Tile is up!

I finally got up the courage to tile the back splash in the bathroom. I've had the tile for a while now, and had just been anxious about actually doing it. It's just the glass tile that freaked me out a bit - the adhesive has to be perfect in order for the glass to look right - any issues on the wall will be seen right through the tile. Well, it came out OK. I had some issues with the tile sliding so it is not as uniform as I'd like. I did panic at about midnight when I was sure I'd wake up to all the tiles in the sink, but it turned out better than I thought. I still need to grout, but here it is so far!

The Green Bathroom is DONE!

Our bathroom is done! Finally! And we are actually using it!

Here are the things I love about it:
- it all works

- it is all clean

- none of the materials had any smell going in - no airing out the room for days

- all the tile is recycled (aside from the river rock floor in the shower)

- I LOVE the glass tile border in the shower - it is iridescent and so pretty

- the lights can stay off and the solatube lights up the shower in the morning

- the river rock floor in the shower feels so nice on my tootsies

- it looks like a sleek hotel bathroom

- the toilet flushes nicely, looks great, and it's a dual flush so we save water

- there is a ridiculous amount of storage

- the medicine cabinet has a mirror on the outside, the inside of the door and the back interior of the cabinet

- it's ours and it's in our bedroom

I know there is more (I love it all!), but suffice it to say that we are pleased.

I was interviewed about the project and process by a reporter for earth911.com. You can read the whole article here. There are some good pictures there, but they are from before the shower door was installed. I'll have to take a few of the truly finished product. Here is a quick look at the before and after - what a huge difference! And the last major interior remodeling project is complete! (Knock wood)

THE most expensve paint job EVER

Apparently green is a tough color. I have had several green rooms over the years and have not had much trouble picking the color I liked.

This bathroom has been a nightmare - I realized about three shades of green in that it was likely due to the fact that there is not yet a light that works in the bathroom, so we are working off natural light from the solar tube and that just isn't cutting it. I have found a few colors I like, then I see them in the morning and hate them. The glass tiles are beautiful, but the iridescent finish is making it tough to find a complementary color. Here's the tile - OOOHHHHH so pretty!

Our contractor painted one green one day, another green the next day, and I have painted the room twice now with two different greens and done several swatches to test a few others. We bought 7 cans of paint. Yes seven. I think we will most certainly have another green room in our home soon... Thank goodness they are all no VOC - can you imagine the stink of 7 cans of regular paint???? I told Honey that I may open a green boutique (pipe dream, but a good one!) and paint all the shades of green in a mural all over the walls.

So here is one shade - I think it is a little too beachy - like the weird seafoam green that you could get on a Ford Taurus...

And here is the winner - well I think it is the winner - it is still drying. But honestly, it's the winner because I am just not going to paint another color again. I need to do one more coat and then touch up the ceiling and trim where I got green all over them...

Zen like spa bathroom...or not

I am a do it yourself kind of girl. I have a really hard time sitting back and letting someone else do something that I know is going to be screwy. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I can be controlling, but I try so hard not to be. Sometimes, I err so much on the side of caution that I could just kick myself for not being more controlling.

Once again, our tile is screwed up. This bathroom that seems like it will never be completed is causing me heartache and pain. We are still waiting for the rest of the tile mosaic to replace the mosaic that got trashed in the last debacle, but meanwhile the rest of the tile has gone up and looked good. So yesterday, the grout went down. I should have known something was amiss when the tile guy had to get a second bag of grout to finish the shower floor. A 25 lb bag of grout should have handily covered the shower walls, floor, and the rest of the bathroom floor. At 6pm, I discovered that he needed more grout because he had grouted the river rock shower floor so it was all level.

That is right - river rock covered in grout to the point that you couldn't really even see it. The point of having a rock floor is so you can have a zen spa like shower experience. You want to feel the rocks beneath your feet. We even had the rock in our house for a few weeks before deciding to use it to be sure we were OK with the bumpy feel. So he made us a grout shower floor like you see in a really old grubby locker room shower.

Well, he stayed and removed some grout. Then he removed some more. Then at around 8pm, he went home. This morning I looked and while you can see some rocks, there is still way too much grout and when you stand on it you can't feel any rocks. So what's the point? Why did I pick out this great rock floor if it is just like regular tile? Oh boy. There was a grout haze still on all the tiles too, which I know is a bad idea because I have made the mistake of letting it sit too long myself. We have a perm ant haze in our hall bath, and there was no way I was letting that happen again here - I washed the shower walls and bathroom floor this morning before honey left for work and they look much better. So this morning I called to talk to the "boss" and they will fix it....of course they will. But honestly that is not the point. The point is that I am paying for someone else to do this and do it right. There is NO REASON that I should have to be a fly buzzing and buzzing around to be sure things are done right. Nor is there any reason I should have to be reading grout and tile specs when others have not checked them out themselves... I should get a cut of the labor cost at this point as I am acting GC most of the time.

So now the shower floor has to come out. And we have to order more tile. And it needs to be reinstalled. And re-grouted. I think I won't do the math because it might make me ill, but I bet it would have been much less expensive for me to have them get to the point where the bath was tile ready, hire a nanny for two weeks and just do it myself. We still have no closet and our clothes are all in the guest room where we will have guests next week. We have no light fixtures or switches installed as of yet. We have no paint on the walls...it seems while we are dealing with all the tile headaches that we could have made some headway on the other parts of the work. I am so close to just doing the wiring myself. I think if I wasn't blogging right now that is what I would be doing.

So close, yet so far

I should have new bathroom pictures to share. We were so close to having a tiled shower this week. So close I could feel the hot water of my very own shower just steps from my bed...but alas, it was not yet to be. Something always goes wrong in remodeling. Clearly, we know that by now. The key is to have people you are working with who will see it, own it, and solve it fast. Thank goodness, we have those people!

I had peeked in at the tile as it was going up, but hadn't gone into the shower until just after the glass border went in. So the whole shower was tiled from the floor to about 4 feet high. At first I just looked at the tile and thought - "yep - these are beautiful!". Then I noticed the grout lines. Or maybe I should say the lack of grout lines. There were spots where I couldn't fit my fingernail between tiles. Now, the manufacturer of the glass tile, Oceanside, recommends sanded grout. Clearly, sanded grout was not ever going to fit in these spaces.

So, I called our folks and since our contractor was out of town at a meeting, his wife Beth came by to check it out. She and the tile guy and I all agree that the glass needs to be moved up. Sounds like a done deal. Except that when I went in to look at that after he had moved it, he had left the trowel lines in the thinset under the tiles. That's fine with regular tile, but with glass the lines need to be flattened or the tiles need to be back buttered so the lines don't show through. So I call Beth again, and she says she is coming over to help me pull tiles off the wall and try to save the glass before it is stuck. This is great news, as I have two little ones begging for attention and dinner needs to be cooked and I just can't imagine washing tiles while I am roasting squash.

So, I go into the shower to get started with the work, and as I am standing there, the recycled subway tiles catch my eye. I look up, and a whole section of tile is obviously crooked. OY! Then I start to inspect further, and lots of individual tiles are akimbo. Now these tiles are not totally uniform, which is fine, but they are seriously not level or plumb. When Beth got there, I showed her what I had saved so far and pointed out the new issue - she saw it too and we agreed that it all needed to come down.

OK. So I buy all recycled tile and now there is a risk that we won't be able to get it off the wall in good enough shape to reuse it?! Why not just go to Lowe's and get some random tile made in China and shipped around the world three times before it gets to me? So now I am hoping we can save at least some of the tile. The glass liners were fine (Thank goodness - they were also the most expensive of the lot!), the mosaics washed off fine, but came off the paper backing when we washed them of course, so now they are a pile of little puzzle pieces. Beth likes them, so she took them for a project at her house, and they will buy some more sheets of them for our bath. SO the glass is not a total loss - as long as it will be used for something I am happy.

The next day, the subway tiles come down. Unbelievably, only four tiles were broken. The rest came off and washed well enough to reuse! Thank goodness the guy who is doing our tiling has a sense of humor since he has spent like a week in a 4x3 space. On Monday, the subway tile will go back up with several sized spacers to keep the tiles level and the grout lines large enough for the appropriate grout. WHEW.

So the thing about all of this, is that this is the first project that we have completely handed over to someone else in this house. Last time we had tiling done at our old house, we had an issue with the border as well, and I didn't say anything until it was done - I kept thinking they knew what they were doing and "never show a fool half finished work". This time, I have tried hard not to meddle and to remain out of the details, and to not be controlling. Of course, this is the time that I should have meddled - I had emailed the installation and specs information before we started, and had the manual from the tile company there for them to see, but did not point out the things that I thought may be issues as I didn't want to seem condescending. If I had pointed out the grout specifications and the flattening of the thinset lines, we would have never had these issues. So you live and learn. Thank goodness I said something right away instead of waiting. Sometimes being a bossy chick may be a good thing!

Small pleasures

Some days it feels like I am living someone else's life. I had a little bit of an out of body experience last night when Peanut woke up just as I was settling down for the night. She was obviously not feeling well, and my mama instinct kicked in as Honey and I tried to figure out how best to settle her back down, but it felt like someone else. You ever get that? Like I was still laying in bed without responsibility or desire to respond while "grown up me" was out there doing what mommies do. Weird. She woke up with another cold, so we are in for the day. We went to the pediatrician yesterday for Pumpkin's 4 month check up - that's always a good place to catch something new. I whipped up some chicken soup for lunch and have a pot roast in the crock pot for dinner. Hopefully, she will eat and drink and get well sooner rather than later. She is taking a power nap right now, which will definitely help.

Pumpkin has been moving and grooving - he is rolling and pivoting all over the floor and grabbing everything he can get his little hands on. I love to watch him explore. It was funny answering the doc's questions yesterday - is he smiling? as he smiles and laughs at her - is he reaching for toys? as he reaches and pulls his sisters hair. Check, check. I am not concerned about this kids development. He's been doing some more sleeping in his crib - staking a claim on his room, and I am feeling like we will get our bedroom back to ourselves one day.

So our bathroom has a real floor! The shower floor is tiled as is the main floor and it looks beautiful. I had been a little concerned that we had too much white with the floor and wall tile but I really like how clean it looks. The bits of green in the shower floor help break it up and I know the glass tile on the wall will be fantastic - once it gets here that is. Oh I am so excited to have a working bathroom right there!

A floor with no leaks

Well our bathroom is coming along. All the drywall is in and mudded, the shower floor is in (this picture is from before the walls were mudded), our closet has new doors, and I went to pick up most of our tile and the toilet yesterday. It looks like a bathroom now and I am starting to get psyched to have one just for me and Honey.

It looks like tiling should begin next week! We just need to pick up the accent tiles when they arrive. All the tile is at least partially recycled, which is great, and it is really nice looking. We went with a basic off white floor and wall tile and put a little pizazz in with recycled glass accents and a river rock shower floor. Hopefully our vision will come through and it will all meld beautifully.

The only downside to this remodel is that all of the tile, toilet, medicine cabinet, and fixtures are in boxes in our bedroom, and the dust from the drywall and the boxes is making us all ill. Tonight we did a full cleaning of the room and covered the boxes with sheets - hopefully this will help with our noses and throats tonight.

Sunshine!

We had solatubes installed yesterday in our kitchen and bathroom. OMG they are awesome! The guy who is working on our bathroom said "there is no excuse to not be clean!" when he saw how brightly lit our shower stall would be without a single light bulb on. My goal was to make the bathroom less cave-like and boy did it work!



























In the kitchen, we have all these fancy can lights - four sets of lights on dimmers to light different work areas - because we chose not to take on the expense and headache of removing the load bearing wall between the kitchen and living room to get more light in there. The lights are wonderful, but we needed to use them all the time. There was honestly not a time of day that we could just leave them off and still see to make food. We have two tubes now in the kitchen and I have not turned on a light yet today, and last night I only turned on the under cabinet lights halfway through dinner prep as it started to get dark outside. What a huge difference!

A little less musty

At the end of day one of bathroom demo, the tile and fixtures were gone and we were down to the studs in the shower stall and some of the wall. It was already an improvement! We learned that there was water inside the shower floor, which is crazy since we have NEVER used this shower so it had to be either from a leak or from a shower taken over a year ago. Gross.

The subfloor had to come up as it was totally waterlogged. I can't begin to tell you how yucky that was. Sadly for this bathroom there was little to be salvaged. I am all for passing on usable things but really, everything in here was well damaged.

You can see in this picture the curb between the bathroom and shower - it is totally rotten. We knew we'd find these kinds of things in here, so we are not surprised - it is just nasty to see (and smell!)

What a huge difference a little piece of wall makes! At the end of day two, the shower lost it's cave-like appearance as the header was removed. It opens up the shower significantly.

The wall next to the vanity was taken out as well. We will lose a few feet of closet space in the bedroom, and gain some cabinet and counter space in the bathroom. It is well worth it. The room seems twice the size when it has really only grown by 6 square feet or so.

So next up, the new wall gets framed in, the plumbing gets set right, and the new subfloor goes in!

It's for real...

We moved into this sad foreclosed house knowing it wanted the chance to be happy. Over the past year, we have cleansed it of demons and dirt, painted every surface, knocked down walls, installed new floors, fixed major plumbing and electrical issues...we have done everything except our master bathroom. We have three bathrooms but have lived like we only have two. The master was/is so bad that we have never even used it and we basically just keep the door closed.

On Thursday all that will change! Demolition begins and we will have the most awesome master bathroom ever, hopefully by Thanksgiving. It is amazing how badly I want this done, now that we have decided to actuially do it, when we have lived without it for the past year. We ordered all of our tile and fixtures on Saturday and I cannot wait to see it all come together.

Making Progress

So the floors in the kitchen will be installed tomorrow, and then we can put the appliances and countertops in! We (I really - Honey could care less) have been stressing about counters, but I believe we found a solution today - silestone is an engineered quartz that has some post consumer recycled content, has good ratings for air quality, looks nice, is maintenance free, is not insanely expensive, and is on sale at Home Depot! It's 10% off, with free edging and a free sink - so really that is a good deal. I'm waiting for the guy to call me back so I can run in and buy it. He says if we buy it before December 17th it can be installed before Christmas, which is something I was definitely not hearing about the other products we were considering. So we are totally in. Now we just need under cabinet lights, a disposal, and faucet and we'll be in business!

On the flip side, after all of the rain, we noticed a new wet spot this morning around the dining room light wiring. I was so sure there was not a problem, but now it looks like we have to have a roofer come check it out. It's always something!

Adding some chaos to the mix...

Really wonderful things are happening lately!

We got a new front door which is absolutely beautiful. Our new slider in the dining room was installed as well - it is so nice to have a door that seals and locks there. What a difference in the temperature!

Today, the electrical is being made functional - outlets and switches are going in as well as light bulbs and trim for the ceiling lighting. We also have our favorite cleaning crew here to help get rid of the drywall dust. By the end of the day, I suspect we won't even recognize the house.

The kitchen cabinets are up and we can really begin to see the kicthen take shape!

We do have a few significant things to do before the family arrives tomorrow. We need a shower curtain rod and a sink in the bath upstairs. I'm not sure we are going to get there. We also need to put the closet doors back on both of the guest rooms. Speaking of guest rooms...one of them will not be a guest room for very long. As you know we love chaos and what better way to create it than to have another little one?! Yes, we are expecting - and the due date is the same as Peanuts was - imagine that!

Build It And They Will Come

Contractors descended upon the house this morning. At about 9:30 I realized that I had scheduled too many people for the same day! It all worked out fine - no one tripped over anyone else - buy boy there was a lot going on!

We've hired painters to do all of the patching, priming and painting in our living room, foyer, hall and rec room. There were just too many holes to patch and the foyer is too tall for me to get up there - I'm leaving that to the pros. They started this morning and by this afternoon the house was transformed. A skim coat on the gray splotchy faux finish made the walls smooth and clean, and the new primer makes everything bigger and sunnier. I spent the morning doing the second coat of paint on the bedroom walls upstairs and the insides of the closet in Peanut's room. I just can't stand the idea of her stuff touching old filth. Better to be on clean new paint.

Our heating folks also came to install the new duct work. We had some parts missing as the folks who lived here before had an electronic air filter that they took with them and just left the space between the furnace and the duct empty. Got to love that. Well, we discovered more missing today. On the left side of the furnace, the return is missing the back and side! It has a front and top so it looks fine until you look at it from the inside, when you notice it is not a duct but a piece of metal bent to look like a duct. In order to get to that to fix it, either the water heater needs to move or we need to cut a hole in the wall in the hallway. Drywall is cheaper than plumbing...

Contractor Mark came by and went over the kitchen plans with me. We may have him do our drywall in there and just hang the cabinets ourselves. He finished the grouting in the bathroom, taped and mudded a wall, and primed the bathroom walls. I picked out some tiles this afternoon for the shower (finally!) and went back to the house to show him, but he must have been all done with the chaos. I'll catch him tomorrow I'm sure.

The plumber came in and made the kitchen plumbing right! No more are there pipes along the floor and walls in the kitchen - they pop up out of the floor under the sink where they ought to be. We had the water shut off today so he can continue the work on the main. This is the time when I am so happy to have a well - at least we have water for clean up outside!

Our chimney was cleaned and inspected - it was filthy as anticipated. It also has some loose bricks, a big gap in the liner, and basically we can't use it until it is fixed. We have been living without a fireplace for quite some time - I'm not concerned about making it through the winter without it really. It is on the bottom of the priority list.

Two weeks from today we are moving in. That seems a little nuts, but I think we can have our bedrooms and the rec room set by then, which is really all we need for now. A microwave, mini fridge and some friends with a stove will keep us fed somewhat healthily for a few weeks until we can complete the kitchen. I'm just hopeful that we can get our hardwoods refinished before that day!