I started in the area behind the toilet. I figured that was the least noticeable area. It’s hard to get everything strait and even but I think I’ve got a system.

I’ve got the laptop set up there and I play an episode of Veronica Mars and go to town with the tile.

I can do about a third of a box in an episode…not a fast project but I do think I’m getting faster. I’m using a tile adhesive mortar that is pre-mixed which makes it really easy to start and stop. I can do an episode or two’s worth after work without too much start-up time. The pre-mixed is so nice that way.

I’m hoping that once moldings go in, it will just be a couple more days until grout and after grout comes fixtures! Yay toilet and sinks!

Sarah

Click here to comment: Tiling the bathroom walls Thanks for reading

The first step is to paint all the seams to get a nice foundation.

To apply, use a cheap-o (but not so bad it will fall apart) brush and go to town.

It’s a goopy product and it comes out of the bucket hot pink but dries to a nice red color.

One recommendation we read online was to use fiberglass to reinforce the crack-prone areas. We cut a strip the appropriate length and worked it into the wet redguard along the back edge of the shower where we have some concerns about leaking since the shower pan and the wall don’t fit tightly.

We push it in with a scraper and redguard over it. Once it’s dry there will be a nice reinforced corner where there was once a trouble area.

Once the seams were dry, we’ll rolled on 2 coats of the redguard. Once the final coat had turned red, it is time to tile.

(what’s a blog post without a Vector photo-bomb. That ledge is one of his new favorite spots. I don’t pose him..he just loves the camera!)

Sarah

Click here to comment: Prepping the Shower for Tile – Part 2: Red Guard Thanks for reading

We came back with the motherload.

This is one cool piece.

Any guesses what it is?

It’s some sort of gas auto lantern. Either for a car or a stagecoach of some sort. Think a gas headlight. Soooo cool!

We got 2 cool chandeliers:

2 really neat old floor lamps

An ammo box and a library ladder chair

And this neat misson-style or mission-ish-style umbrella stand

And to top it all off, we got this big box full of lamps and obscure gas to electric conversion pieces that we would never be able to find otherwise.

I’ll be posting more details as I get things cleaned up and re-wired but I couldn’t help but share my find with you now while they are making a big mess in my kitchen.

What a great way to spend a Sunday!

Sarah

Click here to comment: Fun Finds – Craigslist Guy edition Thanks for reading

The Zinsser is stuff worked great for priming but given the choice, I’d definitely recommend painting the ceilings with the ceiling paint.

We used a pink to white color changing ceiling paint which makes is so easy to see where you’ve been.

It’s hard to tell but if you look closely, you can see the pink tint of the ceiling paint.

It’s much easier to see in real life. The photography doesn’t capture it well.

The Glidden ceiling paint is super thick and sticky.  It sticks to the roller and you can roll forever on one roller’s worth of paint – especially compared to the Zinsser primer I had been working with.

It took me about an hour and a half to put 2 coats of primer on the den ceiling and about 20 min to put a coat of the ceiling paint up. The difference is that substantial!

I have to say, USE CEILING PAINT! It really is a specialized product for the application and it is really designed to make the worst part of painting go super fast and easy.

Sarah

P.S. It may sound like this is a sponsored post but it isn’t..promise. That being said, if Glidden wants to sponsor a paint test post, I’d be all over that!
 

Click here to comment: Review: Glidden color-change ceiling paint Thanks for reading

Instead of washing our your brushes and rollers, freeze them.  While I might not do this for years, for a week or two it’s a great way to save all that time and water cleaning out your brushes and especially your rollers.

Put the roller or brush into a large ziplock bag. I label mine so I know what kind of paint it’s got on it.

Then toss in the freezer. When it’s time to do a second coat or start on another room with the same paint, just pull them out to thaw and go to town. It doesn’t take long for the paint to thaw and it sure beats cleaning brushes all the time!

I’ve got another ziplock in the fridge with a brush, roller, and mini-roller with white primer on them.

We moved a lot as a kid and I remember my mother keeping a fully loaded paintbrush in the fridge for touch-ups while we were trying to sell the house. It turns a scuff on the wall from a big touch up project to a quick brush thaw.

It’s a handy trick. I highly recommend!

Sarah

Click here to comment: Trick of the Trade – Freeze your rollers Thanks for reading

I painted it Behr Cafe Pink and I LOVE the color. It is VERY pink but there isn’t going to be much wall showing so it really needed to have some oomph. Also, it’s a closet! What fun is the world if even your closet needs to be some pseudo neutral color?

To start, my Mother and I primed the walls and ceiling. I did 2 coats on the ceiling and the primer did well enough that we didn’t really need to go over it with ceiling paint. It’s a nice, smooth, flat white. We needed to seal in the plaster that was spread over the blue-board. We used Bulls Eye latex primer.

After that dried, we put on the paint. I used the Behr Premium Plus Paint and Primer in one. I have to say, we did need 2 solid coats to get good coverage.

We cut in the corners with a brush and used a roller on the rest. We used the handy dandy edger to get the top edge nice and even.

The baseboards will be installed later so there was no edge on the bottom edge and all the window and door moldings are off as well. It made it a very quick room to paint.

What a difference!

This is what that room looked like when we moved in:

At some point in the middle:

And now!

We still need to add baseboards and the laundry base but it’s coming along so quickly!

Sarah

Click here to comment: Painting the Closet Pink Thanks for reading

I already posted some photos of the half bath and the master went very similarly but on a larger scale.

The one difference is that since there was no vapor barrier in the half bath and we are putting up a fairly thick wainscoting and baseboard, we didn’t need to cut any of the tiles. There were little partial tiles around the bathroom which made it go a bit slower.

We also had to mix our own thinset instead of using pre-mixed which was a bummer. You really have to mix the thinset much wetter than you think you should need to. If it gets too thick, it doesn’t allow the tiles to stick quite as well. We actually had a couple tiles pop out when we were grouting because I think we had the thinset too thick. Watch some youtube videos of the pros and you will see they mix the thinset really thin.

Here’s one of a guy with a cool British accent.

Here is my Mom and I grouting the tile. Grouting is fun work.

To fix the popped out tiles, pull them out and use a screwdriver to scrape out the thinset. Then continue to grout leaving that area clear. Then come back later with a little thin set and then re-grout that small area. Some people say you can’t do the grout in 2 parts but you need to do the whole surface all at once. Perhaps it effects the longevity of the tile but my Mother and I have never had problems “patching” the grout.

If you want to see what all we did to get ready for tile:
Click here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 1: heating mat
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 2: SLC take 1
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 3: SLC take 2
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 4: Curb and Wall
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 5: Vapor Barrier

What do you think? Do you love penny tile as much as I do?

Sarah

Click here to comment: Tiling the Bathroom Floor Thanks for reading

Part 5 is the vapor barrier. The product we used was basically a big piece of fuzzy/felted rubber/plastic that is glued down and seamed with a solvent. The process involved cutting the material to size, spreading the glue and then using a rolling pin to really embed the material in the glue. It was a lot of work and Stefan and my Daddy didn’t stop to take many pictures. Boo.

You can see that we put it up the walls a couple inches and seamed the corners to make essentially a big plastic pan that we tiled on top of.

Of course we don’t have a picture of it pre-tile but here you can see the sides of the “pan.” The blue piece along the bottom of the wall is the vapor barrier.

It installed very much like vinyl flooring using the same awkward single sheet laying process.

That glue dried fairly quickly and besides the fuzzing of the material, it was nice and smooth and flat which made it quite easy to tile.

Click here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 1: heating mat
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 2: SLC take 1
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 3: SLC take 2
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 4: Curb and Wall

Coming soon: Penny tile on the Master Bath Floor!!!! If you follow me on twitter, you saw a sneak peek this weekend.

Sarah

Click here to comment: Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 5 Thanks for reading

The half height wall should lend some privacy to the toilet area. After constructing the frame with 2x4s, they covered it with durock. One thing they did do was to shim the durock on the top of the wall so that water will roll off the ledge instead of pooling on it. It has a nice slope to it comparable to the Styrofoam curbs. The whole thing was thinset in place.

Here are the curbs set in place.

Click here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 1: heating mat
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 2: SLC take 1
and here for Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 3: SLC take 2

Sarah
 

Click here to comment: Bathroom Floor Underlayment – Part 4 Thanks for reading

It was great to have a practice room for the penny tile. It was quite forgiving all things considered. If you’d like a detailed tutorial on laying penny tile, I recommend this post by Young House Love.

The basic rundown is spread thin-set, lay tile, get everything even, wait until the thin set is cured, grout, wipe with sponge, wait 10 min, wipe with sponge, wait 20 min, wipe with sponge, etc. It’s not a difficult process as long as you are patient with the tile and make sure to clean the grout before it hardens up.

Step 1 and 2: Spread thin-set and lay tile

Step 3: grout

Step 4 through the end: wipe and wait, repeat until clean.

The grout we chose was a medium grey. I didn’t want to do white. I’m just not clean enough to keep it all white. The penny tile is a shiny penny tile and each penny is 3/4″ round. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way it turned out. I had so much fun learning from my mother who has done so much tiling she’s practically a pro.

Sarah

Click here to comment: Half Bath Floor Thanks for reading