Bathroom tile post 2: All the comforts of home

OK, I’m exaggerating. Some of the comforts of home. I now have cleaning supplies under my (temporary) bathroom sink.Yep, I’m moving up in the world!

My mom bought me all this stuff for a different bathroom. Remember it? It’s part of the back bedroom now. It was small and awkward and poorly built and had plumbing hacked into original plumbing that was falling apart and that window had even less reason to be clear than the new one, which is frosted. I’m glad I moved everything around; it made this a much nicer house.

Bathroom

The sink and toilet live on from the old bathroom though. And the rod attaching the shower curtain to the ceiling near where it bends. We’re using that to piece the foil seals on caulk and construction adhesive. And those mismatched colored plastic shower curtain rings might be around, too. I have to hunt for the shower curtain my mom bought me when I moved in; if they’re still on it I’m keeping them until the house is far enough along for me to give a shit about anything like that.

So, back to the real progress: the tiling is done! The grouting is done! There are still bits of grout on the tiles here and there. I’m going around with a scraper and then following up with a sponge and water with soapy grout haze remover in it. But there’s always more; I think this stuff will be the bane of my existence for a while. Well, here’s what where I am now:

Would I want to rinse off all that with several changes of clean water and a rag? Up your nose (or in through your bathroom window) with a rubber hose. Now a closer look at the plumbing fixtures. You can see that we mis-measured a bit when we notched out for the spigot. Don’t worry though; the real one will cover the mistake.

Also, my mom got mad at me for calling the roughed-in capped pipe a copper dildo. That’s totally what it is.

The good news is the next time we (aka my dad) got the notching down pat. Just in time to not do it ever again.

And there are skinny pieces of tile running down in front of the front edge of the tub. Because we don’t need the wall getting damaged if water runs out here and drips down. Also note that there is a big strip of grout finishing the edge of the tiles because I was too cheap to buy bullnose.

Pretty good, eh? It looks dark, but there will be a lot more light in the room when it’s done. There’s a recessed light in the ceiling that we drywalled over. Now I kinda forget where it is. But between that and two lights over the sinks, it’ll be well lit.

The first day’s worth of tiling, which you saw in the last post, involved no cutting. On day two, I was in the bathroom setting tiles while my dad was in the front bedroom making all the cuts. It got a little dirty.

Cause yeah, these tiles are red clay. But it’s done! We tiled Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday evening. Not too bad. And the contractor who effed up the floor was going to charge a ton of money to do this because he said the tiles I picked are small and would be a lot of work to set. I don’t regret DIY’ing it at all. I think it’s a big help that the handmade tiles are uneven enough to hide our workmanship, which may not be perfect. But I’m happy enough with it.

I’ve also ordered my plumbing fixtures. They’re gonna look pretty modern; my first design concept for the house was to make everything that wasn’t original contrast with the many period features the house retained. That’s not exactly what I stuck with, and I’m going to have some very old fashioned furniture in the house because that’s what I inherited. But I think I’ll like having a modern fixture here; it’ll set off the tile nicely. Or I’ll hate it and change it later. But hopefully not. Here it is, the Trinsic from Delta. And I ordered a hand held shower. Which was unnecessary because then I found the shower head that came with the house in the basement. But I want a hand held shower anyway. It was on sale and I may as well have it from the get go.

And the best part? My plumber should be in this week to hook it up! Now I’ll just need a shower curtain rod (provided that I can find the curtain).

And in other news, I’ve moved. To the kitchen.

You see, the next order of business is flooring. This may sound crazy since the house is really far from done, but there’s a big pile of flooring in the front bedroom that I want to disappear so I can stop moving it. And it’s getting finished at the end, so if I damage it while working it’s not such a big deal. Anyways, that’s what you’ll be reading about next. That and patio door selection.