Shower complete (almost)

Most of this weekend I've been working on the shower. Here's how it came out. The gap on the right side is where I will cut 4 bullnose edge pieces to equal sizes to fill the space. I'll do that tomorrow. Also on the agenda - tile the bathtub surround already.

It seems like work may have been moving slowly, but it's taken a lot of effort to get here. The shower floor had to be built and sloped, drain installed, tiles cut to make the shower floor, assemble the curb (much more cutting), and get the shower walls going (more cutting on the bottom row). Here's how it looks so far.









Things are moving quickly now since the hardest cuts are behind me. The shower should be finished or close to it by tomorrow evening and I may be able to put some work into the bathtub surround.

Granite will also be on order tomorrow, and I'll be able to put in for the shower glass since I know exactly what the final dimensions of each wall are. My work for this project is almost over.

Sunday update

Not a lot of words this time - mostly pictures. The floor is almost in. It would be all the way in, but we were short tile from our order and now I have to buy another box. Moral of the story is if the boxes don't have a coverage area printed on them, figure out how many square feet there are in whatever they deliver and compare it to the invoice before the delivery guy leaves.

So here's what it looks like today.





Cabinets are in. So is the toilet but no pic of that.



Everything is nice and level.






After I finish up the floor it'll be time to start the shower. In the meantime I'll work on getting 3 estimates for granite because that's ready to go now. Even without a countertop it's finally starting to look like a bathroom again. Right now the goal is to be done installing the shower by the end of the week so the only thing I have any control over will be simple trim work by the end of next weekend. Then I get to start working on the next project.

The oven should already be here sometime this week...

Finally some progress

We finally have some progress on the bathroom. The tile for the floor came in, and I was able to get an order of waterproofing membrane for the shower in - this time from a reliable distributor - and I'm back at work again.

This evening I laid out the whole pieces of stone. Luckily there were some straight line markings left over from the last tile floor this bathroom had, and I was able to use those to get the pattern straight. It's called a Versailles (aka headache) pattern. The stone is cut so that each of them meet with a butt joint. Grout lines will be really tight.

Enough talk, here are the pictures.




In other news... we got the order in for the cabinets and I'm ordering appliances tomorrow. We also have an order in for the bedroom furniture and will be placing another order with Basset for some random formal living room and dining room stuff tomorrow. Maybe a rug too... I'm not quite sold on the one we saw today yet. Kind of annoying because there's a big 20/30% off sale, but we have to place an order tomorrow because it ends then.

We're also almost done with the front / upstairs bedroom. It's painted, carpets cleaned and the furniture is moved in. Basically all it needs is a frame for this Shrek poster that I have and it'll be finished. Pics to come soon. The office is now a work in progress since all the bedroom stuff that was in there is gone, along with the giant bookshelf that was on the wall. It's really opened up the room, almost too much because now it looks really empty. Great view out the window now though from the new desk layout.

Kitchen Planning

Since I don't have tile, and I don't have moisture barrier and therefore can't work on anything in the bathroom (ugh) I've been spending some time getting things ready for the kitchen. So far we've figured out what to do with the walls and have it down to two candidates on the flooring. Both of us are leaning towards the striped one...







The reason a piece of flooring is in there with some of the pictures is because it'll sit next to the wood floor in a couple of places, and because it's really close to the color we're going with for the cabinets. The lines really pick up a lot of the blue and brown tones, which is a huge part of why we're leaning towards this option. We'll probably be looking at a granite that's silver in color and a backsplash that's a multi-color / multi-shape and size blue mosaic glass tile.

In bathroom news... it's looking like the flooring and travertine that I ordered way back when will be here on Monday so tomorrow I will be picking off the last few spots of mastic left here and there and checking one last time for level so we'll be ready to go when the stuff comes in. I'm hoping to have a test layout done the same day and to start installing the stuff Tuesday. The moisture barrier is supposed to get here soon. Apparently the place I ordered it from had a system failure on July 5th and all of their orders placed online were somehow never processed. Whatever, as long as the stuff gets here soon.

Bathroom Held Hostage

The title pretty much says it all - that's what it's all come down to.

The flooring was ordered 6 months ago... guess what's not in yet? No floor = no cabinets = can't order granite = no mirror and backsplash. The moisture barrier was ordered close to 2 weeks ago so this I'm a little more understanding about. No moisture barrier = no shower and backsplash around the bath tub.

So what have I done? The hamper is up now. The doors weren't installed in the frame when it all arrived, so I built it up in another room to get the position of the doors correct, then installed it in the bathroom once that was set.



It came out pretty well... still needs hardware though but we have something picked out. The whole thing was designed to mirror the existing one, and the shelves that are built into the space. The old one was very well built and we're glad to be able to design a new piece that will pick up where the old front left off.



The lighting and plaster is also finished. This required running a few feet of new wire since we went from one fixture to two. Also two boxes because there wasn't one for the original light. From the look of things they realized there was only going to be one light after the sheetrock and wallpaper was up. It's nice having a regular light again! Door casing is also back up - it needed a few minor adjustments but it's back where it belongs again.



So at this point there is absolutely nothing left to do that doesn't require the flooring or moisture barrier. What to do now? I made a blueprint for the kitchen and will go check out a few stone and tile places, hopefully getting in an order by Wednesday. No, none of them are Carpet Source because dealing with them has been a total nightmare. I can think of absolutely no reason to recommend the place to anyone. If nothing gets in soon I guess I'll have to start working on the kitchen, or maybe paint the main bedroom although we were putting that off... I'll find something to keep busy.

One Month In

Today I'm about a month in to the project. Things have been going pretty well - so far there haven't been any big surprises, and I'm pretty much on schedule.

Since the last update I've turned the corner from removing things to installing new stuff. The biggest piece is that the plumbing is done now. The old shower and bath valves are something from Mixet. They're really small compared to the new Delta ones we have now. Both still worked, but probably didn't have a whole lot of time left before they start to leak.





I also installed the new bathroom fan. The new one is MUCH quieter. It's a Panasonic that I picked up on Amazon. This one is properly sized for the bathroom and water closet and includes a night light which is a nice touch. For anyone installing one in existing construction, to make the night light work you will need to put in a short run of wiring from your light/fan switches to the new fan or else there's no way for the light to be on all the time - if you wire it up with everything else the night light is on a switch with the light or fan, and there's no point to having it anymore. The difficulty in doing this ranges from easy to next to impossible depending on how your house is built and how many walls you have open at the time for some other reason.

Yesterday and today I installed the doors in front of the bathtub. Now there will be access to the plumbing and pump, and the jetted bathtub will be up to code. Earlier I was planning on waiting for the flooring to get in but doing it now works just as well.



At this point, until I either get in the stone for the floor or the moisture barrier for the shower and tub there's not a lot that I can do anymore. Tomorrow I'm cleaning up and painting the baseboards but really that's about it. The tile for the shower and backsplash came in, but I can't put that in yet because I need to waterproof the shower. The cabinets and hamper are here, but I can't install those because I need the floor to be in place. We'll see which comes in first. If delays get too bad I'm either moving on to finishing the rain gutters behind the house or removing wallpaper from the dining room. Both have to be done sometime.

It's nice to be completely finished with removing anything and finally building again. If materials start coming in soon I could be done in under two weeks. Here's to hoping for no big delays!