High of 72. Partly sunny. Light breeze. Sunroof open. Fresh air in the house. Car washed.
I'd say today was pretty fabulous for February 29th!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
800 Subway Tiles
We are taking a much needed break from tiling to watch the Michigan State basketball game tonight. Greg has been feeling under the weather and my fingers are still sore from pushing tiles on. Although, we still never take a night just to relax. Tonight we took advantage of the 58 degree weather to grill chicken and then went for a nice 2 mile walk.
I thought I would take our night of rest to walk you through our master bath remodel up to date. We scored some great deals on the subway tile and bathroom floor tile by shopping around and pricing things out online. We ended up finding the best deal on subway tile from Lowe's for only $1.32 sq/ft! The shower only needed 100 sq/ft... you do the math. We also applied our $50 gift card to this purchase that we received for winning yard of the month (thanks for all the votes!). It's never a good feeling when you go to pick up your tile and find out there are 800 individual subway tiles. My back, knees and hands hurt just thinking about all the tile work that was ahead of us. I know saving so much money doing it ourselves will pay off when everything is done!
Things started off with demolition of course. First goal was to remove the tub/shower insert.
Success. Next up, removing the wall next to the toilet. Our first idea was to make it a half wall, but then we decided to just knock the whole thing out.
Now time for pipes and plumbing. We wanted to move the shower handle up so it looked like it was always there. We also needed to move the shower drain to the center of the floor. This involved cutting, prepping and shoving lots of PVC pipes together like a puzzle. Then we needed to solder the copper piping together, which you can tell from the pictures, made me very nervous!
I thought I would take our night of rest to walk you through our master bath remodel up to date. We scored some great deals on the subway tile and bathroom floor tile by shopping around and pricing things out online. We ended up finding the best deal on subway tile from Lowe's for only $1.32 sq/ft! The shower only needed 100 sq/ft... you do the math. We also applied our $50 gift card to this purchase that we received for winning yard of the month (thanks for all the votes!). It's never a good feeling when you go to pick up your tile and find out there are 800 individual subway tiles. My back, knees and hands hurt just thinking about all the tile work that was ahead of us. I know saving so much money doing it ourselves will pay off when everything is done!
Things started off with demolition of course. First goal was to remove the tub/shower insert.
Success. Next up, removing the wall next to the toilet. Our first idea was to make it a half wall, but then we decided to just knock the whole thing out.
Now time for pipes and plumbing. We wanted to move the shower handle up so it looked like it was always there. We also needed to move the shower drain to the center of the floor. This involved cutting, prepping and shoving lots of PVC pipes together like a puzzle. Then we needed to solder the copper piping together, which you can tell from the pictures, made me very nervous!
All in all, everything was going smoothly. I was very happy to see the flooring go back down.
The PVC pipes definitely proved to be a challenge, but we did not give up! Next came building a shelf for shampoo, installing a light over the shower and the start of the floor. Greg's experience laying cement for the city definitely paid off.
Next we installed the shower liner and checked for leaks. Everything looked good to go :)
Murphy supervising...
Time for the pitch kit and last layer of the floor.
Bring on the HardieBacker!
FINALLY.. let the tiling begin. I did most of the laying of the tile while Greg was running up and down 2 flights of stairs to do the cutting. He said he went all the way to the top of the Sears Tower.
Very happy with the floor!
Murphy sure is good at supervising
The above picture is how our bathroom looks as of tonight. We are 300 subway tiles in and have about 500 to go! Sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to bring everyone who doesn't see our Facebook pictures up to date. We will hopefully resume tiling tomorrow.
xo, Erin
Sunday, February 26, 2012
So it begins
Greg and I have not stopped renovating our house since we bought it in April 2010. Here is what it looked like on move in day
We have become quite the handy couple and can tackle just about anything together. We have learned how to lay ceramic tile, install hardwood floors, design a brick garden wall (worst job ever!), paint walls the correct way and install board and batten. Those are just to name a few.
We have been blessed that we have not found any hidden surprises while renovating and nothing has gone terribly wrong. There are definitely some projects that we said we never wanted to do again, but I'm sure our mind will change in the future.
When we are not at our full time jobs or sleeping, we spend a lot of our time working on small projects and finding inspiration for our next idea. Greg has told me several times I need to get off Pinterest because I keep wanting to change things around, but that's the fun part of being a homeowner!
Our current project is our master bathroom. I'm not sure why that is the last room in the house to remodel, considering we go in there everyday! I thought creating this blog would be a fun way for family and friends to track our progress and our ups and downs. Here is what our bathroom looked like before the projects began
I enjoy reading other peoples blogs and have been told to create one of my own. There will be a lot of changes over the next few weeks until I find a design I like. I will try and keep everyone up to date.. this is just the beginning!
xo, Erin
and here is what it looked like after some TLC
We have made some obvious changes since this picture was taken, but I don't have a whole house picture to show you.
We have been blessed that we have not found any hidden surprises while renovating and nothing has gone terribly wrong. There are definitely some projects that we said we never wanted to do again, but I'm sure our mind will change in the future.
When we are not at our full time jobs or sleeping, we spend a lot of our time working on small projects and finding inspiration for our next idea. Greg has told me several times I need to get off Pinterest because I keep wanting to change things around, but that's the fun part of being a homeowner!
Our current project is our master bathroom. I'm not sure why that is the last room in the house to remodel, considering we go in there everyday! I thought creating this blog would be a fun way for family and friends to track our progress and our ups and downs. Here is what our bathroom looked like before the projects began
I enjoy reading other peoples blogs and have been told to create one of my own. There will be a lot of changes over the next few weeks until I find a design I like. I will try and keep everyone up to date.. this is just the beginning!
xo, Erin
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)