It is Done!!!
Some final pictures of the finished product. All I have to do is a few very minor things, but overall the bathroom is done!
Doing some painting
We got the bottom half of some of the walls painted with the brown, and got the chair rail cut, painted, and installed. We only have the wall with the sinks left to finish up and we can start putting the vanities in. I added some photographic proof that I have actually been the one doing the work on this project.
The fixtures get installed
We got the shower walls sealed and put the shower heads and controls in.
We also got the floor tile all laid and the grouting done. Now, we can start on the final installs, like the vanities, lights, baseboard and trim.
Tiling is almost done!!
We got all the tile on the walls and floor of the shower stall. The remaining floor area should be done soon. We grouted all the shower tile and put the sealer on. Once it is dry, we can install the faucets and shower heads. We will order the glass next week, and once that is installed, we can use the shower!!! Woo Hoo!!!!
We started this project on January 24th. We save a lot of money, but it has been a long time to have the bathroom ripped up. We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Working on the floor next.
I got the final bottom row of wall tiles put up, and we are now getting the floor tiles down. We are using the small tiles that are 2×2 and mounted on a one foot square piece of mesh. We cut a few of them into strips that are 2 tiles wide and made a border around the shower floor area, and are putting the full size pieces down in a diamond pattern. Ricardo is getting the initial ones lined up correctly for me.
Here is what it should look like when it is all finished.
Next, I need to seal the natural tile floor and wall pieces so the grout does not sink into the tiles when we apply it. Once that is done, we can start the grouting.
Finally! Tile on the walls!!!
Night after night I spent cutting, fitting and glueing tiles to the walls. I am now to the point where I have to get the floor tile down in the shower area so I can put the final wall tiles on. At that point, I can begin grouting the walls and let that cure while I finish the rest of the floor. It is finally beginning to look like a bathroom again.
Finally getting some tile up.
My friend Ricardo came over and helped me get started on putting the tile up on the walls. If you don’t get started square and level…well…you know…it gets all hosed up.
The right tool for the right job…
I took over from there, and after a few missteps, got more done.
Getting the walls back up
Before we can put the final cement for the shower floor down, I had to get all the cement board cut, screw them to the studs, and tape the seams. I used mesh tape and crack filler as the “mud” to seal the seams.
Using a special blade for my circular saw, I cut the boards to size. The cement board throws off huge amounts of dust, so I cut them in the garage and pointed a box fan so that it would blow all the dust out the door.
The board is heavy, so it took 2 sets of hands to put some of them up. But, we persevered.
A few weeks ago, our vanities were delivered from Home Depot.
We did make a slight strategic error when purchasing the faucets. Notice anything out of order?
Oh well, it is not a true home improvement project unless you return to the home improvement store at least a dozen times.
I had to move the existing outlet to the left so that it would not end up inside the new shower stall. I discovered that the intercome system that is mounted on the other side of the same wall was interfering with my plans to move the outlet. We will end up removing a lot of drywall to run the wires for the new lights that we need to install over the new vanities.
The next step will most likely be getting the cement poured for the shower floor. Once that is done, we could actually do some tile work while I am getting the electrical work squared away.
Remodeling continues…
The next step was to raise the shower floor to match the level of the floor the tub sat on. Here my neighbor Ricardo is trowelling the cement smooth.
We filled in the old shower floor with cement and left it overnight to set up.
The next day I worked on getting the new pipes lined up since we replaced the copper with PVC.
I needed a “curb” between the new shower floor and the bathroom floor, so Ricardo created one with two 2×4’s by nailing them to the floor with his handy dandy nail gun. The right tool for the right job… Once that was nailed down, I covered it on 3 sides with the cement board. (Note, this picture shows the curb after the plastic shower pan was in place.)
Then we cleaned up the floor really good and put down the plastic shower pan. The final cement floor will be poured on top of the plastic.
To ensure that none of the shower water goes anywhere but down the drain, the shower pan sheeting is secured under the drain flange.
I had to work on the walls next. We are using Hardibacker cement board instead of drywall since it is extremely water resistant. The Hardi boards have to be put up before the final cement floor can be poured. First I cut the blue foam insulation sheets and glued them to the wall with Liquid Nails.
Then I began cutting the cement board and screwing it to the walls. When cutting cement board with my circular saw, I had to get the special blade for cutting this stuff. It throws out HUGE amounts of dust, so I cut it in my garage with a box fan turned on high and pointed out the garage door so that it would blow most of the dust out onto the driveway where I can just hose it down when I am done.
Here I have most of the outside wall done, with just a few trim pieces left to put up.
Once I have the showed heads lined up right and secured to the wall, I can proceed with putting the rest of the cement board up on the remaining 2 walls.
Surprise, Surprise!!
I had noticed that the grout in the master shower was cracking a bit, so I decided to chisle it out and regrout. But, when I started to remove the old grout, the tiles started falling off the walls. Lo and behold, I found that we had a leak, and all the drywall had gotten soaked up to about 4 feet off the floor, and black mold had started growing. So, the only answer was to pull all the tile off the walls and rip down the bad drywall and do the whole job over again.
Needless to say, I think this was part of the reason that I have been having more than the usual allergy problems.
I called a neighbor of mine who does remodeling and home repairs, and asked him if he could stop by and give me an estimate on what it would cost to repair it. During his visit, my wife revealed our wish to just remodel the whole thing. He generously offered to give me a hand with it if I was willing to do most of the work.
We had originally wanted to remodel the bathroom anyway and pull the tub and make a huge walk-in shower with dual heads, so now seemed as good a time as any to do that.
We tried to pry the tub off the floor and found that the builder had set the tub on a big blob of cement, so we had to use an 8 foot 2×4 to pry it off. I spent 2 days with an air chisel getting the leftover cement off the floor.
More to follow…