While I could do the usual, "exercise every day!" (doesn't work like that in real life) or "go carb free!" (with my sweet tooth?) it seemed much more practical to focus on finances at the House on the Isthmus. We've poured a lot of money and time into this project. While you can update a kitchen for a few hundred bucks (really - read up here), there are other things that don't meet that requirement.
One of those things was my upstairs bathroom. If you remember, we were talking about the cement board going down for tile just before our mini-hiatus/Christmas special about a month ago.
As one might imagine, more has happened since then.
Once the cement board was down, it had to be waterproofed. If you've never seen what happens to walls when they're just wood and water gets behind them, let me tell you, it's not pretty.
The pretty things are fun but they usually don't really matter. What matters is that systems are sound. The electrical, plumbing, HVAC and protection from water need to be excellent. Nonetheless, I was thrilled when this step came and went because it meant we were starting on the pretty stuff. Come on, everybody likes the pretty steps, too.
Finally, finally the tile was going down! We were somewhere around day 20 on this shell of a bathroom at this point.
Over the cement board on the floor went hex tile. Now, you may have seen this tile on a recent episode of Rehab Addict where Nicole helps the LeBron James Promise Foundation repair a home very similar to mine for a worthy family. I assure you, mine came first but I applaud their selection!
Hex tile is always a beautiful choice for an old home as hex tile would have been in many of these homes the day they were built. Hex tile is so named because they're tiny hexagons. Nowadays, they're sold in sheets. The sheets are cut into the appropriate size and shape with a utility knife and individual tiles can be cut with tile nippers as necessary (tile nipping isn't as easy as it looks in my experience).
I strongly recommend laying out the sheets before you put down thinset. If even one black tile is out of place it will drive you insane forever.
Slowly but surely, the floor went down, making sure that we didn't tile over any of the necessary plumbing.
After the floor was laid, it was time to start on the shower surround.
Naturally, I went with a complex but popular pattern called herringbone for the shower surround. Further following my nature, I did it in white subway tile!
More than anything when working on a herringbone design is making sure the first row is perfect. Otherwise, when you get to the ceiling or the top of your section, it may be painfully obvious that nothing is straight.
With a spacer between every joint, the tile painstakingly went up, with frequent steps back to check for uniformity and always going in little areas so that the thinset didn't dry out while perfection was being obtained.
To cut the little partial tiles, we used a score and snap. It's a tool available at any major home improvement or tile store and it does exactly what it sounds like. First, we score the tile where we want it to break before pushing at that scored mark and breaking the tile where we want. It gives a clean, precise line with no wet saw.
A final capping of bullnose tile (a little rounded top tile that makes the edges look finished) and we had a gorgeous tub surround.
I think it turned out even better than I hoped. Fortunately for my resolution, I saved about a thousand dollars by making affordable tile choices with slightly fancier designs or installation. Unlike a similar bath that could easily hit well over $1300 for nice tile, our whole room was completed with about $400 in tile from a surplus website with free shipping and a home improvement store in town.
Now if only I could turn the light on in there...
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