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!