Tiling the Walls, Part 2

Sunday

Cass and I went out to lunch with our friends who're moving to Rochester, NY. Hope your move went well, Dittys! We'll miss you guys.

I flew solo putting up the last two courses of 12"x12" tiles. So, without further ado...


Bought a paddle for mixing the mortar. WAAAY easier and faster than mixing it by hand.











Now, for the most exciting work from Sunday! I had to drill a hole in a tile big enough for the shower head pipe to fit through. After lunch, Cass and I stopped at Home Depot to see what sort of tools existed for such a job. We found this diamond grit hole saw.

Any time your cutting porcelain tile, the cutting area needs to stay wet. Otherwise the blade will either get too hot, or it'll seize up. So this little contraption came with a cup that you tape down to the tile and pour water into.


Then, you just kinda go at it with the drill and hole saw bit. The hole in the bottom of the cup is really close to the same diameter as the bit, so it was pretty easy to get the hole started.


Presto! Perfectly round hole for the shower head.


I had to twist the tile as I was putting the shower head pipe through the hole I just drilled because of where the hole was positioned on the tile.


Swabbing the excess mortar so it doesn't get all over the pipe.

After that I finished off that same course of tiles all the way around and with that, I was done putting up 12"x"12" tiles! Monday would be just working on the crown.

Monday

Time to work on the crown. Funny story about the crown. We had originally come up with a design that would have followed the brick pattern in the 12"x12" tiles. You can get an idea of what that design would've looked like in the 3D mockup I created at the beginning of the entire project. Because I started the bottom course of tiles in the wrong pattern, the crown design wouldn't have followed the brick pattern properly had we done what the illustration shows. So we had to come up with a new pattern that doesn't rely on the brick pattern. I'm actually glad we had that problem, because I like what we came up with as a workaround better than the original design. Not to mention it involved less cutting tiles! Cass gets the credit for the new design. Way to go babe!


I love using that paddle. It's so much easier!


Half way through the middle wall.


The main wall's crown almost finished!


Another funny story, similar to the beginning of Monday. After reexamining the dimensions of the interior of the recessed shelves, we realized that our initial plan of just using a sheet of the shower floor tile in there wouldn't work. So we came up with this design. Granted it was much more difficult to do and probably was the reason we didn't finish on Monday, we're really glad we did it.

More to come in Part 3!

Tiling the Walls, Part 1

Ok folks, lots and lots of pictures to share, so I'm breaking this up into three different posts. There probably won't be much in the way of reading for this one because it's basically a whole bunch of tiling and the only exciting thing about tiling is the result!

Friday

Memorial weekend turned into an all out tiling marathon for me. Before I could get started tiling the shower walls, I had to finish tiling the shower curb and the baseboards. So, I took the Friday before memorial day weekend off and did just that.

I wish I could say that I had a whole bunch of exciting stuff to tell you about, but I don't. So, this will be more of a photo gallery. Tiling tends to be long and I'd imagine very boring to watch. So I'll just post the photos and talk about them when there's a story behind it.





Cutting tile for the top of the curb.






Saturday

I was already aching from working on Friday, but I had a whole bunch of tiling to yet to do. So, Saturday, my Dad came over to help me out. We discussed our plans for a little while early in the day and got started laying out the grid on the walls for how we'd be tiling up the wall.








I know, nice right? This pretty much explains how I felt after 1 1/2 days of tiling.


Dad had to make a plunge cut for a couple of the tiles around the first recessed shelf. Tricky!


This is how far we got on Saturday. Obviously, there was a pretty fair amount of tiling yet to do.

More to come in Part 2!

Finally Tiling

The most nerve racking part of the whole project began yesterday for me. Tiling! It's nerve racking because it's something I haven't done a whole lot of, but I love the look of tile so it's quite worth it in my opinion.

My dad came over early Saturday to lend me a hand, his tools, and his brain. Since neither of us had ever tiled a shower floor, this was all new territory for us both.

We got the tile laid out and to our surprise we only had to cut some tiles out at the perimeter on only one wall. Otherwise, the tiles fit perfectly without any cutting. The one kind of tiling that we've never done actually turned out the be the easier of the two floors we tiled. Largely because of how few cuts and how faaairly square the shower walls were. We had to use some extra mortar towards the middle to raise the tiles a bit so it'd be flush with the fancy schmancy brushed nickel shower drain grill we bought. Otherwise, it was a very straight-forward job. Dad and I both were happy with the result. Plus, we had that floor hammered out by lunch time!

Then, there was the rest of the bathroom floor we had to tile. Cass and I decided to use a single row of the tiles from the shower floor as a border and then use 6" square tiles in a diagonal layout. Little did I realize laying tile diagonally in a rectangular space isn't as easy as it seems. This floor obviously had a lot more cut tiles in it, so while Dad manned the tile saw, I laid the tile. We had a whole bunch of half tiles to cut out, plus there was the toilet flange and the water line for the toilet that we had to cut around. In hindsight, I realize now that everything actually went pretty well, but for some reason I had this constant feeling like I was screwing up or something wasn't going well. The results speak for themselves though.



Not bad for my first tile job, eh? I stood on it last night and everything felt good and solid! That made me happy. Kinda makes me want to put tile floors in the entire house...but that'll never happen.

Going to Thailand...not really

I hope everyone had a good Mother's Day!

The bathroom is now pretty well prepped (I think) to be tiled! I installed some corner bead where the drywall meets the cement board, sanded, taped and mudded some areas in the bathroom over the weekend and took the rest of the weekend off from working on the bathroom. I'm getting really burned out from this. Next major project we do, I'm taking vacation time and doing it a lot faster than this because after a quarter of the year of spending weekends on this bathroom, I'm pretty much sick of it!

About the title, I told a friend of mine on Sunday that "I think I'm going to be tiling next weekend." He thought I said, "I think I'm going to Thailand next weekend."

We Have Walls Again!

Before I go into what I did over the weekend, I just want to report that after a full week of working at my new job, I really feel good about it. I think I'm in a good position to be very valuable and I really like my co-workers! Not to mention I'll get to use my brain again!

Anyway, after the numerous slowdowns and weekends with no progress lately, I was determined to get the walls up this weekend! My goal for the whole project is to be done (or at least tiled) by the end of May. Each weekend I'm able to actually able to get some work done, the bathroom starts resembling a bathroom more and more.

Last weekend Cass and I bought the backer board but then it sat in my truck for a whole week because I was sick and totally drained over that weekend. I started this weekend by putting up the three sheets of board on the widest wall since it was the easiest wall. No fixtures to cut out or anything. Just three 4' sheets.

After doing that and before I got stupid, I capped off the plumbing for the shower and opened the shower valve to make sure that every bit of plumbing I'd installed would hold pressure. Not just the valves and water hammers I installed back in March, but also the pipe and elbow running up from the valve to the showerhead. Not a drip! That made me happy.

I then got started on the wall opposite the showerhead. This wall is going to have recessed, tiled shelves. We bought these prefabricated shelves from the Tile Shop because we really liked how the finished product looked in the store. This of course meant I got to use my rotary cutting tool again! Man, am I EVER glad I bought that tool. Cutting the holes out for the shelves and shower fixtures would've been a nightmare with regular hand tools. The circular saw and the cement board blade were even more worth every penny. I'da been cutting cement board until I turned 40 if not for that well spent $80.

I stopped on Saturday after putting up the first shelf (the red one) and the surrounding backer board. Sunday I started right back where I left off and finished the recessed shelf wall. Because of the configuration of the shelves, I ended up cutting a sheet of backer board in the shape of an "H". I was a little worried about the structural integrity of the crossbar in the "H", so I ran a stringer between the studs so it'd have some extra support behind it.

That wrapped up the shelf wall. Finally, I had the showerhead wall. This wall turned out to be quite simple despite my own expectations. I measured twice (as the old adage suggests) and cut once and Bingo! The fixtures fit the holes I cut like a glove. Before I closed up the last bit of the wall with backer board, I wanted to leave my mark on this job. I know the bathroom's not done yet, but it was my last chance to do this.



After nearly killing myself standing awkwardly on a step stool so I could get leverage on the last few screws, I got the last piece of backer board in place! Apart from the door frame and a couple slim pieces of drywall I need to hang again, there are no more studs exposed! It's amazing how rewarding that accomplishment is!

More exciting developments are sure to follow! Stay tuned!