- 10-10 Bathroom Stripped and 1st Coat On
As with any home improvement project, this one has seemed to grow as we’ve gone along. What was originally going to be “install a new linoleum tile floor” has turned into so much more when we discovered that our floor wasn’t exactly level and smooth, nor were the vinyl tiles sticking. We’ve been without our 2nd bathroom 9-8-08, so I’m ready to have it back! We decided since we were going to have to level the floor with a concrete patch, and the vinyl tile was ugly anyway, we would lay tile. And since we’re laying tile, and will have to have the sink out and trim off for that, let’s paint while we’re at it. Then while getting ready to paint, we realized that the GFCI outlet and light switches were all painted on and mismatched with their plates, so we should replace those too. Then as we tried to disconnect the sink, we discovered the shut off valves didn’t work, so we needed to replace those too, and while we’re at it, the nasty, bent up, and rusty wall flanges around the pipes. So once we had made about 4 trips to Lowes, we were finally able to get the first coat of paint on. It’s a “green” paint with no fumes, so no worries for the baby.
10-11 Bathroom Painting Finished
Although we had hoped to get the painting done, and the patch on the floor done over the weeked, we only managed to get 2 coats of paint on, with all of our other troubles. Jason rewired the GFCI and light switches later in the week, with yet another trip to lowes, because the house was wired with 12 gauge wire, and the switches needed to be wired with 14 gauge (smaller size wire). Then last Friday we finally got the patch done on the floor so we could start laying tile on Saturday.
We bought some tile and started to dry fit the tiles on the diagonal (to hide the wonky sheetrock job on the walls & because it looks prettier) but discovered that the tiles we bought weren’t good cause they were mostly all broken in the boxes, and the one we tried to cut broke too. Took those back, got some new ones, but they kept breaking every time we tried to cut them too, so we thought it might mean our blade was bad, so ANOTHER trip to lowes to get a new blade. Still didn’t work. So after breaking about $4-5 worth of tiles with no sucess, we decided to just lay the tile straight, instead of on the diagonal, cause it’d mean less (and much easier) cuts for us. As we were dry fitting the new configuration, we discovered that our patch job still wasn’t built up quite enough. After we pulled all of the dry fit tiles back up, we added a second coat of patch to the area that was still low and then had lunch.
10-19 Tiling and Grouting Finished
Luckily for us it was a quick setting patch and we were able to get the tile in that night and grout the next night. Well… I laid the tile while Jason handed them to me, and then the next night he grouted while I supervised from the dry bathtub… he told me it wouldn’t be fair if I supervised while actually taking a bath! 
Then on Sunday we decided to also start working on the trim, scraping the old caulk off so we could give it some touch up paint and reinstall it. Then we discovered it was MDF trim and a lot of it was too messed up to re-use (and look decent at least) so we went out and bought new trim instead. I painted that on Monday and Jason cut and installed it on Monday night, while I again, supervised from the tub. I’m usually too exausted by Jonah’s bed time to be convinced to work much on the room at that point. I did however, scrape tan paint off the old towel bar, and other fixtures during the day and re-installed them all before he got home.
10-22 Trim & Caulking Finished with Fixtures Back In
10-22 Note the New Electricals and Plumbing
Now that all of that is done, we “just” have to re-install the pedestal sink and then the plumber guys will come back out and install our toilet (as part of what we already paid them for) on Friday! Then we move our tall, skinny storage cabinet back in and call it DONE! (until we get around to getting new non-70′s-era light fixtures in there! )
We got home with all our loot and started working on replacing the outlets and coverplates. The original ones were all almond colored with mismatched plates and everything had been painted over multiple times. We decided as we renovate each room in the house, we’ll replace the sockets and switches with new white ones cause it’s cheap and easy, and looks SO much better. It’s amazing how much something so little can make such a big difference.
