Tile and Grout and Paint! Oh My!

I got the bathroom painted a while back, sometime around late March or early April. I really don't remember exactly when. Then we were ready to pick out tile and get going with that step. I went to Home Depot and took their little tile class and convinced myself that I could do it. First step was prep. We cleaned up the floor and tried to level it. We failed miserably, but called it good enough and moved on.
While avoiding the tile job, I painted the wall on the other side of the bathroom. Guy had taken a paint chip to Home Depot to match the color. That is something that I will never do again. After the paint dried, it was clear that the paint didn't match and the other two walls would need to be painted too. Luckily, I liked the new color or else I would have picked out a whole new color and started over.

See the difference? Awful, huh?

This room doubled as our work space during the project.

On August 27th, we finally laid the tile. Courtney was nice enough to come over and help since Guy and I were both afraid that we would somehow mess it up. Guy and I had previously cut all the tiles and labeled all of them so we knew exactly where everything would go. This really helped things go quickly. Then, on Tuesday night, Guy and I did the grout. We watched a few YouTube videos and then dove right in. It was very tedious work, and we finally finished up just before midnight. I love how it turned out. I still need to do the baseboard tiles, but I want to get the vanity in first. And that should happen after I seal the grout.

Guy also started installing the lighting this past weekend. It sure does make the bathroom bright. I told him that the girls will really appreciate it when they are teenagers and spend the majority of their morning in front of the mirror getting ready for their day.

Slowly, but surely, the bathroom is coming along. If we can just keep up the momentum, it might just be done by Christmas. That would be the best present ever!

Bathroom Happenings

There is actual progress in the bathroom and things are starting to take shape. It is so fun to see it all come together. Little by little, a few nights at a time, Guy got all the sheet rock up. I even helped with a few of the pieces, like the ceiling. That was fun since I was 8 1/2 months pregnant.

Next step was mud and tape. Guy had his friend Michael come over and help with this part on President's day. I was busy painting Elliot's room so I didn't get any action shots. Guy and I each had very productive days that day because my mom took the kids for a sleep over. Poor Micah was a little bit neglected while the two of us worked like crazy.

We also did mud and tape on the new wall, which is the other side of the bathroom. Guy had moved the light to be centered in the room so we also had to patch the ceiling. After sanding, Guy and I primed the wall and the patches on the ceiling. Now it is ready for paint. The only problem is that I don't think we saved the extra paint for that room. So, the question is, do we try and match it or just paint the whole room? I think that we might have to paint the entire ceiling for the same reason.

The bathroom is all sanded too and it is ready for primer and paint. If only I could find the time (and energy) to do it.

Insulation

Guy has been hard at work lately working on the bathroom. It has been a long time since much has been done in the bathroom so this is a great accomplishment. For a while (a really long while), Guy was stumped because of the heating duct that we wanted to put it. He thought that we would have to hire someone to do it, but then he found a way to do it himself. Hooray!

The next thing to do was insulation. I know what you are going to say...Why insulate such a small space when the rest of the basement doesn't even have insulation? Well, here is my thinking on the matter. It's not often that you have a room torn down to the studs so you may as well go the extra mile when you do. And, this new bathroom is right off the family room so a little bit of sound deadening will be well worth it. I am already loving the insulation. When the toilets are flushed upstairs, you would never know it if you are sitting downstairs. Also, the furnace room (right next door) has been silenced. Such a wonderful noise.

Whenever I helped Guy with the insulation, I couldn't help but start singing "Overkill" by Men at Work. It became my little theme song.

See that sheet of green? Yup, sheet rock is next. There is hope for this bathroom yet.

I'm excited about sheet-rock!

This past weekend, Guy did something to our little bathroom project. I get so excited about the little things in life and now I am excited about sheet-rock! Our bathroom is actually starting to become enclosed. It is almost weird to see it like that. Hopefully soon we can get an electrician to come out and ok all the wiring. After we get the electrician's blessing, we can put insulation in and then more sheet-rock in the bathroom.


Guy also decided to post a classified ad to sell the old vanity, sink and medicine cabinet. I was not optimistic that we would get any bites on it but I was wrong. The ad was up for less than an hour and we got two calls on it and everything was out of the house an hour after that. Amazing! I love on-line classifieds!

Electrical

Guy was a little disappointed that my last post didn't mention anything about the electrical work that he had done in the bathroom. So, this is for you Guy.

Guy moved the playroom light from here...

to here.

Wiring for the light in the center of the bathroom.

Light switch, outlets, and a new light over the vanity.

Bathroom progress?

Some of you may be wondering what kind of progress has been happening on our bathroom relocation in the basement. Well, things are going slow. Demolition began back in January 2008 and I thought that we were done with that. But then we noticed that the area of sheet rock that covered the duct work was sloping and we wouldn't be able to tie into it without ripping it all out and doing it right. So, this is setting us back.

A while back, Guy's friend Courtney came over and helped him pour concrete to fill the holes where we put in new plumbing. We also bought a toilet, vanity, counter top, sink and mirror that are ready to be installed. The original deadline for this project was when Elliot was born. Then I moved it to June 1 and I told Guy that I would be hiring a contractor. Obviously, I haven't done that yet. We have a good friend that is willing to help Guy with the sheet rock when he is ready which should be soon. (We'll see about that.) After that, it should be easy to do some painting and tile work and a few finishing touches. Maybe it will be done by Christmas this year...when Elliot is a year old.

New Plumbing...New Tub

Our wonderful plumber came over last week to install new drains and water lines for our tub, toilet and sink in our future bathroom. He also capped off the old shower and toilet drains and water lines to the shower and sink in the old bathroom. And then we figured that as long as he was there, we had him replace a section of pipe that lead out to the faucet outside that looked twisted and pinched and made it so when the water was on outside, it was really annoyingly loud in the basement. The first time that we had the sprinklers on after that, I was shocked to hear nothingness! Guy could do a much better job than I could explaining what was happening as the water was being forced from a large section of pipe to a smaller section...so I won't even try. All I know is that it was really noisy and annoying.

Last day of nothingness

It's official. Our plumber is coming out tomorrow to start adding pipes, drains and even a tub to our basement bathroom. This has been quite the project and it has often been put on the back burner, especially during the summer since vacations are a lot more fun than remodeling. But I told Guy that there is a deadline on this project and we need to get it done. Last week, our plumber came over to make sure that our holes were dug deep enough so that he could tie onto the existing pipes. After getting that ok, we scheduled him to come on Tuesday and Guy got a little bit more demo done (like pulling down the ceiling sheet rock and moving a 2x6 that was in the way of the new shower pipes and valve). I am so excited that the project is starting to move forward again. And hopefully, little by little, we will be done (or at least mostly done) by Christmas.

Breaking Concrete

I could have titled this post "My Wonderful Husband" because that really says it all. Right after work yesterday, Guy rented a jack hammer to start some major concrete breaking for our relocated bathroom. He worked on it until about 9:30 last night and then took a break until 9:00 this morning. From 9:00 until noon, he worked on finishing the holes in the basement which now include one for the new tub, one for the new toilet, one to cap off the old toilet, and one to cap off the drain for the old shower. What a job and what a ton of concrete!

After lunch he moved outside to break up a concrete pad on the side of our garage that had sunk about 2-3" and it really needed to go. We think that there were some drainage issues that caused a big sink hole for the concrete to fall into. I told him this must be our can of worms that we are opening with all our construction. Hopefully, we will be able to fix it right so that it doesn't happen again.

Progress on the Bathroom

Yesterday was a very busy day at our house. Guy was busy all day working on the bathroom and I worked out in the flower bed ripping out black plastic that is supposed to prevent weeds but wasn't working for us.

First for the bathroom. Guy has been trying a few different tricks to break through the concrete (most involving a sledge hammer) but nothing has worked too well. So, we are planning on renting a jack hammer to do the tough work but Guy wanted to get some dirty work done by cutting the concrete with a diamond blade to outline where the jack hammer would be doing its work. Another thing that needed to be done to make jack hammering easier was to do more demo on the old bathroom. We got the toilet out of there and took the shower door off the shower but then Guy discovered that the shower insert wouldn't fit through the door to get it out of there. So, he put his handy Saws-All to work and cut the shower into 5 pieces. I think that was about his favorite part of the day. He also tore off some sheet rock and some of the old linoleum.

Demoing the old shower.

The beginnings of a hole in the concrete.

Guy with premature grey (or maybe just a lot of concrete dust).

I spent a couple of hours out in the dirt to try and prepare my flower bed for flowers. Before we moved in, the previous owners did a quick fix in the flower bed and just covered it with black plastic and then 1"-5" of dirt. The biggest problem though is that there is a giant morning glory infestation under the plastic that is constantly breaking through. There were also some tulip bulbs under the plastic that have been able to find their way up. I figured that I would never be able to get a handle on the morning glory until the plastic was gone. Now I'm a third of the way done and I'm hoping for good weather so that I can finish this week and then get some flowers planted.

Let the demolition begin!

For the last 6 months or so, we have been talking about doing some remodeling in our basement. The bathroom is shoved into the same room as the furnace and the water heater and it is not very functional. The water to the toilet has been shut off since before we even moved in so we have never used it. Here is what it looked like when we bought the house.

For a while, we thought about all the ways that we could make that bathroom work. But in the end, we realized that if we wanted a bathroom that was big enough to turn around in, we would have to relocate the bathroom. Luckily, our family room is very large and so we are just going to take a chunk out of it for our new bathroom. For the most part, we are just fliping everything around 180 degrees. In the process, we have gotten three different bids. The first was from a general non-licensed handy man who could do everything for about $3000. The next was from a general contractor who would do all the work for $8000. Finally, I discovered that we have a licensed plumber in our ward that can do all the plumbing work, including a new tub and toilet, for around $1000. We will be doing a lot of labor ourselves but it will save us a lot of money in the long run. I am really excited to be on the road to getting a working, functional bathroom in our basement. Last night, Guy started punching out the sheet rock to prepare the space. The carpet was torn up before we moved in so that is one less thing that we have to do. Next, Guy will be cutting holes in the concrete so that the plumber can come back and make new drains for everything and run all the new water lines.