Main Bathroom Update

The main bathroom is another project that I have been working on. Last week I finished cutting in the primer on the walls, then I scraped all the trim.

One of the neat things I found here was the old exterior trim color, it's the brown/olive looking color on the door casing. This room used to be a side porch. I know this was an exterior color because when they closed the porch in and hung the interior door they just slapped the hinges up on the casing, you can see where they were on the casing on the right. That color was directly underneath.

Once the scraping was done I primered and painted all the trim, then painted the walls.

Sorry for the pics, it's very hard to get decent shots in this room.

Left to do still is install 1/4 round and baseboards, caulk, and paint the ceiling.

Finishing the Main Bathroom walls

The other project I worked on during my week off was getting the walls done in the main bathroom.

This has been like this since '09. I finished hanging the sheetrock then taped and mudded the walls.

Then I put up a coat of primer.

I liked the sink vanity I had on this room, it was an old oak dresser that I converted into a vanity, but my wife really wanted another one I made in here instead.

This is the very first piece of furniture I ever made. I made it back in '05. It was an old desk originally, I built the doors and the mirror onto it. The spindles are from the footboard of my wife's grandmothers bed. (The footboard was all that was left of it.)

I also installed the chandelier.

It is solid brass including the candle covers.

I still have to install 1/4 round on the ceiling, Wire up the outlet, caulk, cut in the primer, paint, and strip and paint the door.

Upstairs bathroom is complete

Well for now anyways. I still have a few small things left to do like some caulking, I need to paint the ceiling and I'll probably put some crown up too. I also need to find a mirror or small medicine cabinet and a satin nickel towel bar and toilet paper holder. I also need a light fixture for the ceiling (there's a bare bulb there now) and possibly one above the sink. And I need to install the baseboards too, they will be travertine.

Here are a few pictures of the work done over the last few days.

Here is the room after the second sanding of the mud. The window in this room is in very bad shape. It wasn't built properly in the first place and now it's falling apart. I an going to completely rebuild the window in the spring or early summer but for now I'm just cleaning it up and putting some new casing on it.

Here's the new casing on the window.

Next I painted the room, we found another can of oops paint that was the perfect color and even better it's semi-gloss. After painting the room I began installing the plumbing for the fixtures.

Installing the sink faucet was a huge pain in the ass. First the center hole on the bowl was not big enough for the faucet to fit through. I had to grind it out with my dremel, the bits I had were very cheap and china is very hard so I went through about a bit a minute but I was finally able to enlarge the hole enough for it to fit.

So then I finally get the entire faucet together and realize that I need to take the handles back out to be able to bolt the bowl to the wall. Now with the bowl up against the wall there is almost no room to work so putting the handles back in took a while. The next issue is that there is so little room under the sink that it was very hard to install the braided hoses without them kinking. There are two that go from the faucet to the handles then two that go from the handles to the supply valves.

I finally got it all together, here is a pic of it.

I think it looks pretty good, by the way we got both this faucet and the shower kit on closeout for about $160 total.

Here are the rest of the bathroom pics.

Sink

Toilet with antique toilet seat

The completed window.. for now

I figured I'd add a picture or two of what this bathroom looked like originally.

Upstairs Bathroom

The grout is cured and I sealed the stone yesterday. I took my first shower in it this morning and it's awesome!

I finished putting up the sheetrock yesterday also. I still need to mud it though. Then I can paint and install the sink and toilet.

Shower is complete

I finally finished the shower.

Now I just have to wait three days for the grout to cure then I can seal it. In the mean time I'll be hanging the greenboard and installing the toilet and sinlk.

Bathroom Floor

Yesterday I finally got around to laying the bathroom floor. I had temporarily installed the toilet a few months back so I removed it first.

Then I laid down the backer board.

and then laid the travertine.

Today I'll finish tiling the curb and hopefully grout everything.

Shower Walls

The shower walls are done with the exception of the bottom row. I will finish that on the next day or so once the rest of the wall is completely set.

The flash is making the filled in portions of the travertine look glaringly white but it's not like that in person. Maybe once I seal it it will look better in pictures.

Once I finish the bottom row of tile I still need to tile the bathroom floor and the curb, then it's on to grouting.

Shower Floor Tile

Yesterday I laid the floor tile in the shower. The tile is 1 3/4 x 1 3/4 Noce tumbled travertine.

I laid out the sections around the drain first and made all the needed cuts.

Then I mudded and laid the tile.

Next it's on to the walls...

Finishing the mud bed

I finished up the mud bed yesterday.

First I finished installing the backer board.

Then I installed the wire mesh around the curb.

Then I started laying the mud.

This is what happens when you leave for a half a second and you have a curious kitty in the house.

Here is the finished mud bed.

It should be ready for tile this afternoon.

Shower Liner

I've installed the shower liner and most of the backer board.

Shower mud bed

I've finally began working on the upstairs shower.

Next I put aluminum flashing all around the edges of the shower since there was a small gap between the floor and walls. Then I put down felt and wire mesh.

At this point I realized that I needed to fix the hole in the back wall before I put the mud down.

This hole was the original access to the attic above the dining room and kitchen. The boards I took from the new access in the nursery fit perfectly.

The mud came next.

Getting the mud perfectly smooth and sloped was hard, my trowel was too big so I ended up doing most of it with my bare hands.

Here is what it looks like this morning.

Looks like it's just about dry. This afternoon I'll put the liner down then the final mud bed.