Renovation Realities - Tub Surround!

If you remember from my March 12th post, Renovation Realities!, our next DIY project on our to-do list was Phase II of our Guest Bathroom renovation...the tub surround. 

Before

Well, I think we started around March 24th (give or take a week - I've blocked the past month out!) thinking we had PLENTY of time to finish before 8 or 9 girls were going to be staying at the house for a bachelorette party the weekend of April 20-22nd.  Mind you, we only have two bathrooms....thus, only two showers....so with 8 or 9 girls in one place, both showers were definitely a requirement.  Wwwweeeeelllll, we sort of underestimated the amount of time and work that would be involved with this and came down to the wire finishing just two nights before everyone got here....phew!!!!

So, as I mentioned, this was a little more time and work than we had anticipated....and by "a little more" I mean "a whole heck of a lot more" like "I never ever ever in my entire life want to do that again more."  First of all, there are about a billion and three ways to re-tile a tub surround so trying to choose the "right way" to do it is super stressful.  As soon as you feel like you know which direction to start heading, somebody says something that totally contradicts what you just thought and you are back at square one.   Seriously, by the time we started, we pretty much just figured we'd jump in, figure it out as we go and hope it doesn't leak when we are finished.  And to the best of our knowledge it isn't leaking so I guess we did ok!  Basically, everyone has a different opinion on the "right way" to do this ranging from the bare minimum [read: contractor-grade] to over-the-top-waterproof-everything-five-different-ways [read: we might consider if we were building our dream home and planned on living there forever]....so we shot for somewhere in the middle.

For the sake of time and in an attempt not to completely bore you with all of the details, I'll briefly list the steps we chose to take, but am considering posting a "HOW TO" post as well for those that may be contemplating a tub surround renovation for themselves.  [Side note:  Consider yourself warned - and by no means am I suggesting anyone should put themselves (particularly their poor hands, back, shoulders, legs, arms....really their whole body) through this.]  If I end up posting a "HOW TO" I'll update this post so you can find the link to it. 

Obviously, step one was to demo the exiting tile....which was actually pretty fun!  We opted to demo down to the studs which was definitely a heck of a lot easier, but it made a royal mess.  Dust everywhere!!!  However, it did give us a blank canvas to start with and made it easier for the plumber to come in and change out the plumbing and raise our shower head (step two).  Not to mention, our "bare minimum contractor before job" left the sheet rock moldy underneath so I'm glad we got rid of all of that.  Pretty gross!

Demo!

No going back now!  Step three and four were to add blocking for the recessed shelves and start reinstalling the sheet rock - we used 1/2" hardibacker board.  Step four probably would have been pretty simple and we would've snapped it out like nothing IF we didn't decide to add three recessed shelves.  Those shelves were almost the death of us!  I'm not exaggerating either.  All the measurements and cutting were ridiculous!  BUT...in the end, I'm really glad we did it because they look awesome and are so handy!!  One other thing worth noting is the $17 cement board saw blade that we decided to purchase - best $17 spent on the whole tub!!  I'm pretty sure it saved Boon his sanity! 

Looking more like a tub surround everyday...

After getting all of the sheet rock back up, it was pretty exciting because you could kind of start to see what it was going to look like again.  It felt like huge progress at this point!  Next...the dreaded, questionable, not really sure how much you need, waterproofing step....which just happens to also be the most important step.  Ugh!!  So even though the hardibacker board is technically waterproof by itself and most contractors stop here, we were shooting for the middle of the range; thus, chose to tape all of the joints with mesh tape [note: buy the gray mesh tape from Lowe's if you do this - the white Home Depot mesh tape sucks!] and then go one step further and paint the recessed shelves and all joints with Red Guard.  Unfortunately, Red Guard is super expensive and only comes in two sizes - huge and gigantic - so we have about 7/8 of huge left over, but if nothing else, it gave us more confidence so it was probably worth the extra expense. 

Waterproofing

FINALLY we get to start tiling!!!!  Boon and I made a great team - I applied the thin set and laid the tiles while Boon measured and cut...we had a pretty good system down.   Although we always thought we were moving along fast and we'd be finished by "tonight", every "tonight" turned into "tomorrow" which really turned into "weeks"....it was crazy how long it took!!!  Seriously, before we knew it five hours would pass and we had to start cleaning up again for the night.  So frustrating!  The pictures below show our progress at the end of each night (not in order (obviously)...I'm still figuring out how to edit in Picasa-sorry!)   Our last weekend (before the girls got here) we were in panic-mode and of all times for me to get a headache, I get the worst migraine and am out for the count until about noon on Sunday.  UGH!!!  Poor Boon was totally on his own and put in a good 13 hours on Saturday alone to finish the top two layers of tile.  He was a rock star!

tiling.took.forever.

So come Monday I was back in the game and since it was now crunch time, I ended up using a personal day so I could start cleaning, de-hazing and grouting! To no one's surprise, this also took longer than expected and lingered over until Tuesday night.   (Are you starting to see why I never want to do this again!?)   But by the end of Tuesday night, we were able to caulk the edges and get the fixtures back on. 

Last step...finally!!!

YAY!!!!!  We finally have a finished tub surround!!!!  Now to clean and get the bathroom back together on Wednesday night before the girls get here on Friday - what a great feeling!  I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty sure Bentley and Bella were just as happy to have us finished as we were - the poor lil' furbabies got neglected the last week horribly.  :(   And with no further ado....

I cannot tell you how happy I am to have this finished...and it looks so good!!!

A blow-up of the final product!

 And of course, I can't leave you without a Before and After picture....

What a difference!!!

And I tried getting a photo of both Phase I and Phase II together to give you an idea of the overall project, but it was a little challenging getting it all in one picture so here's my best shot...

Phase I and II as a whole - I probably should've opened the curtain, but didn't think about it...sorry!

Despite all of the complaining and ridiculous amount of hours we put into this, I am still very glad we did it and am very happy at how it turned out.  (I'll say I definitely enjoyed Phase I of our Guest Bathroom renovation more than Phase II though!)  Our guest bathroom looks so different now and it makes me want to re-do our master bathroom really bad...well, correction...have somebody re-do our master bathroom!

Renovation Realities!

Two weekends ago Boon and I (with the help of our trusty sidekicks, Bentley and sometimes Bella (once it got too dark to be outside)) decided to tackle our first real home renovation....and it was so exciting!!  We opted to test out our renovation-capabilities on our guest bathroom since it is the smallest renovation on our list of renovations that we want to do. That way if we totally messed it up, we could hire somebody to come bail us out and not totally break the bank.  Well, we are about 1/2 way through and so far so good - it even looks pretty dang really, really good (if I do say so myself!)

So it started out looking like this:

Guest Bathroom (before) - pretty hideous, right!?

A few of the things we hated: ugly light pine cabinets, horrible 1980 seashell sink (even though the house was built in 2000), stark white countertop, plain boring faucet, and the standard builder's mirror and light fixture. 

We first tackled the ugly light pine cabinets (this was back in November or so).  We used the Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformation Kit - Glazed Espresso, which is supposed to be an easy 5-step process.  To our amazement, it actually turned out pretty good, but "easy" is not exactly the term I'd used to describe the 5-step process.  We actually did both bathrooms which was a total of about 6 doors and 6 drawers and it probably took us a good two weeks.  The first step, the "Deglosser" step, was excruciating...our arms and hands were probably sore for a week.  This step is supposed to eliminate sanding, but my heck, at that point I think it would have been easier to sand!  After the first step though it really wasn't that bad, just time consuming.  It was definitely cheaper than having the cabinets refinished or buying new cabinets though!  (Even considering the money we saved, we will hire someone to do our kitchen cabients - no way am I going through that again!)  So after the cabinet transformation our cabinets looked like this:

Cabinets after their transformation!  (Sorry the pic is kind of dark.)

Since we were so exhausted from that phase of our remodel we ended up waiting about 4 months to continue. So fast forward to about two weeks ago! In this phase, we replaced the horrible 1980 seashell sink, the stark white countertop, the plain boring faucet, and the standard builder's mirror and light fixture.

Our Remodeling Team:

First, we have Boon - the most creditable worker.  He did all the dirty work (i.e. unhooking and re-hooking the plumbing, electrical work, heavy lifting, etc.).  He stayed very busy and so I wasn't able to get a picture of his head...sorry about that!

Boon unhooking the original plumbing.  Notice Bentley coming to help!

Second, we have Bentley - our second biggest helper (next to me, of course!).  Bentley helped us throughout the whole project.  He thoroughly checked out everything we took apart or removed from the existing sink/countertop by sniffing it endlessly.  He made sure we installed all the new pieces correctly by watching diligently from the hallway or, more preferably, on the rug next to the shower - I'm pretty sure he felt more apart of the action when he was actually inside the bathroom with us.  He was also very legit at following me around to make sure I didn't get lost during one of my many trips to the garage or spare bedroom (where we had all of our tools set up). 

Bentley helping Boon unhook the plumbing.

Third, we have Bella - unlike Bentley, she could careless what was going on in the bathroom and preferred to soak up some Vitamin D while working on her tan!  She literally spent all day outside until it got dark and we made her come in.  She then split her time evenly between her comfy bed in the hallway and hanging out with Bentley on the rug next to the shower.   

Bella soaking up the sun!

And, last but not least, we have me - the brains [read: slave-driver] of the operation!  My job was to provide thorough (and always right) instructions, take pictures, provide my master-caulking skills, help with the heavy lifting, run back-and-forth to the garage and spare bedroom to fetch tools for Boon, check on our outdoor-furkid, Bella, and to approve all final work!  (PS - I had the best job!)   Oh...and I also re-caulked the shower just for something to do in between my other jobs...I'm a bit of a busy-body!)

Me demonstrating one of my many jobs!

So now that you know who the players are, I'll walk you through the rest of our remodel.  After we (yes, we) unhooked the plumbing and removed the ugly sink and countertop, we realized we were going to have to re-texture the back and side wall where the old backsplash and sidesplash were because the new backsplash and sidesplash were shorter.  Unforeseen Problem #1!

After removing the sink and coutertop.

After many tries, we finally figured out [read: settled on] our texturing job.  I wouldn't give us an A+ in this area, but we can't be great at everything, right!?  It works, and unless you look super close, I don't think it is very noticeable so I give us a passing score.  After letting the texture dry, we painted and were ready to move on!

Letting the texture dry so we can repaint and move-on!

Yay!!  We finally have a new countertop and new fixtures!!!  Now to re-hook up the plumbing... 

Boon re-hooking up the plumbing. 

So now that we figured out the texturing and have the new countertop on, we thought we were moving along effortlessly, until this little make-drain-work-thingamajig (see below) didn't make the drain work!  Argh!!  So apparently, this thing comes in one standard size, yet our standard drop-in sink/countertop did NOT take into account the standard size of the make-drain-work-thingamajig.  People!!!  Basically, our make-drain-work-thingamajig was too short for our set-up.  Unforeseen Problem #2

Unforeseen Problem #2: make-drain-work-thingamajig

Luckily, we are problem solvers and did not let this little issue stand in our way!  Boon, with the help of a second rod and a little duct tape, rigged up a little fix until we could get back to the hardware store for a more permanent fix.  And, just so you know, later on in the project we did fix this - we had to use a toilet-flusher-rod-thingamajig [note: it was new, and therefore, clean so no worries!] because they are longer, but coincidentally they are the same diameter so the little white ball still fit and it now works perfectly!  Phew!

So finally, with the new countertop in place and the new fixtures and plumbing all hooked-up, we have our first comparison photo!! 

Comparison of old seashell sink and countertop to new awesome rectangular sink and granite countertop!

Now it's time to move to the builder's grade mirror and light fixture.  We ran into the same texturing problem with the mirror and the light fixture as we did with the backsplash and sidesplash, but again, not horribly noticeable unless you are looking for it.  So...if any of you come to our house...don't look for it!  :)   Our second comparison picture is below.  Ignore the burnt out light in the original photo - I didn't want to change the bulb since we were replacing the fixture anyway! 

Comparison of old light fixture and mirror to new beautiful light fixture and mirror!

And with that, we have the final product!!  I took the picture in the dark to try and get the light fixture.  Are you ready???

Our new guest bathroom!!

And of course, I had to provide an overall comparison picture!  Whatdayathink?!?!

Old vs. New!

After the pictures above were taken we added hardware so I've included one more picture below. 

Couldn't leave out the hardware!

Yay!!! Phase 1 of our Guest Bathroom Remodel is complete!!  (And, I only broke one nail in the process!  Whoop!)  Next, we will be re-tiling the tub surround...

Our next upgrade...stay tuned!

Stay tuned!  Until then...if you need any remodeling advice, Bentley is available for questions!  He's an expert now!