Bathroom Floors

We have lived in our home for about 4 1/2 years now. And we've dealt with some ugly, stained, torn linoleum in both our master bathroom and upstairs bathroom that whole time. With the other updates I've made (cabinets, tiling), it was definitely out of place. The upstairs floor was even pink in some places.

So before the stay-at-home orders for this pandemic, I bought a bunch of vinyl flooring for both bathrooms. It is very thin, clicks together and requires no glue, and can be placed directly over the linoleum (the linoleum acts as an underlayment to protect the floor from the concrete underneath). It's also waterproof, which is perfect for bathrooms.

The process is actually fairly simple. The main thing I think I would do differently is buy knee pads. I bruised my knees pretty good by being on the floor for so long. I also ended up using a lot more tools than I thought I would. The main ones were a hammer (used to tap a sacrificial piece of vinyl into the boards to tighten up the joints after they clicked together), crowbar (pry up baseboards, and move tiles that were along the wall), miter saw, and jigsaw (to cut the pieces to fit). But I also used an oscillating multitool (to cut door trim so flooring would slide under it), a tile contour gauge (to get better fits around objects like toilet flanges and wall protrusions), pencil (to mark lines to cut), and a utility knife (to trim pieces that weren't quite right).

Something I had a hard time figuring out were the gaps. To allow for expansion and contraction, you should leave a 1/4-inch gap around the walls. This is fine when there are baseboards that will go over the top and cover the gaps (or a transition piece to the carpet), but along the tub and shower, or the floor by the mirror, it was trickier. I learned a tip from a YouTuber - only leave 1/8-inch gap on those sides (as long as the opposite side will have a gap), and caulk the 1/8-inch gap with white silicone caulk. Another lesson learned - for those same spots, make sure the tile is in as straight a line as possible, so your caulk line looks great. Mine is less than great.

Anyway, here are some pictures - first the master bathroom:

And the upstairs bathroom - I actually did the toilet area first on this one, which I'm glad I did. Made the rest of the floor easier.

Oh, one more thing on those floor transitions. They use easily bendable plastic anchors, so when you drill your holes, make sure they are the right size and perfectly straight. Then go slowly when attaching the transition piece and make sure the bolts go in straight, or they'll bend, and you'll have to redo the whole thing...like me.

The last step was to touch-up and re-caulk the baseboards - the top with white latex caulk, and the bottom against the floor with white silicone caulk. I made the mistake of using an inflexible caulk along the floors before, and the caulk all cracked in the wintertime and pulled away from the baseboards.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

The Family Tree

We used to have a family wall. It had pictures of all the families in Kristen's and my immediate families. Because we've moved several times in our marriage, we were always trying to figure out the best way to arrange the pictures.

After we repainted our walls, we thought it would be cool to put one of those family trees up that we've seen people do. I think often they're big vinyl stickers, but I have an artist in the family, so I said forget that - I'm only paying for a can of paint (but seriously, go check out Kristen's web site: kristenbuchanan.com).

Kristen did the majority of the work - outlining the tree in pencil, and painting most of it (I did inside the trunk and large branches, and cleaned up the pencil after it was all done). And then we put up our family photos. Take a look at the finished product!

Also, here is a GIF of the process of Kristen creating the tree. Enjoy!

Kitchen Table

This is a project I did last summer when I was on paternity leave, and it's one that I'm simultaneously proud of and very disappointed in. I'll tell you why later. First, the build.

We got this table for free from a friend who was moving. It came across the country with us 6 years ago when we moved to Minnesota. It has seen better days. Scratches, dents, food build-up, etc. It also had a very old look and feel to it - the pink tile and yellowing wood does not exactly scream modern.

I didn't take a "pre" shot, but there are plenty of the table -
this one has a tea party going on around it

So I decided to refinish it. I didn't think I would, but I love having tile on a kitchen table - you aren't constantly worried about damaging the wood from a hot dish, and it's easy to clean. So I decided to replace the tile to give it a more modern look (it was also practice for my bathroom project). The backing was a really soft material, which made it hard not to damage, but it came off pretty easily.

I also wanted a different color - anyone who has read my blog knows I like the dark color of General Finishes' Java Gel Stain and Dark Chocolate Milk Paint. It's on my doors and all my cabinets. So that's what I used.

I disassembled and painted the legs and table top separately. After sanding out all the scratches, dents, and the old topcoat, I used my HVLP spray gun and air compressor that I used in my laundry room project. I applied two coats of paint with the sprayer, then went over that with a couple coats of wipe-on polyurethane.

I really like the look of the table - the plan was to also do the chairs, but I got into another project (*cough* bathroom *cough*) and never did. But when it warms up this summer, I'll take those on. Here is a GIF of the new tile going on the table (got it from the ReStore).

After tiling, I taped over the finished wood with painter's tape, then I mixed up the grout and went to town. Grouting went fairly smoothly, and once it was dry / cured, I went over all the grout lines with a grout sealer.

With that, the table was basically done. Reattached the legs and stuck it in the kitchen. But I mentioned some issues earlier, so let's talk about them (and what not to do for anyone doing something similar).

The first issue was the grout I used for the tile. Apparently grout has an expiration date - I didn't know that. But if you've opened the bag, unless you're going to use it relatively soon (as in, less than a year), might as well throw it out. I used the same grout on my kitchen backsplash, and it has held up very well. This time? Not so much. First off, it never seemed to harden - even after a couple coats of grout sealer, it was still powdery. For example, if I rubbed my finger along the grout lines, my finger would come away with white dust on it. In addition, as we have cleaned the grout periodically, it has scraped and chipped away in places, leaving an undesirable appearance. So first lesson: don't use old grout.

Some of the grout has chipped out

Second lesson: use more coats of paint and poly. I have four kids, who are hard on my table. In several places, the paint and topcoat have worn away or been scratched away, leaving the light wood peeking through. Part of the issue was only using a couple coats of paint, applied with a sprayer. Spraying means a more even coat, but it also means less paint used. Which is good for saving money and paint, but less good for durability. The wipe-on poly is also a culprit. It means no brush strokes, but it also means that the poly has been thinned, so you need more coats. I later learned that you need about 3x as many coats of wipe-on poly to equal 1 coat of brush-on. Lesson learned - use more coats.

This is in my three-year-old's spot -
no surprise that it's taken the most damage

So this summer, in addition to the chairs, I will be re-grouting and re-painting my table top. But dang it, it will look good. Here's how well it looked when it was first finished (you can see the chairs need to be done too - they don't match AT ALL). So like I said, even though I am a bit disappointed, I'm still pretty proud too.

Drawer Dividers

This was probably the quickest project I've done that is posted on this site. From start to finish, it took about an hour and a half, but it makes a big difference.

We have a lot of drawers in our kitchen (see my cabinet post). Despite that, we still end up with a free-for-all in several drawers, where utensils are thrown in willy-nilly. Invariably, it leads to a fair amount of, "Hon? Do you know where [X utensil] is?!" So I thought I'd create some organization.

First, I created the layout - I took everything out of the drawer, then added everything back where I wanted it, and used tape to show where I wanted the dividers.

Next, I built the dividers. I used some pine craft board from Lowes. I bought six 3-foot long, 3/8-inch thick, 2 1/2-inch tall boards called "project boards." I took each drawer out to the garage where I was working, and cut each piece to fit as snug as possible in the drawer. I started with pieces that spanned the entire drawer, set them in place, then held pieces up to get the next measurement. The beauty of this project is I hardly used a tape measure at all. 

To hold everything together, I used wood glue and 1-inch finishing nails (shot in with a nail gun). So that everything stayed square, I would make a mark at the top of each board to its joining piece, tack in one nail, then flip it over and use a speed square to make sure everything lined up, mark another line, and use that to keep it in place when I tacked the nail in the other side.

I did three drawers, and they all turned out really well. I also still have two boards leftover, so I can do the silverware drawer next. This was a super easy project, and makes everything look awesome. Here is the process for the drawer that was the main reason for this project, and it's my favorite. Enjoy!

The Shower, A Re-tiling Story: Part 2, Tiling

Wait! Before you read this, check out part 1 if you haven't already. Okay, moving on to tiling.

Kristen and I decided to go with large format tile for the shower and tub. We selected an 18" x 24" pattern, and brought home some heavy freaking boxes. Seriously, each of these weighed about 70 pounds, and they were wrapped together in 2-packs. I won't tell you how many trips to Lowe's, Home Depot, and Menard's I took during this project. Yes, all three. And yes, it was many, many times.

We got a porcelain tile, which is notoriously hard to cut (this will be important later). We also got a tile leveling and spacing system called Lash. It is really good, and I would definitely recommend it for anyone who is tiling. For mortar, we used one made especially for large format tiles, so that they would stick to the walls (did I mention that they're heavy?). And we used a pre-mixed, colored sanded grout from Mapei that didn't need to be sealed (yay!).

Three rows in the shower down -
used the laser level to set the first row

So one August morning, I got up early, went to the Home Depot, and rented a huge wet tile saw for 24 hours. Then I came home, set up shop, and started cutting. Kristen helped me where she could with spreading mortar and placing tile, when the children didn't need attention.

This is part A of the Lash leveling system (it needs two parts)

I had to modify my design right away. I realized that because the inset shelves were slightly off-center, the design would look awful with a brick-type pattern (with 1/2 tile offsets), because the center line on the wall would not be in the center of the box. So I ended up going with 1/3 offsets, which proved to be a little trickier to plan (and a bit more cutting), but looked great.

We used a mosaic tile for the box

The biggest challenge was timing. We only had that saw for 24 hours, so we cut and placed tile as quickly as we could. I think I still ended up going to the hardware store(s) 3 or 4 times that day, which made the time crunch even tighter. I don't remember eating that day (except breakfast before starting).

What also made things tricky was cutting holes for hardware to poke through. The diamond hole saw I got for the pipes worked great, but the diamond cutting wheel I bought for my Dremel (to cut the boxes for the handles) wore out after one hole was cut, so I ended up cutting the other hole by cutting one tile piece short, then cutting a square box on the edge, making short passes with the wet saw, then knocking out the remaining pieces.

Everything tiled, finally

Remember how I said we started around 7 a.m.? We finally finished up about 2 a.m. that next morning, and then I was up early to go return the saw. It was quite a day. There were a few small details I still needed to do the next day, and I used a friend's small tile saw to do those (cutting bullnose tiles for the edges, cutting the mosaic tile to fit the sides).

And remember from my last post, where I said my first and third mistakes were about not making sure the cement board was even? Yeah, that made it a lot harder to make sure the tile stayed even on top of it. The Lash system helped, and so did adding a generous helping of mortar behind the tiles, but it was still tricky to get the tile looking how we wanted it to. I recommend making sure the wall is as flat as possible before moving on to the next step.

Lash spacers knocked out (no grout yet)

But in the end, we were both pretty happy how things turned out. A couple days later, once the mortar was dry, we knocked out all the spacers/tile levelers and start grouting. But let me say this - I don't ever want to use a pre-mixed or sanded grout again, if I can avoid it. Sand was everywhere! And because it was pre-mixed/didn't need sealing, we had to work much faster than usual. Which meant way more stop and go, switching from grouting to smoothing with the sponge.

Oh boy - I didn't even mention the door (nor do I have any photos of the process unfortunately). So...I used our existing door, because shower doors are apparently super expensive! But I had to modify it for the new space, which meant cutting and trimming the aluminum, which wasn't a great experience without a table saw. And because I'm an overachiever, it also meant painting everything (door and the fixtures). It was a lot of headache, but eventually it all worked out. I basically followed these two tutorials (the key is, the painted surfaces are now waterproof). Oh, and to attach the door to the wall, I had to get an extra diamond hole saw (the other one I had didn't work) to get through the tile.

All grouted, window frame not attached

Okay, one last thing before the finished look. take a look at the picture above, and then at the very similar one two above that. Can you see what's different? Check out below the window frame. Let me take you back to my #2 mistake from Post #1. I put the tile up too high. So high, in fact, that I couldn't reattach the window trim.

So to fix my error, I bought myself an angle grinder and a diamond cutting blade (to cut through the really hard porcelain tile), plasticked off the tub from floor to ceiling, then went to town. Kristen and I suited up (masks, goggles, etc.), and cut the tile around the window so we could reattach the trim. I cut while she continually sprayed the blade with water to keep it cool. Then I was able to attach the trim, do all the caulking of the corners and the base of the tub and shower, attach the baseboards, and texture/paint the new wall.

Here you have it - a completed shower and tub. It took way more time than the day or two I thought it would, and cost a whole lot more money, but I am very pleased with how it looks. I hope you like it too. Thanks for reading - if you have any questions, please reach out!

Completed shower

Completed shower and tub

The Shower, A Re-tiling Story: Part 1, Demolition & Prep Work

I had 12 weeks of paternity leave when my little boy was born in June. It was amazing to be able to bond with my little one, but I still had extra time to get some projects done. In fact, my last three posts were done when I was on paternity.

This project was not supposed to be a big project - I wasn't planning to take on any "big" projects while on paternity, just projects I could get done in a day or two. But sometimes things get away from you.

I've never really cared for this shower. I don't like the shiny metal of the door, the white tile is boring, and the grout work has been chipping since we moved in. I filled it in with caulk and redid the caulk along the bottom once upon a time, but it didn't take very well (read: got mildewy).

When we first moved in

But the plan was just to recaulk, clean out the grout and re-grout it, and take out a couple rows of tile and add an "accent row." But after a couple hours trying to chip out the tile, remove the grout, and remove the silicone caulk, I'd had it. The tile wasn't coming out (it was pulling the cement board behind it out), the grout saw attachment I had was chipping the tile edges, and the silicone was not cooperating.

"Honey, I think I'm just going to rip it all out," I said.

"...Okay."

And thus began my adventure. I took out the shower door and half wall/window, and got to work chipping out tile. As before, it wasn't going well, and I ended up pulling off the cement backer board with the tiles still attached instead.

We had a soap dish and weird towel bar
IN the shower, glued to the tile

Half wall with frosted glass window 

You can see all the mildew on the silicone

Just ripped the whole board off the studs

I ended up ripping out the drywall above the shower head too

I went around the whole shower, including that half wall, then made my way to the bath tub side. The tile on that side still looked nice, but I couldn't have two types of tile in the bathroom, so out it went too.

All the tile ripped out

Next, I decided that I didn't want a half wall - if I was retiling this thing, I was going to make the shower go all the way to the ceiling. So I framed in a wall (which was pretty cool). I also ripped out the drywall above where the tile had ended, so I could tile all the way up.

Drywall above ripped out

We also decided we wanted a shelf of some sort (since we ripped out the weird towel bar we had been setting our shampoo and soap on). So I built a box out of plywood, attached cement board, and screwed it between the studs on the wall (as that's an outside wall, I just compressed the insulation behind the shelf box).

Framed wall with shelf built in

The next step was to put in cement backer board. This wasn't too difficult. It cuts pretty easy with a regular razor blade, though it dulls the blades pretty quickly (I went through a bunch). I think there are better tools for cutting, but it worked for me. For the holes, I first made a template using a cardboard box. Then I traced that onto the cement board, and used a masonry drill bit / a jigsaw with a masonry bit to cut out the holes. Made quick work of everything. But this is where I made my first mistake. I wasn't careful about making sure the cement board lined up perfectly, or checked that the walls were plumb. This was mainly an issue later when tiling.

After the cement board was in, on the joints I added mesh tape made specifically for it (super sticky - if you do this, wear gloves at this point for sure).

You can see I took off the window trim to get the cement board
in place - I also only did cement board partway up the new wall.
For the rest, I later added in drywall.

Here is the shower with joints taped 

Here is where I made my second mistake. When I took the trim off the window, I didn't mark on the wall where the tile should stop. This is going to be a problem later on.

But moving on. I watched so many tutorials on YouTube about how to make sure my shower was waterproof, and didn't leak into the wall, that I probably went a little overboard. But better safe than sorry, I say.

I first took some mortar I would be using for the tile, and mortared over all the joints. This is my third mistake, in conjunction with my first - I wasn't very careful about how I smoothed out / leveled the walls. I just assumed it wouldn't be a problem when I went to set my tile that the walls weren't perfectly smooth. While it's not a huge issue, it does make for a more difficult tiling experience.

One last thing for this post, and then I'll get to tiling in the next one: waterproofing. I went with a roll-on waterproof membrane made by Mapei called Aquadefense. It worked fantastic and was very easy to work with. It is super thick, but rolls on like paint. I bought a cheap, disposable paint tray/brush/roller, and used it the same way I would paint.

Waterproofing Action Shot #1

Waterproofing Action Shot #2

Completed waterproofing

Shot of the waterproofing in the shower

Drywall added above the waterproofed area

There you have it! Technically, I could have showered at that point, as everything is waterproof. But of course, I had to do more. I'll talk about that in the next post.