Ba'ath Bath update!

So I thought maybe I should post an update about the current state of the master bath renovation before we headed out for our annual baseball pilgrimage. Then I forgot about it until ...uh, a couple months later? Oh, no wait. A little more than three...

Oops.

In my defence, I DID actually start a post... which doesn't help anyone, given that I never actually published it. Not only that, but it was so damn long ago that I pretty much have to start over from the beginning. Fair warning, though: if you come across any weirdly disjointed paragraphs or sentences in this post, you'll know why. (Damn. I should use this excuse EVERY post...)

Anyway, Tony came over to work his mudding magic on the drywall, and then we spent a few days (weeks) priming and painting over his efforts. See?

Oh, yeah: we went with the Restoration Hardware color, "Silver Sage", again. I think we made the right choice.

Once the painting was done, we installed the heating mat for our heated floor, and then laid down the Schluter-DITRA over the entire area. Messy! And for something called "an uncoupling membrane", remarkably unsexy, too. (How in the world I failed to take a picture of this, I will never know. I suck. Sorry.)

On a personal note, "Schluter-Ditra!" is almost as much fun to say as "Dr. Oetker!" (If you don't know Dr. Oetker, they make frozen pizzas or something. We like to call them the Nazi Pizza Doctor. "Ve haf vays of making yoo eat anutter slice!" Even though I think it's a Dutch name? But still, not a name you'd associate with pizza, unless it was, like, EVIL pizza.... Sorry, that got weird in a hurry.)

Anyway, then Mr. Not-Those-Clarks-The-Other-Clarkes came over and spent his Sunday helping me cut and dry-fit all the tiles for the floor.

And then, like some kind of... well, dumbass, he came over again the NEXT weekend and helped me actually install them. And all he wanted was beer. Weirdo.

It took me a couple of hours after that to scrape the dried mortar out of the cracks, and then I grouted it.

Heh, funny story about that.. well, funny if you're not me, anyway. So, after some careful research about the type of grout I needed (non-sanded), I went off to Slegg to buy it. When I got there, I got to talking with the guy who worked in the tile section, and he explained that I was actually mistaken. He assured me that I needed the other type of grout (sanded). Given that he'd been a professional tiler for 20 years, he seemed convincing, so I decided to follow his recommendations. (It turns out he was totally right - THAT sort of major calamity is not the punchline to this particular story, but I know that's what you were thinking.) He asked me how much I needed, and I talked myself through the numbers. It went something like this:

"Okay, well, the bathroom is 5 feet wide and 12 feet long, so 5x12 square feet. Yeah, I need enough to do 600 square feet then. How much can a bag of this stuff cover... huh. It says only 180 square feet per bag."

At which point the guy butts in and.. points out that it's easy enough to stretch the coverage from a single bag well over 200 square feet by cleaning the tiles as you go and constantly remixing the grout back into the bucket.

For some reason, he did NOT chime in to point out that my math was really, really wrong. Like, even for me, that's some highly wrong math.

Fortunately, Slegg has a good return policy, and I got my money back for the two bags I didn't even open, even though I did have to drive them all the way back to the store like an idiot.

The Injury Report

So, I managed to slice my finger quite badly while smoothing out one of the grout lines after I'd completed it. Which, well, was a pretty fair indication that I hadn't gotten enough grout into the joints. Sure enough, I must have started wiping up the grout too quickly after putting it down, or else the sponge was too wet.

Fortunately, I hadn't sealed the grout or the tiles yet, so I just regrouted the whole thing over again. Worked out much better the second time.

One of these days, though, I swear. I WILL do a project, just one, right the first time.

Oh, that reminds me. The Toilet From Hell has won another round against me. I won't go into details, but suffice to say that I'm more convinced than ever that attempting to replace it will result in a broken flange, flooded living room, or similar catastrophe. That thing is possessed, I tell you. Possessed.




Lots more to come about the bathroom, but I figured maybe I should just bloody well post something and not worry so much about getting it all up to date in one go, hmm? Next time, the windowsill!

Happy New Year!

Well, here we are at the beginning of another year, and boy howdy, I hope the first few days of your new year are a hell of a lot better than ours so far. The War Department came down with a nasty case of the flu pretty much the instant we stepped off the germ tube coming back from Christmas with the Top Brass, and she hasn't even managed to go back to work yet. Couple that with the realization that our kitchen and dining room floor was pretty badly dinged up by some unfortunately pointy high heels at our New Years' Eve party, and it hasn't been a stellar start to the year.

But it is a new year, and with that comes my annual resolution to post more. In the interests of fairness, I should probably also mention that my OTHER new years resolution is to stop taking sugar in my coffee, and 2013 will be the ninth year in a row I've made that one. Don't get your hopes up TOO much, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, to try and start off the new year right, and to cheer Amy up after we noticed the dents in our floor, I got started with some much needed exploratory surgery on this year's major project: the master bedroom ensuite. Or, as my friend insists on calling it (rightly so): the Ba'ath Bath.

Before we could even draw up a plan or start to think about the budget for this project, we had to find out exactly what we were dealing with. You see, there's a rather large shelf jutting out from the back wall of the bathroom. I'm pretty sure this was installed because they weren't using a free-standing tub (and the strange little jut out in the wall on the one side would confirm this). We, of course, really wanted to install a clawfoot tub in there and without knowing what was under the shelf, we didn't know if the clawfoot would fit.

So with the War Department supervising from a distance (stupid flu), I grabbed a few tools and whatnot, and prepared to figure out what was under the shelf.

Oh, I should also probably mention at this point that the gold taps that make the bath ... uh, well, that make it Ba'ath, if you know what I mean, weren't original to the house. They were installed well afterwards by none other than Frank himself - or his handyman. And yes, we're pretty sure it was him. Why? Oh, you'll like this, I promise you.

So here's a shot of the shower from way back that shows what I mean about the shelf jutting out:

One of the first things we'll need to do is replace the windows, and unless the wall underneath the windows goes all the way to the floor, there's no way we're getting a clawfoot in there, and we'll have to replace the windows with something that can handle being part of a shower stall. (Sort of like what those windows SHOULD have been in the first place, but  the house was built in the 80s and hey - life was simpler then. More neon, sure, but simpler.)

Anyway, if you look closely at that picture, you can see the shelf, the taps, and the obviously different tiles they used to cover up the hole they had to make when they hooked up the new taps. Think about that for a minute though: Frank wanted these taps SO badly, he was so convinced that they'd dress up his bathroom so much, that he was willing to put in any old crappy ass tiles he had lying around to fix the hole he'd have to make. I just... gah. Oh, and keep in mind that there's also a huge, obvious patch in the family room ceiling where they had to cut a hole to access the drain and put in the matching tub plug.

Anyway, I grabbed a hammer and cold chisel (because I didn't have a grout blade for my hand-held flush cutter), and popped off the four mis-matched tiles. Naturally, they came off pretty easy because who ever installed them didn't actually use grout between the tiles. After all, why would they, when they can use....

This Week In Mayonnaise
Just when I think I've seen every possible use for the stuff, I get this:

I don't even...

Man, that's like a clinic on how NOT to tile, isn't it? Mis-matched tiles (seriously, not even TRYING to make those close - the only thing they have in common with the existing ones is the size), mayonnaise instead of grout, grey thinset under white tiles, no back-buttering, not enough water in the mix... man, I could tile better than that, and I've only done it twice.

Anyway, ten minutes with the drill (seven of which was going back downstairs twice for an extra battery and then a different drill) got the plywood patch off, and we could see underneath the shelf:

Inside the hole... well, it's hard to see, but it's actually good news:

That's good, solid subfloor, all the way to the wall. Looks like we'll be getting our clawfoot! Mind you, that's many months down the road, and so to keep the cats and their mistress happy, I fixed up a plywood patch to go over the hole:

Now the War Department can have her baths, and the kitties can sit on the ledges and drink the bath water she deigns to dribble on the sides of the tub for them.





Well, what did you THINK she did with it? If we're going to have a bath fit for the Queen of Sheba, she's going to damn well act like it!

Stay-cation: Days Five and Six

Sorry about the lack of update yesterday, everyone. It was just the realization that we're not going to get even close to finishing the bathroom this week was a little disheartening. Well, that and the fact that the tiles looked pretty much exactly the same after setting them in place as they did when I dry-fit them. I did manage to get them all down in thinset on Wednesday, but then of course had to wait 24 hours before I could grout them on Thursday.

As it turns out, we have to wait SEVENTY-TWO hours* after grouting the tiles before we can seal them. Seeing as how everything else we need to do in there (with the exception of the electrical, and the War Department can whip that off in twenty minutes or so) needs to have the sealing done first, and we can't seal until Sunday at the earliest.. yeah, we ain't getting it done this week. Maybe by next Sunday...

* (As recommended by the grout manufacturer. Some sites advocate waiting THIRTY DAYS before sealing slate tile. Needless to say, screw that noise.)

But not being able to finish the bathroom doesn't mean we haven't been busy! Aside from the bathroom, so far on this stay-cation we have managed to knock off some other projects.

• For example, the War Department got her chainsaw working! Now, I know this doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that a) the chainsaw was made in 1976, b) she had to make no less than three separate trips to the parts store to get the right stuff for it, c) she had to remove and rebuild the entire carburetor, and d) I was absolutely no help whatsoever (the one thing she wanted my help with I couldn't do because of my great fat sausage fingers), it's pretty impressive. She spent almost the whole day on Tuesday working on it while I was cutting tiles, and finally got it running on Wednesday.
  
  
  
  Now she just needs to do the same thing for the weedeater, and we'll be golden.



• She also cleaned and caulked the gutters and downspout at the front of the house. They were so clogged with roof debris and pine needles and whatnot that every time it rained, water would stream over the edges and down the sides, turning our front entryway into more of a shower stall.



• I finally managed to install the soap dispenser that came with our kitchen faucet. Probably wasn't really that big a deal, but I did have to make an extra trip to Home Depot (my second of the day).



• We hung a mirror in the family room! Now I know THIS doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's literally the first piece of artwork or decoration that we've put up on the walls downstairs.



• We took yet another load of garbage and recycling up to Hartland. I think this makes six? Seven?



• Amy spent another two hours power-washing the driveway. We're about a fifth of the way done now. Good times.



• I got started organizing the files in my office... okay, now I'm reaching. Anyway, here's a shot of the tiles actually grouted. Joy.
  
  

So, as for today's progress... well, I don't know what on the schedule. Depends on the weather and what's left on the job list for the week, I suppose. Apart from waiting around for the guy to come and give us an estimate on the gas fireplace, I really don't know what we're going to do today.

And it's kind of a nice feeling, actually.

Stay-cation: Day Four

So maybe this update every day thing wasn't the best idea. I'm not sure if people would rather read a short post every day about what we did the day before, or whether I should just save it all up and do a monster post on the weekend when we're all done.

I do know that these little posts are seriously cutting into my video game time...

So yesterday was all about getting the tiles cut and fitted for the bathroom. Given that the bathroom is only about 30 square feet, you wouldn't think it was an all day job, but as I keep reminding people who ask why it's taking so long, I'm not exactly a professional.

Anyway, I hied myself off down to the Home Despot yesterday and rented the big wet saw again. I had to wait almost fifteen minutes to get someone out to help me load it into the truck, but I'm getting used to that by now. Slackers.

Once I got it home, I thanked the capricious Victorian weather gods for what turned out to be a pretty nice day, and set up a little cutting station in the driveway:



A tip for using one of these bad boys: keep the pump in a bucket of fresh water instead of in the tub under the saw. That water gets all gummy and dirty really fast, and the clean water means the pump doesn't get clogged, and it helps wash off the tiles when you cut them. (Just remember to keep an eye on the level of water in the bucket!) I think I went through about ten or twelve bucketfuls - hence the hose waiting at the ready. I also put down a rubber mat to stand on; partly to ease the pain of standing on concrete for long stretches, but mostly so I wouldn't be standing in the dirty water while I was cutting and thus not track it back into the house.

Anyway, not much else to say about the job yesterday. Including two trips to pick up and drop off the saw at Home Depot, it took me about six hours to measure cut, and dry-fit the tiles. The hole around the toilet flange was really fiddly and painful, but I'd managed to plan out the tiles so that I only had to cut two instead of three or four. (Okay, that wasn't planning so much as dumb luck, but still.)



So today I get to actually set them in thinset and maybe - depending on the drying times involved - grout them, too.

Finishing up the fireplace

We've been making a big push to get the bear pit finished, seeing as how we've been living here for a little over nine months now, and we're STILL decamped almost entirely in the family room at the back of the house. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, what with the awesomely warm wood stove, and the proximity to the kitchen (which is where we store the beer, of course), but as we do more and more work to the front room, and it starts to really take shape, we find ourselves anxious to actually start living in it.

Of course, one of the things we really needed to take care of in there was the fireplace. To explain why, I think a picture would speak volumes:



Yeah. That REALLY needed to go.

We started by ripping the mantel off, and fixing the huge crack in the drywall above the fireplace (as illustrated here). Once that was done, well, we stalled for a few months while we painted the walls, installed all the trim, did various other projects, and wondered how we were ever going to fix the damn thing.

As our regular readers will no doubt already be aware, we painted the bricks a nice latte color, and I built a mantel to cover the top. That went pretty well, even if I say so myself, and we managed to prime and paint the mantel with relatively little difficulty.

The next part, however, would involve an entirely new project - or, at least, one I had never done before: tiling!

The first step was to take off the old tiles. These things:



I had planned to just chip off the old tiles with that handy little chisel tool you see beside the bricks, and lay the new slate on top of the bricks where the old tiles were but, like every other project we do, things didn't really work out as planned.

Seems like the people who installed the tiles on the fireplace were not the same as the people who installed the bricks. I know this because the tiles proved exceptionally difficult to remove from the bricks. They were installed with a good blend quality and quantity of thinset, and the grout was super strong as well.

The bricks, though, well... they kind of fell apart while I was beating away at the tiles. Every time I tried to pick up a tile, the brick to which it was attached came away with it. There was almost no mortar between the bricks and the concrete slab of the floor, and what little mortar was between the bricks was dry and crumbling - particularly odd, considering the fireplace had never been used. Oh, and only the outside ring was actually made of whole bricks - everything within that ring was either a broken piece or a badly discolored brick. There was even a space about a foot square that was no bricks at all, just a thick bed of crumbling mortar.

Needless to say, saving any of it was out of the question, and we soon had nothing left but a gap in the hardwood:



I guess the good part was that it was fairly easy to clean, given that the mortar had never really bonded with the cement.

Anyway, we touched up the paint on the newly exposed bricks to match the rest of the fireplace, and ordered up an extra box of slate tiles from the flooring store. Then it was off to Home Despot to pick up a bag of thinset, a bag of grout, and (of course) the scraper and float I'd need to actually USE the materials.

Oh, and I got to rent a tile saw! I have to say, it's one of my favorite tools to use. It's messy, and loud, and has all kinds of spinny bits, but it makes such great cuts, and the blade doesn't grab at the material, making it easy and fun to use. (Mostly, though, I just like it cause it's messy and loud.)

The one downside to the messy part is that it was tough to take any pictures while cutting, measuring and fitting tiles. So I don't really have any of that part of the process, but I do have one of what the hearth looked like after I laid down a bed of thinset and set the slate tiles in place:



Yes, I'm enough of an amateur that I had to use the little plastic spacers. I read in a couple places how you shouldn't need them, but to be honest I'm really glad I had them, and I plan to use them again with my next job. I didn't worry TOO much about making all of the spacers tight or too exact, but they made it a lot easier to keep the tiles straight, and to indicate where I needed more thinset underneath, or was starting to get off line.

After the thinset dried overnight, I mixed up some grout and worked it into the cracks with my grout float. Then I grabbed my big-ass sponge and wiped, and wiped, and wiped, and wiped.

I think it turned out pretty nice, though:



After the grout had dried for a couple of days, we painted on some sealer to protect the tiles.

Next, we turned our attention to the big gap between the tiles and the hardwood. I checked a couple of online sources, and apparently the common approach is to use color-matched caulking to fill the gap. (I think, anyway. I found a lot of different suggestions, and I might not be remembering correctly.) I even found a couple of instances where people had just grouted the gap.

Neither approach was going to work for me, though: I didn't like the idea of trying to color-match the grout, and wasn't sure I wanted the exposed edge of the hardwood flooring to be slathered over with caulking anyway. So we went down to Rona and picked up some oak transition strips, cut them to fit, and painted them to match the mantel.

To install them, I had to put a fair amount of PLPremium into the crack, seeing as how it was deeper than the tongue on the transition, which is why we weighted the trim down carefully with some boxes of comic books overnight:



Once the glue was dried, I cut some quarter round for the edges around the bricks and glued them in place, too.

And so the fireplace is, well, ALMOST done:



All we need now is a real gas stove to replace the cardboard one, and we're all good.

So, yeah: my first tiling job. It's kinda funny, though - and I know this is going to upset all the people who come here just to hear me piss and moan about how hard renovating is and how I managed to hurt myself - I didn't HATE tiling.

In fact, if I was questioned under threat of torture, like having to watch Oprah or something, I would probably have to admit that, well, I kinda... liked it.

Well, what's not to like? It's not drywall, damn it! Tiling is straightforward enough, you get to use loud, messy power tools, the end result is nice to look at and... well...


Sigh. Fine.


I really like the smell of thinset, okay?





Shut up.