Oh my gosh, finally the floor is in! A huge sigh of relief. Other things, a nice basket of goodies from mom's garden
When we went to pick up our tile we stopped to get our free tacos and saw this sign. Nooooo!!! We still had two more months of free tacos! Actually though I'm not surprised, we liked there chips, but the food was just meh. Too bad for them though, didn't even last a year.
So instead we ate at a place close to Menards. I got a lemon kale salad with salmon, AWESOME. Doug got the mac and cheese.
We split this dessert, when will I ever learn cake from restaurants is ALWAYS too dry for me??
Laying out the tile picking the best ones
The floor all ready to be tiled!
Rented the wet saw from Home Depot
cute little kitty
I lay where I want!
Doug cutting away
laying it out
setting the tiles in the thin set
ta-da! You weren't supposed to walk on it so Doug made a 2x4 plank walk so we could walk to the shower.
Now some of you might be wondering, but Anne, I don't see the toilet, isn't your house just a one bathroom?
Well yes. Say hello to our garage 2nd bathroom
I quickly learned my old chair with missing bottom going into a trash bag lined paint tray with kitty litter wasn't the ideal situation I thought it would be. First time I used it I get up to see a spider crawling away from under the chair seat. Ew! Eventually Doug put our old toilet in the garage and then lined it with a bag/litter, and that was better. But it was not a great situation. Glad that is over!
Today Doug and I checked out another church (we mostly liked it) and then mom and dad came over for the grouting. Dad and Doug (and sometimes Thor) worked on the grout and mom and I worked outside. We weeded, cut down a tree, took down my garden, and started getting my beds ready for winter/ and next spring.
oh my gosh all that grout slathered all over the tiles made me nervous!
looking better already
the tiles were a little uneven so some shims were necessary for the toilet not to rock
yay! we have a new floor and toilet!
The important stuff in the bathroom is DONE! Last finishing steps are: new floor and crown molding, put up the mirror, frame the mirror, hang the hand towel bar, tile pee splash, new trashcan, new door and molding, bit of enamel fixing in the tub, and I think I will put one more coat of paint on the cabinets. Oh yeah, and I have to finish caulking around the tub/shower surround which I am procrastinating since the caulk was so runny I'm afraid of screwing it up. But it is definitely a usable bathroom! One tiny sad thing I noticed was the floor was never cold with the vinyl floor, but already the tile is colder. But as soon as the grout is cured in 3 days we can give the tiles a good scrub for any lasting grout traces and then put down the floor mat and it should be fine.
We mostly worked on the bathroom this weekend, but we did go to the cider mill last night for Doug's friend's bday. We wasted $34 on this stupid lame haunted hayride, and waited in line for over an hour, but his friend was so excited for her bday and loves Halloween.
he looks like he saw a ghost
tired and bright flash
And got some GREAT news this morning, I have another baby niece! Joel and Michelle's second baby girl was born today. 7lbs 7 ozs, 3 hour labor, healthy mom and baby, just waiting on a name. But very thankful for that wonderful exciting news!
In this first post we ripped down walls, fixed a rotten spot in the floor, and put up the new drywall.
Goodbye ugly weird walls!
In the next post, Doug and Dad put up the new shower liner and faucet with handheld shower
The next post Doug installed the new light. And I must have started painting the cabinets because I see them in the background pics.
The next phase we paid our friend to do the mudding for us. I wish we would have got the nails in a little deeper under the drywall because already you can see nail head outlines! Sheesh, I guess nothings perfect.
Next we painted.
And note my nice white repainted cabinets. The painting involved many detailed touch ups here and there, and I even painted 3 more layers later on the upper cabinets to make them look bright white. Lots of work.
Then we prepped the floor for tile.
At the end of that post we had also re-installed the vanity with a new top.
Then we put in the tile! and a new toilet.
After that I debated on shower curtains and bought/returned 6+ curtain and rug combos before I finally found something I liked.
The next step were all the finishing touches.
Doug went to Menard's Black Friday and got 4 6-panel doors. I spent the next week painting them with 4 coats each to give our bathroom and 3 bedrooms nicer more polished looking doors.
We put up ceiling trim, and floor trim a week later
I spent hours caulking around every bit of trim and around the cabinets and shower liner
This last weekend Doug re-grouted a crack by the tub (which cracked again, so it's gonna stay that way!), and grouted the wall tiles behind the toilet
And besides still needing to scrape a few little things off the tub and re-do a couple chips in the tub's glaze, which there is no rush to do, we are done!
welcome to our bathroom
I am especially proud of my caulking in the what-was huge cracks around the vanity since our walls weren't perfectly square
And found a toothbrush holder to fit Doug's massive electric one and a soap dispenser at Bed, Bath & Beyond that nicely corresponds to our brushed nickle fixtures
The final winning curtain was this one from Target. I know Doug said 'no flowers' but I think he appreciated I tried valiantly in the previous 6 attempts, and he didn't want to go on his own hunt. I liked this one because it was slightly off white so it wouldn't clash with the white cabinets and it had grey, blue and green accents. And I loved this soft silver-mist floor rug from Target too. We went with a silver-gray grout thinking that it would hide mildew or other such stains, but didn't realize it would be so hard to find a rug that looked good with it too.
One more time the before:
And after:
Yay!!
When we started I never thought it would have taken 6 months, even with all the help from Dad and Mom and Thor too. I don't think it ended up being that cheap after all the supplies and endless trips to Lowes for this-and-that. I think we spent under $2k, but probably very close to it. But I am very glad to have a pretty new bathroom that feels much more open and nice. It was worth it. We learned a lot along the way, but we can both say we're glad it's done!
