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Main Bathroom Repair / Remodel
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The walls were stripped of the
wallpaper and texture was sprayed on the repaired walls
and new drywall.
I did not want to place any new wallpaper on these
walls. The new sub-floor was placed in and cement
board was placed on top of it in preparation for the
ceramic floor tiles I had selected. I was
forced to select a less expensive tile to keep
within the budget allowed. |
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The outer portion of the bathroom
has the unique ceiling alcove, pictured below, for
one of the light fixtures. It has the same
type of faux beams used throughout the house to hold
up the acrylic sheets that diffuse the light.
Before they laid the tile, I climbed up here and
removed the acrylic light covers that were between
the beams and gave the beams a fresh coat of brown
paint and painted the alcove and ceiling a fresh
coat of white. |
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The tile
workers came in and placed the tile on the
bathroom floor. Tile on the floor is shown
before grouting, in the photo at right.
The grout that was used for this tile was
brown.
The tile was grouted on a Friday, so I had
until the following Monday to paint the wall
behind where the vanity would be placed.
I also received a phone call from the
contractor's supervisor on this Friday to
let me know that the plumber would be in on
Monday to place the toilet back in place.
At this time, the supervisor had not thought
about the unfinished wall area behind the
toilet and how it would be almost impossible
to install wall moulding around the floor in
this tight area.
So I had a weekend to fix this and get the
area to look how I wanted it to look before
the toilet was re-installed. |
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The photograph below shows the
area that needed moulding before the toilet was put
back in place. There needed to be a piece of
wood floor moulding on the wall to the left.
Some type of moulding had to be placed against the
back tile wall with the plumbing. There was a large
gap between the bottom of the tile wall and the new
floor tile
that looked awful. There used to be a piece of
vinyl cove base before the demolition, that just
looked tacky. I decided that some matching bullnose
tile would be perfect against the wall. |
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I went
to the hardware store to purchase the
bullnose tile.
Two things had happened between the time I
selected the tile and the contractor
purchased it and me going to the store to
buy some bullnose tile. First, the
tile was being discontinued by the store and
second, someone else in town was buying up
the remaining tiles.
The area of the store where this tile was
formally stocked was now almost empty.
There were only three 12" bullnose pieces
left. One was damaged on the corner.
Three was fortunately all I needed and I
purchased them. The damaged edge would
be the tile I needed to cut on the end where
it met the pipe coming out of the wall.
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After cutting the two tiles that
needed to be cut to fit around the pipe, I then cut
some pieces of scrap wood to fit in the gap so the tile
could be placed firmly against a surface.
Before I put the wood and the tiles in place, I
filled the area with silicone to seal it from water.
Then I placed the wood in. I let the wood scrap
pieces set for a few
hours. Then the bullnose tiles were put in place.
I put more silicone on top of the wood in the gap
and along the floor before setting the tiles in. I
taped the tiles in place until the silicone set. |
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Completed moulding in section around toilet area |
The next day, I caulked all of
the bullnose tile pieces using brown caulk between the tiles
and antique white on top between the brown bullnose
and tile wall. I painted and installed the
floor moulding along the left wall. The
moulding for the bathtub would be installed later.
The photo above shows the finished floor moulding.
I also purchased some grout sealer and sealed all of
the grout in the room. I also had installed
some moulding along the ceiling in the outer section
and painted the wall where the vanity would be
placed.
On Monday morning, the contractor's supervisor
called to say that he had just realized that the
floor and wall around the toilet needed to be finished before
the toilet was installed. Duh! I told
him that I had already finished this area during the
weekend and to send in the plumber to install the
toilet. I also told him that the walls in the
the outer section where the vanity will be, had been
painted and were ready for the cabinet makers. |
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Uneven cabinet bottom left by contractor |
The toilet was installed and the cabinet makers
brought in the cabinet during the same week.
The new sink / counter top that I had purchased was
installed on top of the vanity.
The above photo shows the bottom of the cabinets
after the cabinet maker installed them.
Needless to say, I was not pleased. I wanted
the entire cabinet to look finished and this is NOT
what I had in mind. The cabinet makers did
have problems installing the vanity because the
walls in the bathroom are not square and the floor
not exactly even.
The one thing I have learned with this house, is that
nothing is square. I have learned to do what I
call, "creative moulding". I use moulding to
hide the flaws or cover minor mistakes. The photo
below shows the cabinet section after I placed a piece of
molding along the bottom. I had to place some
scrap wood against the cabinet of the vanity so the
wood would go straight across. There is still a gap
on the right where the floor is uneven, but this looks more
finished than what the cabinet makers left me with. |
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Moulding I added to bottom of vanity and cabinet
tying them together |
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What happened next? Please read on... |
