Clark Place: Bathroom 75% done with pictures and text!

Hey Guys,

Sorry for the lack of updates with no text. I'm really busy at work that I have no time to complain, moan, bitch, or offer insight. Since my CPU completely crashed (finally), I have some downtime to type an entry.

For some reason, I always start working on the house at 1PM. I always wake up around 8 or 9, but never get around starting to do the real work. I have to go out and buy supplies or just plan what to do for the day. It sucks. If I started early, then I would get more shit done. I'll practice my timing skills later on. Let's continue on with the story.

So I had a 3 day weekend to tile the bathroom. At this point in time, I am 75% done with tiling the room!!! I only have 2.2 walls to complete (28 tiles) until I am done with this. I can stage the bathroom, and start cleaning up the rest of the house for the appraisal.

I started off with tiling the south (longest) wall since I would maximize the length of tile without cutting. Since this tile was different than the floor, I could randomly arrange it while looking greate (the floor tile had a particular order to lay). I didn't take pictures but in the living room, I had about 8 stacks of tile with the same set of design. I would lay thinset then walk over to the next room, pick up a tile and slam it onto the wall. It took me about 4 or 5 tiles until I had a rhythm going.

What really sucks about laying tile - making thinset. You can waste your time measuring, but it's just pure luck. Either the mixsture is watery or peanut butter-like consistency. Most of the time, my mixsture was relatively dry. Putting thinset on the wall - bitch. Most of the time, it would fall to the floor and make more of a mess. Yeah, when that sucker dries, I'll be on the floor with a wood-block scraping that mess off.

I've read books at home depot, lowes, or watch it on youtube. they make it look so easy and painless, but my experience is... it's frustrating. After a while, i figured out my formula and made thinset that was just right.

While doing the south wall, I had to take out the window casing that I made previously. The reason why is because I thought it would be easier to add tile underneath the apron to make it look more flushed. Big mistake there. I ended up destroying my apron. Looks like I wasted another 2 bucks. I wasn't orginally satisfied with it anyways. I'll make a new one this week. At least the casing I can reuse again.

South wall completed, I started working on north-left side of the door. The reason again to start doing this is because I want the east wall tile to butt-up against the walls so that they can hide the "cracks" and make the room look more plumb. This wall sucked because I had to cut tile to accomodate the light switches. It was impossibly hard to accomplish because the stupid tile kept on breaking! I was at the edge of the tile (at least 2 inches away from the edge) and each time I would cut out a rectangle, it would always break. So far, I've wasted 4 tiles doing this and was like "what the hell, I'll use the best of 4". It turned out okay.. not the best but do-able.

After completing the north-left wall, I worked on the east wall. This wall really sucked because of the drain and the pipes for the vanity. I have a carbide-hole-saw kit but it really sucked when it came to cutting tile. IT TOOK WAY TOO DAMN LONG to cut ONE HOLE! While cutting a hole, the tile would shatter making me cringe and cursing away at the home remodeling gods. So What I did was to take a tile-cutting saw, and cut out either a square or triangle for the openings. The drain - simple. The hot and cold pipes - hard since I had to cut an opening that is 1" all around. After breaking/mis-cutting 5 tiles, I just did it old skool- made really long rectangular openings. I plan to fill it back in later.

When I walked back into the living room, I noticed that I had 4 boxes of tile left. Each contained 6 tile. I had about 16 tiles spread across the living room in its own stack. I did the math and noticed I was short about 60 tile. How could that be? I checked the math and rechecked it again. I should have enough with two boxes to spare. What happened? Well, I figured it out. When doing my math, I used 8 tiles per box instead of 6. That's why I am really short of tile. I had bought these cases of tile in April. It's July right now so the tiles have been stored in my living room for 3 months. Wow.. That's a long time.

I called the warehouse in Ark, MS, and Jackson, TN since I knew the Memphis store was already out. NO ONE HAD THEM IN STOCK. Jackson said they did, but when they went to reserve it for me - empty. I had high hopes. Then I asked the guy over the phone if the Memphis warehouse had any. Sure enough, they did - 144 CASES! Wow... If I had just called the Memphis store on Thursday, I wouldn't had started late.

Thursday evening, I sat on the bathroom floor looking at the work and trying to figure out should I just change up the design for the bathtub? I sat there and tested the design by spreading the 18"s on the tub. It look kind of.. blah. Then I took some 12" from another design/pattern that was laying around. It looked a lot better. Added to the list of crap to buy at the warehouse were 12",18" and maybe stone.

Friday, I picked up a few boxes of 18" and 12" tile along with some other tile for experimentation purposes. When I got back to the house, I started tiling the tub. I started with the northside of the tub with some 12's. After doing the 2nd row, I decided to add in an 18" just for shits and giggles. IT LOOKED AMAZING! I decided to throw in the 18"s for one row and add the 12"s back in. I wish I had done this earlier with the wall. It would accented it more! Too late now. I continued with the tub and was finished by sunday. I had a delay on saturday afternoon for the 4th of July activities and had to repair a window at one of my rentals since some douche decided to break in. SUCKS right there.

Here are pics of the bathroom.

South wall