Project Bathroom

It's been a long time coming but we finally finished our bathroom....sort of, well, it's livable now so that counts for something. The only things we have left to do are put the baseboards back on and hang our towel rods.

We started this project Aug. 29 but then Pat decided to go on a trip to Lake Powell and my dad decided that the tile we picked out just wasn't going to cut it. So we lived for about one week with no floor, no toilet and no shower. When Pat got back we officially chose new tile and got to work. My dad kindly volunteered his time to help us get started. He taught us how to cut the tile, how to lay it and everything. Pat was a super tile cutter....really, amazing! He had to make some challenging cuts which he did like a star. Meanwhile, I was upstairs laying each tile one by one. It was a fun job but WAY too many trips up and down the stairs and my hands got way dry from all the grout and thin set.

If any of you are thinking about tiling - just a word of advice - don't be afraid to get dirty. I was so dirty after like, an hour and I was wearing a bright orange shirt so when I made extra trips to Home Depot I really looked like I worked there! I also have a rather unorthodox way of putting in grout. I simply put my hands straight into the bucket of grout, grab a large glob of the stuff and shove it into the cracks. My dad definately wouldn't approve!

Anyway, this took us a couple of weeks so still no toilet, or shower which made for many more trips downstairs.

When we finally finished we painted but this also took several weeks! Then Pat had a great idea. We should put a big stencil of bamboo on the wall. After two different colors of paint it turned out really good, especially since we aren't really of the artistic mind!