Bathroom Update

I have to be honest and admit that what I thought would take a weekend has turned into a 3 week ordeal! The tiling part was by far the easiest part of this reno believe it or not! Since we are SO close to crossing the finish line on this one I thought I would do a quick update on the floor portion and leave the final reveal for a later day.
Since our home is only 5 years old I was told the glue under our linoleum would still be a little soft and therefore it would be much easier to screw in a thin sub floor over top of the linoleum than to peel it up and scrape off all the glue. SO we gutted the bathroom (to find a plumbing nightmare...which I won't bore you with but I will say this: make sure you have shut off valves installed to the water lines supplying the sink if you don't plan on installing a new sink right away!) Then I screwed down a sub floor with 1/4" plywood.



The sub floor took no time at all and by raising the floor 1/4" plus the thickness of the tile I also had to make two other adjustments when the floor was all said and done: shave down the bottom of the door to allow room for the door to fit and add a closet flange extension to the toilet so that the flange would be flush/a little above the newly installed tile (I am an expert at installing toilets now LOL).

A cool trick I learned while helping Tony install our hardwood floors is that in order to get the new floor to fit nicely under the door jams is to put a small piece of the new floor plus the sub floor up against the door jam so you have the new floor height. Then take a saw (there are much easier saws to use than the hand saw I used) and rest it against the top of the sample piece of floor and saw horizontally.


















The saw I used took a lot of elbow grease but its flat large size actually helped me saw a straight line and eventually once you get through the wood it takes a little wiggling and the piece should fall off...



Here's a good pic of the piece that once you pull it out, your tile slides right under for a nice seamless fit (once you caulk of course :)


Hey lookie who is helping me? Yes a rare sight but I had to snap a photo of this! Since it was our first time laying tiles and they are so small and staggered we laid them all out first, numbered them with chalk and did all our cuts before starting to lay them onto the mortar. We also bought this great little wet tile saw from Home Depot for only $64! Since we plan on tiling 3 bathrooms in this house I figured it was worth the investment.


I also installed new 5" tall baseboard to match the new baseboards in the rest of the house....and
TA DA!!!!


It's definitely not perfect but it really does look pretty good and I'm pretty proud of all our hard work. I still have to re stain the room divider since when I pulled it up from when it was on the linoleum the hidden ends which are now exposed need some colour.
I can't wait to get a plumber in this week to extend our pipes up to our new vanity and sink and show you the other half of this transformation!

13 comments:

Deb said...

That floor is gorgeous. Well done!

Rosie said...

Oh that looks gorgeous! What lovely tile! You are so clever to do it yourself!

Jessica said...

Good job Becky! That is awesome that you got Nathaniel in on it :) It makes for some fun memories.
Xox

Jess

Vintage Home said...

...Wow...I have been waiting for this blog entry!...YEAH!..looking forward to the next one!...yeah for getting your Nathaniel to give his bran & brawn!....I love your floor!
p.s. I hope you don't mind my saying so ...but ...what if you spray painted your register grate the colour of your floor? ( I just buy the spray @ Walmart it seems to go on anything!...if it doesn't attach itself well on the plastic by a metal one & spray it....

Becky said...

LOVE LOVE LOVE! Mice job you two! Looks so original and so pretty! Cant wait to see the entire reveal. I know it will be stunning :) I have been bad at updating lately. We have been dealing with some crummy life curve balls...But alas I will get back to it soon. Hope all is well and your week is fab!
xoxo
Becks

Becky said...

Becky, I will absolutely do a a tutorial of the pillow cases...I will get on that and do a proper one before the weekend...
Do you have any 18 X 18 pillow forms?

xoxo
Becks

Amanda said...

i LOVE the new floor. seriously woman you are an animal! tiling, installing toilets, using saws. lol. great work you two! cant wait to see the rest.

Jessica said...

You remind me so much of Mom how you are not afraid to use power tools and tackle anything!
P.S. Check out my blog, I gave you an award.

Xox

Misty said...

Hello...Your tile is beautiful, you did a great job installing. Can't wait to see your beautiful vanity in. May I make one suggestion? You are using a reducer for a transition, you need a t-mould. Or you could butt your tile up to the hardwood leave about 1/4 and grout right up to the hardwood. It finishes it off a little nicer. The other is use some schluter trim. Then you don't need the bid clunky reducer.

Little Lovables said...

what unusual tiles! I love them! the light grout looks pretty with them as well

lisa said...

Oh i love these tiles! You are brave to do such a complicated pattern, but it really paid off. Gorgeous!

Rebecca said...

Thank you my lovely blog friends :) I love love love your input and hearing everything you have to say! Vintage Home I SOOOO agree and I am going to get a dark heating grate for the floor....and Misty I will definitely look into getting a t-mould so it looks less clunky! The tile is quite a bit higher than the wood so would this still work?

Sarah Longtin said...

We used the same trick to cut the door jams in our entire house when we were installing hardwood floors....serious elbow grease. Shortly after my fiance's parents got him a small handheld electric "doitall" tool with an attachment to cut door jams. So, for anyone needing to cut jams, I reccomend heading to Lowe's and getting an electric version!

Your bathroom is absolutely beautiful! I am starting from scratch in our guest bath except the future hubs wants white tile. I really want to keep things light and airy-spa-like because it's such a small space. Do you think creamy white walls and a white vanity would be too much white white tile? What about throwing a few gray tiles in for every white tile?

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