know I like a nice power tool as much or more than the next guy…BUT this one was really only fun for less than four minutes.

So WAHOO! I finished the shower tiling today…Long Day! I am very SURE I do not want to ever tile a shower again…

Here are some pictures. I have to wait a couple days and then I can grout. I suspect that I will NOT grout until I get the floor done…and then grout the whole thing at once…but who knows?? I may just need a change of activity to keep things fun  : )

So due to Rachael’s state meet yesterday–I did not get much tiling done–BUT today…I was able to get quite a bit done! Had a few hiccups…

Early on in the day–I dropped a tile and broke 2 of the little 2×2 floor tiles–so now I have to fix them–it could have been worse I suppose!! I do not know WHAT I was thinking making the decision to tile anything on the diagonal…I totally forgot how horrible and difficult this is. Anyway–all the cuts take 100 times longer. I also am putting in my little corner shampoo shelves. The first two were not too bad to install as they went in on the tiles that were on the horizontal. The third one was a great deal more challenging.  Maybe you can see in the pictures…

So other than hooking up the waste lines under the sinks (‘cuz I threw out some of the parts by accident–OOPS!) The counter area is complete–WAHOO!

Here are some pix..

The shower is also coming along. I got the floor in last weekend–then have been plodding away at getting the walls in. I do roughly a row a day…although today, I only got as far as putting in my first corner shampoo shelf (yes that is what it is called).  The debate rages on as to whether a soap dish is a good idea…we will see  : )