Master Bath Project: Day 15

This weekend we began the cutting of the tiles, woohoo! We worked for 6-7 hours on Saturday and today and would have been done if it wasn't for that meddling niche. It doesn't look like it would be that difficult, but it really is. Makes me almost wish we didn't put it in, but I know that once we are done it will be nice not to need a shower caddy hanging below the shower head.

We cut the tile in the bathroom which was really convenient. This week I hope to put up the dry wall underneath the window and get it prepped to paint. We probably will not finish the niche till next weekend because we first have to figure out how best to take care of the corners. We thought about cutting the quarter round at 45º but that did not work out quite how we thought it would.

 
Tomorrow we have a fabricator coming out to take measurements. We want to put marble caps on both walls and on the piece of IKEA furniture that we are using as a vanity. We are hoping to use a remnant piece to keep down costs.

I kept tripping over the tarp and so "A" taped it down for my safety. Actually I think that she just didn't want to have to finish the bathroom by herself if I got hurt ☺.

Master Bath Project: Day 14

This weekend was a big push to finally get all the whole tiles up. When you look at what needs to be done it looks really easy and fast but when the work starts it takes a bit longer than you expect.

As you can see we had to come up with some creative ways to hold the tile and I had to come up with creative ways to stand and tile.

Of course if you have ever laid tile before you will know that no wall or corner is EVER square. So on the pony wall I had to put a little bit more thin set to even out the corner tiles. Unfortunately, I have no one to blame but myself because I built the pony wall.

This week we will finish the drywall patching and getting the walls prepped. Then Saturday and Sunday will be the final wall tile (hopefully).  After that then paint the walls and replace the ceiling fan. The last part will be the floor.

I am actually enjoying this slower pace work. Yes it does drag out but there is no pressure to hurry and finish and that is where mistakes are made.


The inspector arrives to check my work.

His Holiness Dalai Lama

His Holiness The Dalai Lama made his first ever stop in San Diego and had three speaking engagements. We were lucky enough to get tickets to watch him at SDSU. Faculty and Staff got a chance to purchase tickets 2 days before it was open to the public. Once it was open to the public it was sold out within hours.

He has quite a sense of humor and it was very enjoyable. The Mayor Jerry Sanders gave him a key to the city and he donned a SDSU visor. He spoke for almost an hour and then answered questions that were submitted by the audience. I captured his entrance and one of the questions on video. The quality is poor due to the lighting and the zoom I had to use but it's not too bad. The link to the video is here: http://youtu.be/AcV7OTwwOu0

When we were arriving there was a really, really, really long line. I would guess it was at least 300- 500 meters long with thousands of people waiting. However we were coming from a different angle and I decided to keep walking past the line. Turns out that line was feeding into ONE entrance, there were other entrances next to it that only had 20 or 30 people waiting. Guess which line we got in? The long line was being fed from the trolley line and people were just getting behind the person in front of them. Monkey see, Monkey do. Since we parked in the employee parking lot we side stepped them.

This line kept going and going

Mayor Sanders and SDSU President Hirshman

Outside project part 2

The wall continues to be slowly taken down. One pleasant surprise was a cable that appears to be laid in the foundation of the wall and wraps (hopefully) all the way around the canyon wall. The cable is about an inch thick and I can only think that it will help hold up the wall since anything is better than nothing.

Master Bath Project: Day 13 and the beginning of the outside project

Today we began the tile job on our shower walls. We decided to measure out from the edges and work our way in because we needed to stop outside at a certain point. We were not too concerned with the cuts being in the corner, but really wanted the outside edges to look as clean as possible.

The pony wall is giving us fits because we don't want to have any slivers of tile on either the top or the bottom. I think we have it figured out, but need to get 3x6 bull-nose and 4x4 bull-nose corners so that I can cut them down finish the side-top and outside corner of the wall.

The only big problem we have is that there is a significant gap on the right side between the tub and the bottom tile. The tiles are level so there must be something wrong with the tub because the front wall tile is good.  So we will probably have to come up with an idea to close that gap. 

The plan is to tile as much as we can using whole tiles and then go back and make the cuts. So today was an easy day and we wanted to get the first rows down since they are the most important.

Yesterday the landscape contractor began the demo of the planter and the wall. We hope by next weekend we might have a fence up. It sure is nice to have someone else do the work.

Master Bath Project: Day 12

The walls are now redguarded thanks to "A" .  It looks like we will begin tiling tomorrow (Sunday).  The hard part is figuring out where to start and the exact layout so that we will not have slivers of tile where they would be highly visible.

Also today the contractor began his demo work on the planter and wall. I will have pictures of that on tomorrow's post.

Master Bath Project: Day 11

Today was my day off so I had a choice. I could either kick back and probably end up taking a nap (which means I would have a hard time falling asleep tonight) or thin-set and tape the the bathroom. So I took the thin-set and tape. It took me 3.5 hours from start to finish.

Next step...redguard.

Master Bath Project: Day 10 and Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. This weekend has been really busy for us and we accomplished a lot.

This week our blinds that we ordered from J.C. Penny arrived and Saturday we got around to installing them. We ordered Bali pleated shades for all the windows. The front bedroom and the walk in closet received top down shades and all the others were normal operating shades. In the master bedroom we went with the blackout shades. I got tired of trying to take a nap in the middle of the day and it being so damn bright in that bedroom.

Today we finished placing the Durrock and it feels like finally it is becoming a bathroom again. Something about having open walls that is just really depressing. No, the pictures are not upside down. Don't ask me why we hung the sheets with the wording upside down. It just worked out that way, funny. I will say I am not sure if I would ever want to buy a re-bar framed house again. It is just so hard to re-frame anything.

Next up is to mesh tape and mud it with thin set. Then apply the redguard and finally tile.

Master Bath Project: Day 9

We have now begun to put up the Durock and it is now taking shape. This week we will work a little at a time each day after work. Not sure how far we will get or when it will be completed but It will look really nice when we are done.