La Ristrutturazione del Bagno è Finita

That's Italian for 'the bathroom renovation is finished'! It sounds so much prettier in Italian just like my 'new' bathroom is so much prettier than the 'old' bathroom.

Painting was easy -- I did it all in one day. I also put the toilet together and fixed the gouge in the tub from when I dropped the tile. A 'field trip' to Bed Bath and Beyond yielded a new, extra-long shower curtain, towels and floor mats. The shower curtain will look better once it has hung for a few days and after a couple of steamy showers takes the wrinkles out. I certainly am glad to be done. I promise, these are the last pictures of this bathroom you will ever see. (However, I do have two more bathrooms that need painting . . . next year.)


Happy . . . sitting down and relaxing and enjoying the rest of the day!

A Sweating Afternoon

Yes, I know, you are very tired of seeing pictures of my bathroom. But not many more -- hopefully. Today I sweated copper pipes for the first time in 30 years and I didn't set the house on fire! In yesterday's post, I shared with you that I had planned to just get a cheap faucet which clips on with a hex screw and an Allen wrench. Then later, I could hire a plummer to come make the pipe the right size. But after finding out that there is no such thing as a cheap faucet -- and I already knew there was no such thing as a cheap plumber -- I walked out with a Do-It-Yourself-but-don't-burn-down-the-house-pipe-sweating-kit.

The product's name is funny -- Bernz-O-Matic! The kit contains flux, a brush, propane container and torch.
It was easy to connect the torch to the container, just like the propane tank on the grill only not as heavy. The other things that I had to buy was emery fabric to rough up the pipe, a pipe cutter and the copper tubing, threaded nozzle, and connector. One thing that I already had that came in very handy was a pair of fire gloves. The first thing that I did was put the threaded end on the pipe. I can't show pictures of myself sweating the copper pipes as I can't hold solder, the pipe and an I-phone! But the gloves came in handy. The pipe got really hot but I never felt it with the glove on.

After I got that done, I cut the pipe to the measurement I had calculated. The pipe cutter was a little small and hard to tighten down after every turn or two. But I was able to make it easier by using a pair of pliers. I guess my hands are not as strong as they used to be.

What is the saying about measure twice, cut once? My calculations are not as good as they used to be either and I might have done better if I had thought about it first. After I put the connector and pipes together to test the length, realized that a 6 inch faucet did not mean I needed a 6 inch pipe, and I had to remeasure, recalculate and re-cut the pipe.

One other purchase I made ended up being a good idea, too. It is a heat shield that you put up behind your pipe and it protects the area behind it. The guy at Menards told me that I could burn the ceramic tile -- pop them right off the wall. So I thought it was a good idea to get one of those. And after I started to sweat those pipes, I was really glad as I couldn't get an angle that the flame didn't get too close to the tile. I finally got all three joints soldered and the water running.

I finally was able clean my tub. After weeks of demolition, mud and tape, thin-set, grout and caulk -- that was one dirty tub. All in all, I am pretty happy with the results and I think that my $60 purchase was most likely cheaper than a plumber. And you never know when I might want to sweat some more pipes.

Happy sweating!

Another Long Day in DIY Remodel-land and Too Many Trips to the Hardware Store

Today, I started my day by taking out the rest of the inner parts of the toilet and removed the tank. The toilet has been hard to flush and I decided it was time to replace everything as long as I was fixing up the bathroom. I actually started this task last week, but since I had not actually checked out what kind of insides this toilet had, I assumed it was like the one I changed out last year. Not. So I had to make a trip to the hardware store on Thursday to get more/different parts.

In order to change out all the parts, I had to remove the tank from the bowl. The tank is held on with three long bolts which go through a rubber washer, down through holes in the bowl and are held tight by a nut at the bottom. And here is where my day started going badly. The top of the bolts had a slot for a flat-head screw driver. But as soon as I tried to loosen the first bolt, the top of it started to disintegrate and the bottom of the bolt was corroded so getting it off was not going to be easy. Lots of WD-40; a hacksaw and an hour later, I finally removed the last of the three bolts. Unfortunately, I had planned to reuse the bolts so I made another trip to the hardware store.

Which 2 colors would you pick?

Not too bad on the caulk job!

After returning, it was already noon, and I wanted to get the caulk around the tub done since that takes awhile to cure but still needed a second coat of grout sealer on the tile first. I did that and caulked the tub. I had already purchased paint samples last weekend and put all three colors on the wall around the edge of the tub. I needed to "reflect" on the colors for awhile.

I know you will think that I am silly, but I had already planned to go to the hardware store to buy the shower head and tub faucet trim. Why didn't I get it then? Don't ask me. Off I went to pick out my shower head and tub faucet. I knew that I wanted to use a Price Pfister trim kit. The previous hardware was Price Pfister and I didn't want to have to re-plumb the valve, so I had to find a Price Pfister that I liked. Four hardware stores later, I finally had my trim kit and headed home. It was 4:30 in the afternoon.

Installing the shower head and faucet handle was easy. Everything went according to plan until I realized that the tub faucet was too long for the pipe coming out of the wall and it required a threaded pipe. So back to the hardware store. Again.

My thought was to get a cheap tub faucet for a few dollars and then get a plumber in to put in what I needed. I have done soldering of pipes in the past, but did not have a torch and soldering supplies, so I was thinking that would be a stop gap until I got a plumber later in the year. But after finding out that there is no such thing as a cheap, temporary tub faucet, I came home with a new toy! I did some soldering of copper pipes years ago, but never really had the opportunity again and of course didn't own the equipment -- now I do!

By the time I got home it was 7:00 PM and I had not eaten yet so I decided to throw a couple of steaks on the grill for me and the DH. After dinner, I was too tired to think about burning down the house, so I am putting off finishing the tub faucet until tomorrow. I did clean up the bathroom a bit as I was tired of tripping over tools that I had not put away. I mopped the floor and whipped down the counter top and removed and replaced the caulk in on the counter top.

Tomorrow is another day!

Happy remodeling!

Project 2016 -- Florida or Bust: Bathroom Makeover - The Beginning!

This isn't a picture of my work. This is the inspiration for my planned tile job in the guest bathroom shower. I have several sheets of tile left over from my kitchen makeover so I found this design at my local Menards store which features the same size tile. I bought off white ("Biscuit") field tile and the tile with the diamond cut outs as trim. Now if I ever get to the point of installing them, I would be happy.

Unfortunately, something always goes wrong in "Remodel Land". I found that the tile that I was removing was attached with some kind of construction adhesive which meant that the tile was not getting removed very easily. In fact, when I got a little past this point, as I chiseled away at the tile, it was actually removing portions of green board with the tile and I realized that this was not going to be a quick tile job as I was going to have to replace the green board, too.

So, now this is what it looks like. I had to go right down to the studs to make sure that I will get a good end result. My trusty dusty brother-in-law will be arriving next weekend to help me re-install green board.

I have only installed dry wall once about 25 years ago and I do not want to rely on my memory on how to tape and mud joints. If it was any other place other than the shower, I might actually try to do it without experience, but a shower is not the place to earn your stripes. Water damage is not fun.

If my brother-in-law can just get me back to complete walls, I have no problem getting the tile up. After living in Florida where everything is tiled, I must have tiled at least an acre worth of tile in my life time.

Happy demolition!