Melancholy

It's been an icky day and there's only so much ice cream one can eat.

I was going through old photos of our trip to Kauai last March and found this video I took of a harper playing a rather melancholy song. I wish I remembered the name.

Sorry about the scary eye, but I wanted to modify the video to protect the somewhat innocent, and this just fit. For me, anyway.

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harper

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Please, blogger, don't eat my post again

Putting in the floor warming mats and tile!
I guess I whined enough about the "lack of facilities" that Bud put the shower on hold and started in on the floor. It wasn't level, of course, but with a healthy dose of thinset and the addition of cement backerboard, it was close enough for now.

To heat the floor, I picked Warmly Yours. They have a lot of positive mentions on the John Bridge tile forums and it's easy to get answers there, either from a Warmly Yours rep, or other tile experts who post. Their programmable thermostat will pre-warm the floor to our temperature choice mornings and evenings, and and turn off when we're not there. I also liked their interactive online project planner, which makes it simple to get an estimate of material cost. Well, it's simple if you don't have funny angles like we do, but with a bit of fiddling, I got the layout correct and got my quote.

They determine the length of the heat mat and send a diagram of where to snip, flip, and rotate so it covers the floor most effeciently. Bud, below, is transferring their template to the floor.

Here's a shot of the heat mat in place, before the next layer of thinset. You don't want it too close to the toilet's wax ring, and of course there's no reason to put it under the cabinets!

Bud brought out his levels again and put down another layer of thinset to cover. We've putzed around with the layout enough that he knows where to start the "hop scotch" tile pattern we wanted.

Things moved along right quickly - it's done! After the grout goes in, the pattern won't be nearly as noticible since we picked a grout color similar to the tile. It's....subtle. *g*

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Bunny, Take 2

There! You happy? And yes, I need to mow the lawn, but you wouldn't want me to disturb the pretty woodland creature, would you?

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Who's Kerdi?

That was the answer I got when I asked local tile guys if they'd ever worked with Kerdi. Not the answer I was looking for. *g*

Kerdi is a relatively new product used to water proof showers. No more of that nasty drywall/rusty nail/mildew stew!Kerdi is a thin waterproof membrane that goes over drywall and just underneath the tile. It dries out quickly after each shower, cutting down on mildew which needs water to thrive.

In my reading on the John Bridge forums, I decided that this was what I wanted in our shower. It just seemed to make sense, and in a pinch, I could most likely do it myself. I didn't want to, but I wasn't having much luck finding anyone who'd worked with it (or wanted to try) until, as I mentioned before, I was put in touch with Bud. Yeah Bud!

First section of Kerdi up. The Corian seat was put on after the Kerdi, so the entire shower area is waterproof.

The Kerdi's done, and the tiles are starting to go up. The left wall wasn't flat, so Bud had to build it out with mud to keep the tiles from looking funny.

Only one more row before the bullnose cap. The glass tiles will eventually go in the gap. Bud has to build up the wall a bit because the glass isn't as thick as the field tile.

But that will have to wait. Everything in the shower - time to start the floor!

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That's Clay Aiken???

Boy, has he changed! I didn't recognize him when he first appeared in the finale of American Idol tonight, but the voice and the smile? Yup, that's him.

If you haven't followed his career since his "loss" on American Idol in 2003, check out this blog. Give yourself a few minutes because he's been busy.

In a nutshell, over 4 million CDs sold, 6 tours, including the American Idol tour, a co-headlining tour with Kelly Clarkson, 2 tours on his own, and 2 Christmas tours ($28 million in ticket sales), his Bubel/Aiken foundation, a UNICEF ambassadorship, a NY Times best seller, plus other TV and charity bits.

Congratulations to Taylor - may you follow in Kelly's footsteps! And Kat? Give Clay a call. He seems to have done just fine without the win.

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Why waste a good tantrum?

Ahhhh, babies.

There are some "adults" I've heard about lately who have the same problem - throwing tantrums and trying their best to get your attention. Just quietly going about your business and not giving them attention is my favorite response.

I don't know how long it took for this toddler to quiet down, but I'll bet it wasn't 4 months.

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Back to plumbing

We finally got Bud in here after the holidays. I think the existing plumbing scared him, though, so he called in a new plumber. The new plumber was a bit scared too...

• The shower valve and outlet weren't centered on the shower pan
• The toilet flange was too far from the wall (the back of the toilet would be 4-5" from the wall
• A drain joint under the shower pan had not been glued at all
• There were 2 rather close ninty degree bends in the toilet drain pipe, a clog waiting to happen

Before

After - note metal plate

There were a couple spots where Bud and the plumber were worried that too many holes in the joists from all these changes would weaken the floor, so metal plate, and in some cases angle iron, was screwed into the joist for strength. Also note all the pretty purple primer - at least I had a good idea that the joints were actually being, you know, glued.

So the plumbing was done to Bud's (and our) satisfaction. The electrician got the new lights, outlets, warm floor thermostat conduit, and vent fan installed. We had blocking installed behind the walls for the shower door and in a couple of spots on the back wall in case we ever need grab bars. Time to button up the walls and floor and respray the ceiling. It's starting to look like a bathroom again!

Time to start tiling!

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We got rid of the kids - the cat was allergic

We have a couple of teenagers in the house. They don't ask for the car keys, and we're not looking forward to grandkids 'cause they've been fixed.

Cassie's a pound kitty from our year in Texas in '91-'92. She's the softest cat I've ever felt, but she's pretty small and, as my nephew complained "There's not enough of her to pet!"

She's also quite agile:

Mikey, below, is an '88 model. Bossy, he's the "supreme commander" of the house. He's been told he's not allowed on the chaise, especially not on Auntie Jane's hand crocheted afghan.

Not that he listens:

But he puts up with us decorating him with glowsticks, so we let him live.

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Dare you to move

So yeah, a bit of a plumbing disaster. One of the new joints was leaking and it had dripped down and soaked a couple linear feet of the kitchen ceiling below. It also formed balloons of water behind the paint on the walls (stencils, not wallpaper, thank goodness). Once we got past the sinking "oh no" feeling, that part was pretty cool.

John knows a bit about plumbing, at least enough to cap off the leaky pipe. Because of a previous foray into the crawl space to fix a frozen pipe, we even had the tools. So he sat on the edge of what was left of bathroom floor to glue that cap on. It wasn't until he heard the "plink, plink" of the drywall nails giving way that he realized his feet were resting on the kitchen ceiling. I have to give him a hard time about being not only handy, but a little "footy" too!

We weren't too keen on inviting that plumber back (we found other, more serious problems later), and we still needed to find a tile guy, so we closed the door, took a bit of a breather over Christmas, and did some more searching.

Below is my favorite MsMia montage set to Switchfoot's "Dare You To Move", with video and photos of Clay Aiken. I'm not usually a fan of CCM, but I'm a fan of Clay, and this is a good song with a good message. You screw up, or things don't go right, you gotta deal with it and move on. We didn't need to "pick (ourselves) up off the floor", but we needed to get moving again, so there's my segue *g*.

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Bathroom Remodeling

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Switchfoot

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Clearing out

Moving right along with demolition.

The rest of the shower wall's down. The original shower tray was laid directly on the subfloor with no preslope, and no doubt the drain's weep holes were firmly encased in the original 3-4" thick mud (mortar) floor. That just seems to be the way it was done around here, and still often is.

The tub's gone too. No wonder our bathroom was cold in the winter - where's the insulation? There was none between the shower base and the ventilated attic space over the adjacent garage either. Brrrr!

The tub drain has to be removed and a drain line for the toilet has to be run aaaaallll the way over to the original location. To avoid a lot of noise below, it'll be wrapped in fiberglass batting. The rest of the roll will fill in the empty spaces in the walls!

That can't be good!

Not the thing you want to see on your kitchen ceiling on Friday at 2AM, just after your plumber has left on vacation.

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We putzed around for a year

Our sticky point was layout. The bath was good sized, but... From left to right along the back wall, there was a large(ly unused) jetted tub under a pretty window, double vanity, toilet, and finally the rather small and leaking shower. The door from the bedroom came in at an angle in front of the vanity, so upon opening the door, you had a lovely view of...the toilet. At least if you were in a hurry, you had a straight shot!

Finally John had the brilliant idea of ditching the tub and moving the toilet there so:

a) the toilet would no longer be the, er, focal point

b) we could enlarge both the shower and the vanity

c) we'd be able to look out the window without crawling into the tub.

So finally we can get started!

We hired a guy who'd done some plumbing for us to do just the demo and plumbing (this was before I found the John Bridge forums and our eventual contractor). He talked us out of pulling permits, which wasn't a great idea. He was overconfident, and there was a disconnect between his confidence and his competence. At least he was good with a sledge hammer.

Down comes the shower!

Ewwww! The moisture barrier was behind the drywall instead of between the drywall and the water as it should be (if drywall is even needed). Add a decade or so of wicking up water from the shower floor and we had drywall/rusty nails/mildew stew.

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Before demolition

Pictures of the bath before we hauled out the sledge hammer.

The shower was behind the wall, about 2 1/2' x 3'.

Certainly not a bad bathroom, but it'll be better.

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Wildlife

I saw a bunny (yeah, I call 'em bunnies) in the back yard today, munching on the fresh pine bark mulch, right under the shortened Crepe Myrtle that was hacked off by a beaver (again).

Now I'm buying chew sticks for the entire neighborhood?

Why don't they snack on the Forsythia that's taking over instead?

Sorry, no pic of the flighty bunny, just beaver teeth marks.

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Resources

It took us 9 months to finish our master bath remodel (and that's after 3 years of wandering down the hall to shower). I'll get through posting about it in less time. I hope.

If you're considering remodeling, here's a list of my favorite haunts:

1. John Bridge Tile forum: Friendly, friendly folks who really know their stuff! They will walk you through every bit of a tile job, and educate you even if you just want to make sure yours is done right by a professional (air quotes optional).
2. Gardenweb's Bath forum: Although it looks like a gardening site, it's expanded with remodeling forums as well. There are separate forums for all areas of the home, but I hung out here, of course.
3. Terry Love's Toilet report: Afraid of low flow toilets? There really are some good ones out there!
4. Homeclick: I had good luck buying from them. YMMV
5. Warmly Yours: "He who must be obeyed" really, really, really wanted warm floors. He got them.
6. Corian: And I really wanted a Corian vanity top with integrated sinks. I got it. It's purdy.

I spent a lot of time perusing these sites, especially the tile forum, and especially when I thought I'd never find a decent tile guy. I got guys coming over to bid who thought using mastic (a water soluble glue) in the shower was just fine. Or the one who thought putting cardboard behind the glass listello in the shower would hold up okay. Or the one who just huffed out when I insisted on using our already purchased Swanstone base (another HWMBO warm foot requirement).

After some plumbing disasters and the above interviews, I posted on the John Bridge forum that I just might have to do this myself. I was quaking, but I knew I could do a better job (albeit much slower) than these bozos. Thankfully I caught the ear of a local guy who had just had a huge addition done by Bud Wilson of et al Enterprises in Raleigh. And he does tile! Well!

My knees were saved.

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Where'd that water spot come from?

Or how we took three years and five figures to fix a leaky shower.

Fits and starts, blunders and all, it was worth it. Well, I think so. I'm not asking John.

:: hides the final tally::

Our house isn't new and it isn't old. It was built in '88, and while I love it and its location, it was built quickly. We couldn't expect perfection, because "Perfection takes time honey" (tm Clay Aiken). So it's time to pull out the checkbook and start fixing what's gone wrong.

Two years ago, long after we'd quit using the shower, we hired a bathroom designer. First mistake. She had a lot of ideas, few of them practical, and the only thing we got out of it was our first bill and these beautiful iridescent glass tiles:

I think I'm in love...

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Bathroom Remodeling

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