This is what HGTV never shows you. The reality of the home improvement process is dirty, ugly, and messy.
And, this picture is only the tip of the iceberg. 
Archive for the 'Home Improvement' Category
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In no particular order, here is a list of things we did to the Master Bathroom in Phase One of The Master Bathroom Remodel Project:
Out with the old:
- Tore out old tile on shower walls
- Took out old drywall
- Removed old insulation
- Ripped out old vinyl flooring
- Removed toilet
- Removed old shower base
- Disconnected shower drain
- Removed old shower doors
- Removed old shower valve
- Removed all hardware – shower, towel bars
- Removed old light fixture
- Removed old window sill
- Ripped up carpeting in front of sinks
- Removed all moldings
- Removed all doors
In with the new:
- Installed new cement backboard on floor in front of sink and in shower room
- Installed new cement backboard on walls
- Installed new insulation and moisture barrier
- Installed new shower valve
- Installed tile in shower
- Framed window with tile and installed new sill and apron
- Installed new shower base
- Installed a heated floor element and automatic temperature gauge/sensor
- Ran new wiring for heated floor element controls
- Tiled floor in shower room and in front of sinks
- Grouted all tile
- Installed new fan/light fixture
- Ran new wiring for fan/light fixture so that fan and light can be operated separately on dual-switch
- Vented new fan to the outside, through the attic
- Installed new exhaust vent on outside of house
- Sanded, repaired, primed and painted moldings
- Installed moldings
- Caulked all seams in shower, floor, moldings, around toilet, etc.
- Sanded, repaired, primed and painted doors
- Replaced hinges
- Re-hung and adjusted doors (via shim and chisel)
- Installed new door handles
- Skim-coated walls
- Sand out imperfections on walls
- Primed and painted walls
- Sanded, primed and repainted toilet lid/seat
- Re-installed toilet
- Mounted three new towel bars
- Installed curved shower curtain bar
- Installed new threshold between tile and carpet
- Installed new shower head
- Connected shower drain
And then the clean-up began. (If I have the time and/or energy to relive such a painful experience, I’ll share my adventures in tape removal from shower bases. Don’t ask. I’m not ready yet.)
And, there are probably ten more items on each list that my hubby did while I wasn’t looking.
So, when I say that Phase Two will be simple with its meager list of: “remove old counter/sinks, refinish cabinets, install new pulls, install new counter/sinks,” this is what I’m comparing it to! After Phase Two is completed (and believe me, I’ll document the progress on that as well), I’d like to take a break from remodeling projects until next summer. My hubby says he does too…but I can see the way he keeps eyeing the kitchen.
I am happy to report that we are *almost* officially done with the Master Bathroom Project!! You can check out all the posts regarding this project in the Home Improvement – Master Bath category, or by clicking here.
This last weekend, we rocked out and finished up Phase One. All we have left to do is clean it up so that we can utilize all the facilities and take pictures of the final product! (If you’ve ever done a remodeling project, you know how daunting the clean-up can be.) This means we’re so close to being able to use our shower again!! We were able to use the toilet this weekend, and I nearly fainted from excitement. In fact, on Saturday night, I forgot it was even available and used the one in the main bathroom down the hall. Silly me. 
Phase Two, a side-project we’d intended on waiting to accomplish, involves installing the new countertop/sinks and refinishing the cabinet. After all we’ve done, that will be a piece of cake. We’ll start Phase Two in a couple weeks. Phase One was the big boy of the project, and I’m so glad the end is in sight.
So, stay tuned for pictures of the final reveal!
Well, it’s like Christmas came early in our household this weekend. My hubby has been painstakingly researching and tracking new television sets for the last five years. Research of this magnitude is a long process for him. I think he thinks it’s half the fun. He’s also been talking about getting a new Xbox 360, so that he can play Guitar Heroes. (He already has an Xbox, but I’m told it’s just not the same.)
It’s not that we have a tiny or low-quality television now…it’s just not new. It’s not all the new technology the kids are raving about these days. Honestly, I don’t understand it all, but it makes him happy, so I try to understand. Really, I do.
So, we’re sitting at the kitchen table on Saturday eating lunch, and he’s looking at the laptop. He’s checking out all his deal-watcher sites. Suddenly, out of the blue, at one of the stores near us, he finds a random deal that includes one of the TVs he’s been eyeing and the Xbox 360 all for a really good price. Of course, the sale ends today! He was planning on buying them separately anyway, so if we can save money by buying them together, why not?
Santa admitted that my hubby had been such a good boy, that he didn’t have a problem coming a little early this year.
He had been doing some painting work in the bathroom and working on cutting and installing the moldings. So, he rushed around putting on “normal” clothes so that he could run to the store. He was entirely too excited to think straight. I was hoping they still had the TV he wanted in stock and that the deal was real…for his sake.
Sure enough, they did and it was! I don’t think his feet have touched the ground all weekend. Now, he’s so motivated to play with his new toys that he got a *lot* done on the bathroom on Sunday, and we may be close to putting on the final touches! (And it’s not like he was being a slacker before!)
Speaking of the bathroom project, he got all the moldings sanded, cut, installed and primed. He also got the exhaust vent cut in the side of the house and connected and all the electrical work done for the new fan/light. He also got the doors and door frames painted. It’s amazing how a little extra motivation will kick things into high gear…
We thought that moving the old television off the entertainment stand was going to be the most daunting of tasks, especially with my back…that and the fact that the TV weighs as much as my car. Luckily, we were able to rig one of the computer chairs to help us. We used it like a furniture dolly, and it worked like a charm.
Oddly enough, the new 50” television, which is technically bigger than the older television weighs a lot less. It was a challenge getting it from his car to the house, but I powered through the pain, and we made it!
We joke that it’s *his* Christmas present sitting downstairs right now, but it’s something we’ll all enjoy. The new TV is nice. It’s amazing, actually. We watched a movie on the new system, and I was blown away.
We watched the movie on the Xbox, which will actually replace our DVD player. Hear that, DVD player!? Your days are numbered! Your random seizing up and stuttering will no longer be tolerated! Granted, we’ve watched a lot of movies (hundreds and hundreds…thanks to Netflix…), and I think we’ve almost successfully driven our DVD player insane.
I’m really not into any of the Xbox 360 stuff, but I will admit that the graphics look incredible on the new television. I guess if I have to be a Gaming Widow, it’s nice that Claire and I won’t have to go far to see Daddy.
Well, this is what the Master Bathroom shower would have looked like had we decided to découpage instead of tile!
And, yes…we finally picked a paint color! My hubby got the walls primed and one coat completed. (Thus the need to cover the tiles…) Can you tell which color we chose? (See the original choices here.)
I’ll reveal the answer and post more pictures after he gets the second coat painted…the end is in sight!
So, what color should we paint the Master Bathroom? That is the question of the day…er, week…er, month. The Master Bathroom is a two room “suite” that includes a room for the shower and toilet and a separate room that houses the double-sink and vanity area. Both rooms of this Master Bathroom “area” are currently white.
We’ve always had good luck picking colors together. When we painted the kitchen, we knew we wanted a green for the walls. We decided to pick our top three colors, secretly, so that the other person wouldn’t be swayed by peer pressure. Of the 235 paint chips, I picked A, B, C. My hubby then picked C, B, A. So, we went with B, Montpelier Olive. Wow. Out of all of those choices, we both picked the same top three colors, just in different order…and our second choice was exactly the same. That was easy!
Picking the colors for Claire’s room (Icelandic) and the Main Bathroom (Spicy Cayenne) were just as simple.
A year or so ago, when we painted the Master Bedroom, our process was lagging along. We’d ordered new furniture, and we wanted the color to show that off and match the carpet and be soothing, etc. etc. etc. We just could not decide on a color. It wasn’t that we were disagreeing with each other; it was just that we honestly could not decide between the minute variances in the different shades of “light-taupish-beigish-creamish” that we wanted. All 42 of them. All of a sudden, the phone rang, and it was the furniture place. Our new furniture was in! Two weeks early! They would be able to deliver it tomorrow! In the blink of an eye, our time-frame for deciding was cut to 20-minutes, and we both decided on a color, and that decision was made. We went with “Natural,” naturally, and we’ve been very pleased with the color.
So, what’s taking so long with the Master Bathroom Color Decision? I really don’t know. When we started this process, we both said out loud we wanted a “yellowish” for the walls, or maybe a “creamish” or maybe a “greenish” or maybe a…and there it started. We picked out a ton of paint-chips and have been deliberating ever since. Thankfully, we’ve narrowed the playing field to four different choices.
We don’t want to paint the entire area the same color. We like the white of the area by the double-sinks. We don’t want to leave the room with the wall-tiles white, but we don’t want to detract from them either. We want to find a nice color that also doesn’t compete with the “Natural” of the bedroom. Maybe we could just paint the room with the shower and toilet one color and use that same color on an accent wall in the other area.
Yesterday morning, my hubby had a great idea. Why not just use the same color as the bedroom? That’s a great idea! It won’t contradict anything; it won’t detract from the color of the tiles, and it’s not white. Of course, when asked if that should be the final decision, we’re just not sure…so, now we have five colors that need to duke it out.
Time is ticking, and I’m sure we’ll make a decision soon. Where’s a furniture delivery place on a deadline when you need it?? In the meantime, here are the contenders, conveniently resting on the floor-tiles, wall-tiles, and carpet for reference:
(Click photo to enlarge. If you click on the photo a second time, you’ll see even more detail.)
The paint color choices are: Natural, Churchill Hotel Wheat, Filoli Gold Ecru, Filoli Antique Lace, and Warm Buff. (Not that it matters…it’s so hard to tell what a color is by the name; that’s for sure!)
Stay tuned for the answer!
The Master Bathroom project I’ve been talking about recently in the blog is actually the second bathroom we’ve remodeled over the last year. Prior to this project, we tackled and completed The Main Bathroom Remodel Project. That project was completed before the blog was up and running, so I thought I’d take the time to recap that project before we complete the next one!
It’s a long tale…you’ve been warned.
It all started when we bought the house six years ago. The bathrooms were outdated, but we loved the house. All the bathrooms were functional, so we didn’t let the 70s-style stand in the way of our buying our first home. We made a mental note to remodel the bathrooms “sometime in the future.” Well, fast-forward about six years, and we really wanted that “sometime” to be now.
The original plan was simple: 1. Fix some tiles in the Main Bathroom, so that we could use that bathroom while remodeling the Master Bathroom. 2. Gut and totally remodel the Master Bathroom. 3. Remodel the Main Bathroom at some point in the future.
In staying true to every single project that we’ve undertaken in this house, what we planned was not exactly what happened.
In trying to fix the tiles in the Main Bathroom, we discovered a huge mold problem that had been caulked over and hidden by the previous owners. In our defense, we never really used the bathtub/shower until Claire’s arrival. We’ve always personally used the Master Bath, and our guests use the Guest Bathroom downstairs. With Claire’s arrival came the need to use that bathtub. All of a sudden, we had a glowing spotlight on a problem we didn’t even know existed.
What we thought would be a $30 fix to one bathroom suddenly became the focus of the project. Our priorities shifted, and the Master Bathroom Project was put on hold.
Well, we knew we needed to remove the tile from the walls, and rather than install tile, we’d found these really cool “shower surrounds and bathtub” combinations. And, since it comes with a tub, and the cast-iron tub had a patched spot, we may as well remove that as well. And, if we’re going to remove the tub (how hard could that be, anyway?), we may as well replace the vinyl flooring with that tile we’d found. And, if we’re going to tile the floor, we may as well re-finish the cabinet and if we’re doing that, we may as well install the new sink and countertop we’d been eyeing.
Do you see where this was headed?
So, we knocked out the tile, drywall and insulation, all the way down to the studs. The mold had been such a horrible issue that we even had to replace some wall studs!
Both of the bathrooms have a fully functional window smack dab in the middle of the wall. This is great for ambiance and airflow, but quite a challenge when it comes to bathtub/shower surrounds. We would have to cut a hole for the window into the surround, and that was a daunting task. One miscalculation would be devastating to the surround and the budget. Great! Have fun! No pressure!
My hubby is a rock-star when it comes to projects, and together we measured that thing SEVEN times. We made the cuts, and they were perfect. It fit the window perfectly. Of course, the walls in our bathroom aren’t square. (Shhh, don’t tell anyone…you don’t notice unless you’re insane like my hubby.) So, there was a lot of shimming that had to happen, but you really can’t tell with the finished product. We did discover that the product is extremely fragile until you get it installed, and it’s rather difficult to install. Our frustrations with that product are what led to our decision to tile the walls in the Master Bathroom.
But, before you can install the surround and the new tub, you have to remove the old tub. Have you ever removed a built-in cast-iron tub? Well, it’s much worse than you can ever imagine. All the internet sites make it look so simple. Right. It’s simple if you have no walls to contend with, and have two or three burly men at your disposal. (Unfortunately, that wasn’t the reality we were dealing with.) After much finagling, we got it out of there. Needless to say, I never want to remove another bathtub. Ever.
So, we’re ready to tile the floor. We’ve never tiled a floor. How hard can it be? Actually…tiling a floor wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. Here are some handy tips we learned while tiling the floor that we made sure to use when we started the Master Bath Remodel Project:
1. Use this website. It’s a tile estimator website that will allow you to put the dimensions of your room into the program, choose the size of tiles, the pattern you want, the size of grout line, and with the click of a button, it will give you a printable map of your floor and tell you how many tiles and pounds of mortar and grout you’ll need! I’m still amazed that this is a free site, so use it while you can!
2. Once you print the map created from the above website, lay out your tiles. You’ll need to dry-fit and cut the entire floor. You’ll need to adjust for the reality of your room (i.e. rooms aren’t square in our house. Go figure.) It’s easier to shift a row of tiles down a smidge than it is to cut that smidge off of a row of tiles.
3. Number each tile on the map, and then transfer those numbers onto the tiles you have dry-fitted on the floor BEFORE MOVING THEM to put down the mortar. This may seem tedious, but believe me; this step is so much easier than hiring a divorce attorney, splitting up your belongings and selling a house with an unfinished bathroom. Trust me. I love maps and details, so this part made me happy. If you don’t, you’ll need to learn to embrace it. No one told us to do this step, and it took a few stress-filled moments full of screaming at each other to realize it. It seems so simple now. It won’t at the time.
4. Once you have a map of your floor, including numbered tiles, you’re ready to mortar and grout! We used a special grout that doesn’t require an extra sealant. This grout is expensive, but the result is awesome. If you’re using this kind of grout, there are detailed instructions on how to clean the tiles after you’ve grouted but before everything has hardened. (There are many cleaning stages, which is what you get in turn for not having to deal with applying a sealant.) As ridiculous as these directions seem, they are imperative. The better job you do cleaning the tiles in that Initial Cleaning, the better everything will be. It’s okay to be aggressive with the cleaning process even though you’ve spent what seems like hours putting in the grout. We learned this the hard way. There are two “shiny spots” on the bathroom floor that only the insanely perfectionist people like my hubby can see. Because I’m more of a casual perfectionist, I’d like things to be perfect, but it doesn’t ruin my day if they’re not. I don’t even see these spots, and I can’t show any examples to anyone, but I’m sure they blind my hubby every morning.
And, after we installed the floor tile, we finished the cabinet, installed the new sink and countertop combination. My hubby and his father framed the huge mirror, and my hubby replaced the horrid original light fixture with track lighting on the ceiling.
As you can see by the pictures below, we chose a really bold color for the walls. We’re not afraid of color, and he found the color on a paint-chip, and I found it in a magazine. Imagine our surprise when comparing our notes that Spicy Cayenne matched both! The really funny thing about all this was that it almost matched the color of the original countertop….the countertop we hated when we moved into the house. Apparently, after six years, that color had grown on us and infiltrated our psyches.
Because we went really bold with the walls, we used a bone color for the counter and a white for the cabinet. The floors are Rialto Beige with Antique White grout.
So, there ya have it. Yes, we just remodeled a bathroom. Yes, it seems like we’re still remodeling a bathroom…because we are! We took one month off between projects and jumped right in again. I can’t wait to write a re-cap of that project! The end is in sight, so stay tuned!
Here are some pictures of the finished Main Bathroom Remodel Project:
View from the sink
View looking in
View looking out
The curved shower-curtain bar
The track-lighting system
Here’s a good one of the window and tiled floor
Bathroom artwork, of bathrooms (how appropriate!)
Well, against my better judgment, we got the bathroom wall tiles grouted this weekend! It’s not that I’m not overly anxious to get this project completed…it’s that I didn’t want my hubby to hurt his already tender back. Last weekend’s attempt at this project did not have a pleasant nor desirable result, and I didn’t want to re-live last weekend.
Thankfully, this weekend was different!
My hubby does fabulous work, especially for someone who’s never been trained in the fine arts of tiling. The shower walls turned out great! The colors we chose really work together well, and now we just need to pick a wall-color, and we’ll be on our way to checking this remodeling project off our list.
Here is a picture of the tile design he did. We chose Rialto Noce (a dark beige color), Rialto Terra (a terracotta color), and a greenish (smaller inset tiles). The grout is Antique White. The window base will be white, to match the shower base, toilet and trim. We also picked up some ideas for paint color this afternoon.
As I type this, my hubby is grouting part of the bathroom floor. Because there were two tiny wall tiles that couldn’t be attached to the wall until we had the floor tiles installed, he is only grouting part of the floor. Once the mortar dries on those two pieces, he’ll finish the floor grout and hopefully have just enough left over to grout those two tiny lines. (We know it will take more than two batches of the special grout we’re using…and it’s always a roll of the dice to see how much grout we’ll have left at the end. That’s why we’re using the same grout for the walls and the floor.)
He’s grouted a floor before, for our Main Bathroom Remodel Project, so my assistance is not required. Yesterday, I got to supervise. Yippy skippy. I actually like supervising projects. It’s always good to have a second pair of eyes or hands, especially when you’re doing something you’ve never done before. For me, it’s the tiptoeing around his feelings that gets to be a bit tedious. I need to be very careful in how I say what I say. In his defense, my supervising voice sometimes comes off as being that of a know-it-all nag, whether I mean it to or not. I’m the oldest of four; sorry. It’s in my DNA.
When the floor is grouted, all we have to do is paint the walls and install the fan/light and window sill. Oh, and we get to re-install the toilet. And to think that used to be a big deal. We’ve done so many things now in our various home projects over the years, that it’s amazing what we used to be afraid of and what we don’t even consider to be a real task anymore. Rip out a whole section of drywall and replace it? Piece of cake. Install a toilet? Child’s play. Grouting a floor? Been there; done that…twice.
Every item we check off the list gets us closer to a functional Master Bathroom…and I can’t wait!
So, today has been challenging.
My hubby threw his back out this weekend while working on the tiling project. This is so bizarre for him. He’s relatively athletic and very healthy and has never had back issues. He first tweaked his back on the Wednesday of our trip to Santa Fe, and after a day of pushing Claire around Bandelier in the stroller, we thought that’s what did it. This weekend, he was scrubbing the tiles, in preparation to grout, and it tweaked again…only this time, it was bad. He was completely incapacitated all weekend, and he worked from home today. Luckily, we haven’t had to go to the doctor, and I think it’s actually getting better.
I wanted to take him to the ER this weekend for some pain relief, but he refused to go. I told him that when his pain was worse than his feelings for the ER to let me know. We never reached that point. Like I said, I think things are improving.
Claire decided that since Daddy was home today, she would refrain from taking a nap this morning. At least, I hope that’s what was happening. I’m not sure how many files I’m going to be able to do if she foregoes many of her naps from here on out. I’ll adjust. I always do.
And the files? Hmmm…where do I begin? I’ve been completely inundated. My hubby thinks that when I complain about the files it means that I, 1. want him to fix it, and 2. hate my job. Neither of those things is correct. I don’t want him to fix something he can’t, and I actually love my job. I know I should be working, but I’m only writing this blog now, rather than making calls, because she is standing in the play area in my office screaming at me. She wants to be picked up. That is a trick. She really wants to play with everything on my desk and try to type her own emails, regardless of whether I am here or not. I’m on to her ruse.
Speaking of screaming…did you know that Claire screams at the exact frequency they use on my phone service to skip messages in voicemail? Awesome. I was trying to listen to them, and they kept stopping and jumping ahead and doing wacky things. How bizarre. I finally figured out what was happening, and if I listen to my voicemails with the mute button on, things work perfectly.
Claire did take a relatively long afternoon nap, so I can’t complain too much. I was able to get a lot of files done, so I don’t feel as though the entire day was a waste. I didn’t get as many done as I wanted to, but it is what it is.
When she woke up from her nap and started screaming at me, I took her to sit on Daddy’s lap. That’s when I decided to run away. But, I only made it as far as the mailbox, when I remembered that I hadn’t checked the mail yet. I love checking the mail. So, I did that and forgot I was in the middle of running away. When I got back in the house Claire was having so much fun playing with Daddy (He was playing her “Draw Elmo!” game on the MagnaDoodle.), that I was glad I hadn’t made it very far. I’m such a big talker. I could never run away without those two…and then, what’s the point, really?
Of course, Daddy had to finish up some things for his work, so she’s standing in her play area in my office right now, screaming for me to pick her up…again. It looks like my workday may be coming to a close sooner than I anticipated. I was ready for a break anyway.
We got the floor tile installed last night! Here is a picture of the progress so far:
Installing it over the heating element was pretty tricky, but not as bad as we thought it would be. We used a plastic trowel, so as not to nick the element, and it actually went very smoothly. It helped that we’d painstakingly fastened the mat to the floor.
Now, all we need to do is grout all the tiles (wall and floor) and paint the walls! (We’ll refinish the cabinet and sinks later…our main goal was the shower area and the floor in front of the sinks.)
The end is in sight!
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