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!

Tiling a Bathroom is HARD WORK!

I spent a lot of time last week reading about how to tile and watching videos on how to tile. I have done several tile jobs in my life, but never a shower. If I made a mistake with this project, I could be looking at some very expensive water damage, so I wanted to make sure I did it right.

Although, earlier I had measured the walls when I initially bought the tile, since my brother and law did all the work to re-frame the tub, I needed to recheck the numbers and make a final decision on what I wanted to do design-wise. I laid the measuring tape on the floor and lined up the diamond featured tile alternating with plain field tile. I then figured out how small a piece would have to be cut on both sides. One of the things that I learned was to not cut too itty bitty a piece for the corners if you can help it. I lucked out -- big enough.

Using a level, I started by drawing a horizontal line the height of one tile minus 1/8 inch off the bottom of the green-board. This gave me a slight overhang on of tile. I will fill this space with caulk when I am done. According to my calculations, I had to center one tile on the back wall. So I measured 1/2 the distance of the wall, made a mark and using a level, I drew a vertical line (the red line in photo on right). Then I drew two other perpendicular lines on either side of that line between which was one tile wide. This gave me my starting place for my first course of tile.

I am using Ultralite Mortar by Mapei. It is a thin set mortar with an approximately 2 hour pot life. Although the bag gives directions to mix the entire bag at once, I did not see being able to tile the whole thing with all the cutting inside of one day -- much less 2 hours. So, I have been mixing smaller batches. One of the problems that many of the articles I read noted was that Do-It-Yourself-ers like me usually don't get the thin-set mixed thick enough. It has to be peanut butter consistency not mayonnaise consistency. When you have s scoop on your "spoon", it should hang there and not drip off. I made sure that I had everything ready to go BEFORE I mixed the thin-set. This was good because all my preparations and recalculations -- not to mention another last minute trip to Menards to pick up the right sized trowel -- the thin-set would have sat there over two hours by the time I got to it.

About half-way through the day, I realized that the 2 X 6 bull-nosed tile that I got to go around the edge was not going to work. I can't go out to far on the sides, or I would hit the mirror. Taking it into where the original tile left off didn't work either because I would have left me cutting corner pieces that were only 3/4 of an inch wide. Ugh. So that meant if I was going to fix it I had to do it quick before the thin-set dried. I popped off the 18 or 20 tiles that I had placed, scraped off the thin-set and started over. Then, back to Menards I went and exchanged the 2 X 6 for 4 X 4 bull-nosed tiles. Or I should say two Menards, since the first one did not have enough for me.

I started tiling around 12:30 or 1:00 PM and tiled into the evening and got nearly 3/4 of the job done by 8:30. At that point I was finished with my third batch of thin-set and my patience was gone. You could see the design coming together, but the hard cutting was yet to come as I had left the wall with the faucet for last.

I woke up the next morning and felt like I had been hit with a Mack truck -- every muscle in my body was screaming. However, there is no stopping now since I have house guests coming at the beginning of July. I have to get the bathroom done or everyone will be sharing the master bathroom.

I worked out where the pipe for the faucet was going to end up. I had anticipated needing to drill a whole in the middle of a tile and bought a carbide hole cutting bit. I was lucky and won the hole cutting lottery! Both the faucet and handle holes were on the edge of tiles and I was able to cut it out using my tile saw. (Yes, I own my own tile wet saw -- best tool investment I ever made!)

I kept working up the wall and cutting the tiles to fit into the corner. I got up to the design rows and realized that my rows were not matching up to the back wall that I finished the night before. By the last row of the wall, I was off nearly an inch at the top! I looked at the tile and realized that the second box of 4 X 4 bull-nosed tile was slightly wider than the 1st box. Since I was lining my course up with the bull-nosed tile So I took off the top 4 rows and trimmed the nubs off of one side of the bull-nosed tiles to make them a little smaller and narrow the grout line. By the time I got back up to the top, I was even with the back tile. Like I said, my little wet saw is a do-it-yourself-ers best friend.

Nubs

No Nubs!

All in all, I am pretty happy with the job. In two week ends it went from this:

to this:

Now I gotta get rid of that robin's egg blue!

Happy tiling!

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!

Project 2016 -- Florida or Bust:Kitchen Makeover -- Cabinets Finished

Yea! Yippee! The cabinets are done! I see a million mistakes but I am going to keep my mouth shut and let others decide if I did a good job or not. I am just relieved to have my kitchen back for a short time. The DH is ecstatic over the microwave's return to it's rightful place and getting the coffee maker out of the dining room. I am going to take a break over the next week through Good Friday and Easter weekend before tearing the kitchen apart in the next phase.

I can't wait to get the entire project done. Remaining on the to do list is repairing and painting walls and trim; and installing glass tile back splash.

And now I can knit more!

Happy Knitting!

Project 2016 -- Florida or Bust: Kitchen Makeover Day Infinity

I love it when the DH  vacuums

The never-ending-kitchen-make-over continued today. They say there is nothing like experience and after failing miserably two weeks ago with the Countertop Transformations® kit, we tried a second round. We made some changes in our approach to increase the chances of success and I think it worked.

LAST TIME: The video that was supplied emphasized working "quickly". Last time the thought that the adhesive base paint would dry before we got the color chips on, had me in a panic. We worked too quickly and as a result,  did not get the product on thick enough and ran into each other and the counter top smudging it in a few places. We also tried to do each bank of cabinets successively, one right after another which just made the stress level increase as we went from the smallest to the longest counter top.

CHANGES WE MADE: After watching the video again, I saw that we had missed words on the screen that said we had about 20 minutes to apply the color chips. That was more time than I thought we had. This time we decided that we would do the largest counter top first. Then clean up and take a break for a couple of hours. Then go back and do both the two smaller counter tops. This helped us in two ways: We cleaned up the mess from the first application so we were not walking around in all the color chips. It will also allow us more time on the sanding tomorrow as that has a time sensitive window, too.

Happy Sanding!!!

Project 2016 -- Florida or Bust: Kitchen Makeover Days Eight and Nine

This is my living room. It consists of all the painted doors of my kitchen cabinets and all of the contents of my kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately, this is how it will remain for the next few weeks as I slowly progress through the two remaining steps to my cabinet makeover (let's just ignore the whole counter top debacle).

If I had it to begin all over again, these are the things I would do differently:

• Only plan one project at a time. I shouldn't have thought I could get so much done in one week. But that would have depended on:
• Doing more research. If I had gone through the videos a couple of times, I might have realized that the project had a lot of steps and would take more time. Breaking the steps into smaller projects would have allowed me to rest between projects. It may have also allowed me to realize that I needed more room to progress quickly on painting the cabinet doors. Perhaps set up the painting in the basement -- regardless of how cold it might be down there.
• Do more prep work in advance. I wasted an entire day just cleaning out my kitchen cabinets. I could have done this in the evenings prior to my working vacation.

My working vacation is over and I must return to work tomorrow morning. I will have to insert the next steps of the process during the evenings and upcoming weekends.

Happy painting.

Project 2016 -- Florida or Bust: Kitchen Makeover Day Five

What do nails, plastic wrap, and toothpicks have in common? Give up? They are all things that can make your painting easier.

As you can see, I have started painting the cabinets. When I first opened the can of paint, my first thought was, "Oh, this is way too light and way to grey." But I had to remind myself that it is a two step color process which includes a brown glaze which will warm up and darken the look. So for now I choose to not panic. But what I would like to talk about is some things that can make painting easier that were not necessarily made for painting.

Before you start sloshing paint around, one trick is to take a hammer and nail and punch at least 4 holes around the rim of the paint can. These holes will be under the lid when the lid is on. When you pour paint from the paint can, there is always paint that ends up in this crevice. The holes allow the paint to drain from this crevice and back into the paint can when you push the lid back on. Without these holes, you often end up with paint being squeezed out and over the edge making an even bigger mess than when you poured the paint.

Kitchen plastic wrap that you use to keep food from drying out in the refrigerator also keeps your brush and paint tray (paper plate) from drying out during a lunch break. In dry areas, latex based paint can start drying pretty quickly. A long lunch is enough to end up with a thickened layer on your paint and hard to clean paint brush. In the past, plastic wrap has even kept paint and paint brush wet enough for me overnight.

Sometimes when painting over small holes where hardware needs to be replaced, the hole gets covered with paint. Using a toothpick, you can easily
clear the hole of the paint. You can use other things too, like pencil tips, nails etc. But I have always found toothpicks to be plentiful and always available in a kitchen.




Happy painting!!

Project 2016 -- Florida or Bust: Kitchen Makeover Day Two

Before

Before

Wow! My whole body hurts! Yesterday was a long day and I hardly got started on the counter tops. I emptied all of the cabinets, moved the kitchen table into the family room and got the microwave down. I took all the extra caulk out of crevices along the edges of the counters and around the sink. I set up a work station with my new saw horses and a wooden shelf in the middle of the kitchen. I'll use this as a table where I can prepare the doors for painting and use as a station to do the counter tops.

After

After watching the counter top restoration 'how to' video again, and for about the last half hour that I could remain standing, I started sanding the finish of the laminate counter tops. It only took a half an hour to get them half done. This afternoon after I finished sanding the counter tops and taping off the sink and other areas, the DH and I did step one of the counter top transformation.

After

Funny thing about 'how to' videos, the people on the 'how to' videos smile a lot, never yell at each other, and not only are they perfectly clean when finished -- the room is clean, too! Not so much at my house. A little yelling, a paint covered T-shirt, and a HUGE mess!

The process is to roll a thick adhesive paint onto the roughed up counter tops and then using this "yard-fertilizer-spreader" applicator thing you put this substance that looks like (is?) crushed rock. The crushed rock is now everywhere!

I am glad I followed the instructions to tape up the sink. I can imagine what would happen to the garbage disposal if I had not. The crushed rock even went over the ledge behind the sink and landed all over the sofa in the family room. (I guess I needed to vacuum anyway.)

Mess

Yes, in the carpet, too.

The color is such a stark contrast to the original white. But no remorse here, I know that the cabinets will be much lighter and with clean painted walls, this kitchen will look great.

Happy (?) cleaning!