Bathroom Remodel (In Progress)

01/12/2015

The last two days have been crazy stressful! We are in the middle of our bathroom remodel, which has been ongoing for over a month now!

You see, when we bought the house the bathroom looked like this... complete with nasty pink wallpaper, a retro green linoleum floor covering, a green counter top, and hanging lantern lights, and lets not forget our chipping porcelain sink!

We bought the house with the agreement that it needed cosmetic work... and so in October I got to work. I peeled off the wallpaper layer and the backing to it in a area and discovered some BAD news. When the house was built the drywall was never finished out because they were just throwing wallpaper on it anyway so my walls looked like this under the wallpaper:








That is NOT what you want to see after spending hours scraping wallpaper off of walls! I mean I was sweating, and I don't sweat!

My husband and I argued debated our course of action for the wall. I'm a DIY enthusiast and a Jew so of course I was all gung-ho Miss we can do it! He, however, was all for hired skilled laborers so we spent $155 for someone to fix both this wall, and the other bathroom.

It took MONTHS for us to reach a decision on our course of action, then find the right person to do the job, and actually schedule a time for them to come out and do it! After the walls were finished though I got right on painting them (and the new scraped ceiling) here is a picture I took during painting (notice the trim isn't done in this image).

I have to say the color isn't what I expected. I don't hate it but I'm debating adding beadboard to break it up a little bit. I'm hoping it will look fantastic with the new floor and shower curtain and won't need any though!

During the wall work the toilet in this bathroom started leaking. Not a huge issue, we simply turned off the water to the toilet and stopped using it since we have two bathrooms... but let me just say, both bathrooms in our house are a necessity! I have a small bladder, and someone in the household who is not me but should remain nameless has "stomach issues". Two bathrooms are needed!

Since we had to replace the toilet anyway and were planning on redoing the floor we decided to tackle the project all at once! So we got together materials, picked out tile, measured, I did ALOT of research and here is what has happened over the last two days

The linoleum did NOT want to come up in some areas (especially by the door)... and sometimes the linoleum would come up without the backing! GRR! We spent HOURS on this!


JUST TO DISCOVER

 Do you know what type of "wood" that is? I do, it is PARTICLEBOARD... you know the cheap stuff used to make CHEAP stuff?

Not ideal for any flooring installation, particularly tile!

After a mini meltdown I considered that maybe it isn't the subfloor but an underlayment! Fortunately I was correct so off to buy a tool to remove it we went which gets us to where we are now...

Here

Now that we have it down to the subfloor I have MORE bad news... the subfloor is to bouncy and weak in areas so we will have to get additional plywood to put on top of it....

In un expected expenses for this project we have

drywall finishing: $155
Prybar: $10
Circular Saw: $60
Plywood: estimated $40

Total SO far: $265

This project is almost $300 over budget and we have only done the demo stage of MOST of it!

I'm STRESSED!

UPDATE: It is 11:54 and my husband is still working away. I have to admit he is working more often than me since he is the one using the power tools, and I'm faster. Not to knock him or anything but he took like hours to make the cuts we needed... I might have to learn how ;)

I'll add pictures later, now its just about bedtime for us!

01/14/2015

Alright ya'll! I have to say I'm super excited, I can see the finish line! My husband and I disagreed on tiles and this one was a comprimise and I have to admit, I'm thrilled with it! I don't think my pick would have looked any better.
Today we are making all the cuts to the tiles, and laying them. We have to wait 24 hours for the thinset to dry before grouting, than another 24-48 before walking on them or installing the toilet so by next weekend I'm hoping the bathroom remodel is 100% finished.

Here is your sneak preview:

Here is where we added additional plywood as a underlayment to strengthen the floor and make it less bouncy! I did thinset underneath and we nailed the plywood in for maximum strength and stability.

And the wonderboard:













Here is the dry lay of tiles, once hubby is done cutting them all then we will be laying them for real! Don't they look great?

01/16/2014

UPDATE: After allowing the thinset ample time to dry I was about to start grouting between the tiles when I realized a HUGE mistake! I got the wrong color grout! We grabbed a bag not thinking and the color is a brown (EWW), so tomorrow I'll be exchanging it for a dark grey!

01/20/2014

We have finished the floor and installed the toilet!!!