The End of the Road

The bathroom is officially completed! As usual, several steps took much longer than we had hoped. The grouting and sealing went well, and there were no surprises there. Each coat of sealant in small areas like this takes less time to apply than to clean up from. A day needs to pass in between coats, and we were aiming for three coats. Luckily, this is a task custom made for weeknights after work. Our first unexpected roadblock was with the light fixture. When we took down the old one, we found that there was no junction box behind it. Putting in a junction box isn't usually too hard, so we didn't think this would be much of an issue. Oh, little did we know. When I started looking seriously at planning the junction box installation, I realized that with the location of studs and pipes it was going to be more off center than expected (and a bit of a challenge to put in.) When we held up our light to the actual location it be in, we found that it was too wide and would be hitting the wall on one side. Back to the drawing board (or lighting store, as the case may be.) It took us a week to find a light we liked, and since that was in a catalog it took another week for delivery. It's these little extra bits that are killer to projects and really drag them out. We had tried to be good about getting everything in advance but alas, twas not to be.

While waiting for the light I put in the junction box. For various boring technical reasons, this was quite difficult, but after creating several jigs and after several attempts, I got it where I wanted it. The light arrived and looked great in the space, so at least there's a happy ending. The light fiasco delayed our painting of the walls, because we needed to patch around the new junction box but I wanted to actually have the light to verify that it was good where it was. I had images of having to redo the box and the patching around it dancing through my head, but luckily those didn't come to fruition. With the patching done, we painted and headed into the home stretch of what we hoped would be simple installations. First up was the vanity and sink. Plumbing projects require saints' patience, and since I know this I always go in planning on having to make several trips to the store. My goal this time was to only have to do three, and I met (but didn't exceed) that goal. Our water shutoffs are very odd sizes, and it took two Home Depot trips and a trip to the real plumbing store (who I really should have just started with) before I got the right bits. With those in hand, I plumbed the various bits together (this was in the afternoons after pastry camp) and got the vanity in place and the sink secured. Other than a drip from a bad shutoff valve (which required a shockingly expensive plumber visit) it went well and everything worked on the first try.

From here on out it was smooth sailing -- The toilet went in without a hitch, the last trim pieces went up cleanly, and all of the towel bars and whatnot fit like a dream. We are very happy with how the bathroom turned out, and generally happy with how the renovation went. We certainly would have preferred fewer plumbing trips and not to have the light issues, but in the end nothing huge and irreversible went wrong, and what else can one really ask for?

Some Forward Progress

My folks came out this past weekend to help with the bathroom, and we made great progress. The first step after demo is to put up cement backer board in the shower. It's a lot like sheetrock, but more irritating in every way imaginable. It's significantly heavier and harder to cut, and since it's denser it's harder to get the screws that hold it up set in enough that they won't catch on the trowel when laying the adhesive for the tile. After getting it up, I asked my mother (the queen of sheetrock) to take a sharpee and circle any screws that she thought needed to be set in deeper. You may notice that about half of the screw heads in the image linked have black circles around them...

We gave her a bit of a hard time about that, but when it came time to lay the wall tile it went very smoothly. In the other bathroom there had been a few places where we had to fiddle with the tile a little to accommodate screws that were not all the way in. On this project, we had no such cases. For the wall we used one inch square tiles, which come in foot square sheets. This was pretty easy to actually lay, but we spent a lot of time making sure that all of the rows and columns lined up, and a lot of little shifting to get things to line up was done. While I didn't love how much of that we had to do, I was very pleased with the final result.

Once the tile was allowed to set for twenty-four hours, it was grouting time. This is a task we have done several times before, and I actually find it to be fairly fun. It is time consuming, however, as there are a lot of little rest periods in the middle of it. The process is: mix the grout, let it rest ten minutes, then smear it on the walls into the spaces between the tiles, then let it sit thirty minutes, then sponge off the excess, then let it sit sixty minutes, then buff off the haze. Since once it sets it's hard to work with, most walls need to be done in sections in order to keep it workable. It leads to it being a long process, with lots of coffee breaks. Once the grout is in and set, the lines between the tiles are much less stark, so the huge field of inch square tiles blend. This makes what started out a bit busy look like a nice, soothing texture.

The last thing we did before the folks left was to tile the floor. These big square guys were super easy compared to all the little wall ones, and despite some places that needing cutting went down quickly. Such is the upside of putting foot square tiles in a twenty-five square foot space. There had been some discussion of laying these on an angle, making them diamond shape instead of square. In the end we decided to take the square route, and we are quite happy with the appearance. We have reached the stage in the project where there is a lull in the huge, obvious changes. We need to finish up the grouting on the walls and floor, then do several coats of sealer (which of course each have extended drying times.) We are hoping that we can get those steps, plus some painting done during the next weekend and work week, and then do the big installation the following weekend. Hopefully in two to three weeks, we will be done with the bathroom!

Once More Unto the Breach

It's time for a new project! Having renovated both the kitchen and spare bath, we now turn our attention to the master bath. It has the same oddly patterned white, grey, and beige tile that the spare had, as well as a strange peninsula of counter that stretches behind the toilet. Considering that the toilet has an issue where it will periodically fail to stop running and require me to muck around in the tank, that's not our favorite feature. The white vanity is also original to the condo, and doesn't do much for us style-wise. The shower area has the same tile, and also shows some evidence of water damage in a few places where there were had been chinks in the grout between the tile when we moved in. The plan is to leave the tub, but replace everything else. We have large square tiles for the floor, and smaller inch square (mesh backed) tile for the shower walls. Both tiles are a tan colored stone. We also have a new vanity which is a dark wood with a carrera marble top and a rectangular sink. Fancy!

We did the bulk of the demo in one day. We always assume that the tile demo will take a while, but forget that all of the other little stuff is not instantaneous. We spent most of the morning removing the counter, toilet, and vanity. The vanity once again came out in pieces, since it had been plumbed in place which leads to the holes in the back not being large enough to allow us to slip it over the water shutoffs. Nothing that they reciprocating saw can't handle though. With all of the big stuff out of the room, we started the tile demo the same morning. We planned on re-using the subfloor, so the process of tile removal for us is all about chiseling off the old tile. It's a loud, messy business and tends to produce a lot of shrapnel. On the upside, it gives me an opportunity to bust out the mini sledge hammer which is always a fun time.

The bathroom is pretty small (about five feet square if you take the tub out of the picture) so in order to not be in each others way I worked on the wall tile while Mary worked on the floor. With the wall tile (in the shower) you can't reuse the substrate, so it's more about getting a good handhold and using whatever leverage you can get to rip off the old wallboard. It was around this point that we discovered that our downstairs neighbor had plaster and tile shards raining down on him. Apparently the spaces between the walls don't have subfloor under them, so any crap that fell into those spaces (which was a lot, since I was banging liberally on the wall with the aforementioned sledge) was sifting through the timbers of his ceiling and into his unit. I was thankfully able to modify my approach (notice the newspaper stuffed in between the joists) to get less debris into the walls while still getting the bulk of the backer board off.

After lunch, Mary and I swapped jobs. She worked on the third wall of the shower (which has an extra layer of sheetrock beneath the backer board because it's a shared wall with our neighbor) and I on the floor. Mary is not very comfortable with the sledge, so she uses a smaller hammer when she is demoing. This, sadly, seems to lead to more fractured tile on the floor. Once I was at it with the sledge it went a bit more quickly. The small hammer approach was actually better on the walls, however, and she managed to make very quick work of the third wall. What a team! After only one (solid) day of work we had the bulk of the demo done.

Progress!

Amazing what difference a week and a half makes. My parents have been in all week helping out with installation, and we have some very photogenic progress to report.

We had finished the floor scraping (soooo muuuuuch floor scraping) and had patched and primed the walls before my folks got into town. Mary and mom painted the room (Informal Ivory, probably the mildest color in our place) while dad and I...did something very important, I am sure.

Ah, lights! We prepped and hung new lights. We never really used the old overhead light in the kitchen, because the switch is in a dumb place and the light gives off very little, well, light. For the new ones, we ran two spurs off of the original junction box (which we also moved to the center of the kitchen where it should have been all along) and then we hung the three new pendants. So nice! So bright! I think we'll be making the trip to the switch a lot more often now. Those CSA pictures are gonna sparkle.

Then came the cabinets -- Base then upper, though when we started the uppers we found instructions telling us to start with them. Dad said it's a whole mac/PC, emacs/vi thing. Folks do it both ways. We got all bases and most uppers in on Sunday, then finished up the uppers and trim peices early Monday.

I was going to hang the hood microwave Monday as well, but we discovered that not only did our oven come with the bits for a different model, we also got a damaged microwave. Thanks for nothing, ABT! We got a replacement ordered, and that went in with fairly little drama. I spent a lot of time double checking my measurements, only to find out they were all wrong anyway. Oh well. Nobody can see into that upper cabinet anyway.

Instead of the microwave installation, we pressed on with the tile. Despite a little rain, we managed to get it all installed before 7 pm when the pizza came. Wow does it look good. We used a limestone tile that we loved and it looked even better in place.





Did I say we finished the trim peices? There are always more trim pieces. Looking at the underside of the cabinet (which is over a snack bar area) you see various panels, scribe moldings, facers, and tracks for lighting. Under that is a whole 'nother set of bits and pieces to keep it all up (or give it something to attatch to.) It's amazing how quickly the huge changes occur, but now slowly the little finishing details do. Still, despite spending days doing the small stuff, we're very pleased with how this looks. Don't forget to compliment us if you ever sit on a stool here!

The folks have headed off now, and Mary and I are busy getting the grout in. We weren't 100% sure on the color, but after a grout intervention from the nice man at Home Carpet One (they're awesome! go there!) we went ahead with our original color. Once that is in and cured, the appliances go in and the long wait for counters begins.

What troubles you, John Spartan?

It has begun! The great kitchen remodel of aught seven is officially underway.

First, as with all good makeovers, some before shots. Not much to comment on here, really. We don't hate our kitchen as such, it's just a little dated. The building was converted from a factory in the 80s, and those white laminate cabinets have seen better days.

Also, the oven you can see here can not hold a temperature to save it's life (or the life of a baked good) and we have to regularly set the temperature twenty five degrees higher than we want to get it to come all the way to temperature.




More lovely laminate cabinets, and our inexplicably white sink. The new one will be stainless steel and undermounted. Fancy!

Our faucet drives us bonkers. It has a built in sprayer thingy, but it never actually stays on sprayer as it should, except when we want it to go back to being a stream.

Finally, you may notice the darkness of the pictures. That is due in large part to the darkness of the room (and in small part to the lack of ability of the photographer.) We have three new lovely pendant lights that we hope will alleviate this issue.





Cabinets, gone!

Fridge gone! (But in our living room, in working order thank goodness.) Refridgerators are really heavy. I mean, really heavy. Moving the fridge took way more time and effort than we expected.

The hood microwave also was more work than expected, being more firmly attatched than we realized. Thankfully, after a little fiddling I was able to get it down.

We also managed to disconnect the gas line from the stove with a minimum of drama and no action movie explosions.





More cabinets gone!

Sink gone! And heavy!

All in all, the cabinet removal went much easier than we expected. Having never done it before, we really didn't know how it would go. It ended up really just being a case of taking out some screws and pulling out the cabinets.

The tile removal was fun as always, and Mary discovered a new favorite tool. It's basically a heavy chisel on a sturdy broom handle that used to break up tile (you can see it in the background here next to a floor scraper.) I still prefer the tried and true concrete chisel and sledge approach, but to each his own.

Now comes the long and boring processes of scraping the tile adhesive off the floor and patching and priming the walls. Someone needs to invent a painting method that involves the sledge hammer. I'll call Galager.