Tiling the Bathroom

We've been putting some work into the bathroom lately. Remember this?


You can't see very well on the photo, but the floors are in pretty rough shape. You can't smell the photo, either. After we hauled all the trash out of the house, most of the stink leftover was in the bathroom. Specifically, IN the floors. I am a hardwood floor lover, but these HAD to go (along with the wallpaper, border, green paint & cheap-o vanity.


As Vino ripped up the floor boards the stink stank worse.


The hardwood flooring AND the diagonal sub-floor boards had steeped in liquid for a long time. And not just water. Some of it was rotten.


The toilet had been in peril and we didn't even know it. The sub-floor boards in this area were short & one even fell out into the basement.

Voila! New sub-floor over the old to stabilize the surface for tile. Backer board on the wall for the new subway tile. I know, white subway tile is like Starbucks. Everyone does it and thinks it's cool. It's on every shelter magazine street corner. Figuratively. Now it's old hat. But I don't care. I've wanted a bathroom with white subway tile for a long time. AND, it goes well with the age of our home. What does old hat really mean, anyways??


My dad was a huge help to us putting in the tile, since neither one of us had ever done it before.


We sure learned a lot. Tiling doesn't scare us anymore. Maybe the time & sore muscles do, though...

Vino did a great job laying the floor tile in a house where hardly anything is square. We discovered that white grout with white tile camouflages a lot of imperfections!

There's a pretty big height difference between the bathroom floor and the hallway floor. We'll have to get a substantial transition piece. It would have been higher if Vino hadn't torn out the old floor boards. By the way, he drilled holes in the sub-floor from the bathroom and from the basement ceiling. Whenever he did that it smelled like burnt pee, the sub-floor had been so saturated. Don't ask me how I know what burnt pee smells like. We will be Kilz-ing the basement ceiling.


Oh, look. I actually did some work in the bathroom, too. I cleaned off all the grout from the tile surface, painted the upper walls & trim and sealed the grout. I'm ready to take a bath in here. Problem is, though, the tub isn't ready for me.


Neither is the toilet.


We're getting close, but it's taking longer than I want. I'm SO ready to settle in. Have I said that before?