Bathroom Makeover

Here's a Before and After of our guest bathroom. We painted the cabinets like in our last house, painted the walls, switched out the brass fixtures and (clearly) redid the flooring.

 

 

 

Here's how we did the flooring, which is our newest project we can add to our portfolio!

 

First, we went to Menards and looked around at our options. We ended up deciding on Designer's Image High Performance Composite Flooring, which is basically a vinyl stick down tile that you can grout. It feels and looks exactly like tile, but isn't as expensive. It's also more durable which is definitely a plus!

 

We also picked up a primer (see below) to apply to the existing flooring since we weren't planning on removing it. It helps bond the new flooring to the old.

 

 

Before apply the primer, we had to remove the toilet... (clearly by we, I mean Mike) He's wearing a mask because he was preparing for the smelliness of having an exposed sewage pipe. To remove the toilet he first shut off the water to the toiler and used paper towel to soak of the remaining water in the bowl and the tank.

 



 

Then he took the washers off, so he could lift the toilet off the ground.

 

 

Before he could lift it though, he unscrewed the water supply line going to the toilet. After doing this, it wasn't attached to the ground or the wall anymore.

 

 

Then it was time to lift! Mike briefly placed it on an old towel on the floor - then it found a permanent home in the bathtub for the duration of this project. During this time, we quickly covered the sewage pipe opening with a plastic bag to help with the smell.

 

 

Ta-da! No toilet! Don't mind the little green swatch - clearly I couldn't reach that while painting. Good thing we removed it now!

 

 

After removing the toilet, we applied the primer with a roller over the majority of the surface, and used a brush near the base of the wall. Then we let it dry for 24 hours (per the directions). After the primer, we decided how we wanted to lay the flooring down. With numerous Google images, we decided to angle the tiles.

 

We also laid the flooring down to get an idea before starting the real measuring and cutting. I wanted the tile to be centered with the doorway so that's where we started. Mike measured the width of the doorway to find the center.

 

 

Make a straight line to the back wall, we laid down the first tile row. Each tile has a sticky back in which you just peal off the paper to reveal the adhesive side.

 

 

Just like normal tile, we used spaces in between each tile. We chose 3/16" spacers, but Menard's offers a variety depending on your preference.

 

 

After laying down all the tile, we grouted (This part I actually did!). We used premixed Mapei grout in the color Ivory. I used a putty knife to get it in all the grooves, working my way from the corner of the bathroom to the door. This took me about a half hour to do. I tried to scape off most of the excess grout so we had less to wipe up afterwards. After applying all the grout, Mike wiped it all down with a damp sponge to get up some more of the excess grout.

 

 

 

After letting it dry for 24 hours (read the directions on the package), Mike went back through with a Windex and paper towel to clean up the tiles. And look how pretty it is now!

 

 

 

We're so pleased with the results! But now I'm second guessing this paint color (Mike's shaking his head and walk away)...

Come Together Right Now!

The house is coming together. It's amazing what happens when the flooring goes in. Here's a picture (they're worth a thousand words right?) timeline of our progress

Move in day

 

Painted over that TOO PINK paint

 

Tore out the first layer flooring in the kitchen

 

 

 

Then took out all the flooring

 

...and laid down the underlayment and started the wood 

 

AND NOW, YOU ASK?!?!

 

Flooring complete and the couch arrived!

 

 We're really diggin' the new island (and fridge)!

 

 Up next? Updating the flooring in the bathroom. It never ends right?

Flooring Update - Part 4

The epic saga of the flooring continues. After tearing out the floor and putting down the underlayment, it's now time to actually start the floor! First we opened up multiple boxes of wood (always make sure to mix!) and created different piles with the various lengths we had (this is suppose to help us stagger the boards and lessen the cutting needed).

 

The next thing is to start laying the planks at the longest point on the wall. Make sure to use spacers!

 

You can see that we bough engineered hardwood. What this essentially means is we get the beauty of hardwood flooring with the tongue-and-groove installation of laminate.

 

After laying down the first row of wood to get a basis, we started to use a glue to secure the pieces together. We ran the glue along the edges that connect to the next piece, getting it within the grooves of the wood.

 

Then Mike would snap it into place and use the mallet to (gently) hammer it into place.

 

 

To make sure it would dry tightly together, Mike went the extra mile and used left over painters tape that we had at the seams of the boards.

Three rows down, a million to go!

Flooring Update - Part 3

This may be the longest running project Mike and I have had to date. Because of our busy schedules, soaking up the end of summer and the tedious nature of the project - the flooring is still going. Oh, and did I mention this sent us the wrong flooring and took forever to get us new flooring. I say "new" because the original floor we ordered was discontinued and that's why the sent us the wrong flooring in the first place. The only benefit of all the hoopla is that we ended up being able to upgrade our flooring choice for the same price.

Anyways, after tearing out the flooring here and here, we began to lay down the underlayment. This has multiple purposes such as creating a smooth surface, sound reduction and being a moisture barrier. We bought the square footage we needed from a supplier we found online. It came in large rolls that we cut to fit our space. See below how the rolls of underlayment come together on the floor:

 

It was a short, quick process to secure one strip of underlayment to the other. (Note: The red tape on the floor in the picture above is where there was no other way to secure it to the others. This is because we had to run the roll perpendicular to all the other pieces running horizontal across the floor). Here is a picture of two rolls of underlayment we needed to secure together.

 

 

#1: Pull the two pieces together so the ends are flush.

 

#2: Peal off the white strip which reveals a layer of tape essentially. This will stick to the plastic layer other roll of underlayment.

 

 

#3: Pull over the plastic layer attached to the other roll over the tape. (Note: Each roll of underlayment had one edge with the tape and the other side with the plastic layer. This makes it so that each piece of underlayment can connect to the next - like a puzzle!)

 

 

Make sure to pull it tight and smooth the plastic layer over the tape. It's that simple! You just keep going along the entire edge of each underlayment piece.

 

Of course, we got to parts of the flooring where we needed to cut the underlayment for vents and corners. Here's a brief tutorial of how we Mike did this. Below is a picture of where we needed to cut for a vent:

 

Next, Mike pulled down the underlayment, creating a crease, showing where he needed to cut the piece. Then he took a pocket knife, running it along that crease. (I'm sorry if this seems easy-peasy but I'm just always so amazing at how Mike always knows exactly what do to. So this part of the post is for people like me that are perpetually stumped.)

 

 

 

After cutting, it was a simple tear off of the underlayment and job was done!
 



 

 

 

 

Up next - laying down the flooring! Until then, here's our house...

 





Flooring Update - Part 2

This weekend we went to town on removing the old carpet in the great room and vinyl flooring in the kitchen. We Mike first started in the kitchen. He pulled up the flooring in pieces by simply (probably not simple to him) cutting and pulling it up.

 

 

Then he had to go over the floor with a scrapper to get al the extra glue and paper off the floor.

 

 

Then to our dismay, we also realize the vinyl had been glued onto underlayment. We had to remove this because otherwise the great room and kitchen wouldn't have been level. At first we were worried that the underlayment was glued down. Luckily (as lucky as this could have been), it was stapled down. So Mike was able to chip away the underlayment.

However, this left a sea of staples. Fast forward a couple hours, we sat and hammered them all into the existing subfloor. Thank God I have the most amazing dad who helped us out.

 

 

 

Before that though, we had to remove the carpet and tile that surrounded the front door. The carpet was a quick and easy removal. We cut and rolled it up into pieces. What we thought would be the harder part was the tile in front of the door.

 

 

But all it called for was a little elbow grease. And, again, some great dads! First, Mike use a screwdriver and hammer to pry up the tile.

 

 

To our surprise, the tile popped off easily.

 

 

The next part in the process was to remove the platform that the tile was applied to (it made it level with the old carpet). Mike had to use the drill to unscrew it from the subflooring.

 

 

Then Mike wedged the platform up. And this is wear the elbow grease comes in....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're so excited to have gotten it done in one day. We only had one injury too! I'm telling you - I leave for an hour and Mike injures himself. He had to go get stiches on his finger because he destroyed it during the demo. Don't worry - he's fine now.

 

Anyways, the end result doesn't look all that pretty now, but it will! We're hoping to install the new flooring sometime this week.

 

 

 

 

Oh, and it got a little dusty during the demo...