Many Steps Closer to Bathroom Launch Success

Since we haven't blogged in so long, this post has been ongoing for a month or two, it has made it hard to post because every time I have time to work on it there's more to add! We don't have a lot of pictures, blogging hasn't been top of mind and so when we were doing boring things like putting up insulation, the camera wasn't always at hand. Today I'm posting this thing, even though it isn't perfect. Our main computer is having issues, so I'm also doing this post on my super old laptop which has a faulty space bar and no photo editing software. These pictures are grainy at best. Let's call them "artsy." It's time to get you caught up on how our bathroom went from this...

To how it looks today...

We left off having our roof inspected and we've been given the go-ahead that our roof should be water-free in the future. That left us to continue making progress in the bathroom, and hopefully one day it will be usable.

Bathrooms have been a major part of life lately, with our renovation in the evenings and at work I was designing 7 bathrooms for one home. Definitely having lots of bathroomspiration, and the occasional bathroom related nightmare. I can't even imagine having a finished bathroom, but we're getting close!

Philip reinsulated our exterior wall, and it proved to be one of our best DIY projects to date, in my opinion. Everything went smoothly, it wasn't too difficult to figure out, and it made a big difference! We started out by removing the old insulation, they had actually spray foamed from the outside from what we could tell, but we didn't really know that going in so it was still good to get it freshened up. Also because the spray foam didn't extend all the way to the edges and had a lot of places for cold air to leak in. Next up we measured the width between studs and cut the insulation to size. After that it's just a matter of sliding the insulation easily into place. 

Philip also put up the vapor barrier, we weren't really sure how to do any of this but we spent the morning watching You Tube videos of people putting up insulation and vapor barriers, and then we just worked away! You Tube and Google are definitely great resources when you want to try and tackle something yourself, there are a lot of great tutorials out there that can help you get an idea of what you're doing.

Next up, the plumber came in and worked at installing our bathtub, as well as reconfiguring plumbing and improving some of the plumbing that was there before since it's all exposed anyway and we may as well do it right. We have a new stack, and a brand new bathtub. 

Our electrician came one evening and roughed in all of the wiring for 3 brand new GFCI's - in the old bathroom there was one plug, which only worked for 60s razors. He also hung our vent fan, which we ducted ourselves. We still have to drill the hole to vent it outside, but the ducting is all ready to go.

We purchased a light fixture last week online, crossing our fingers that it doesn't get back-ordered like crazy and that it looks okay in real life. It's a sleek fixture, that we hope will look great in the end. It's hard to choose these things when the room just looks like a gutted box! 

Finding flooring that met our criteria was a challenge. We didn't want tile because it's cold on the feet, hard to install yourself without some know-how, and would make a big ridge from our wood floor = stubbed toe central. We ended up with a vinyl tile from A&R Carpet Barn, they're big and rectangular and the installation sounded very user friendly. Basically each tile can be glued in place, and cut to fit with a utility knife. The tiles are a grey/white with a linear pattern. 

We've had to reframe the linen closet wall 2 times now, but hopefully we did it for the last time now. The main reason was to make the vent fan fit inside the wall, and we're actually kind of loving the wider 2 x 8 wall next to the shower giving it a more built in look. 

Once everything was framed, and electrical and plumbing were completed, we were ready for drywall. We called our friends to book it, right under the wire too as a couple days later one of them had a baby! Philip took the day off that they were coming so we could finish up with sound insulating and ducting, but a twist came when we realized the night before that the tub surround needed to go up before the drywall! 

After calling a number of friends/family who seemed handy to us, my aunt & uncle came over in the morning to give us a hand. It was terrifying drilling the holes through acrylic side walls, but it all went okay! Basically it was just a matter of putting silicone in a groove, putting each wall into the silicone, and drilling screws all along the top for extra support. 

As we were finishing up sound insulation our friends showed up and drywalled everything in an hour and a half. It looks awesome to have a bathroom with walls again!! First time since January!

Mudders & Tapers are almost done, one more coat to go, we delayed them a bit by going on vacation (we just got back from Minneapolis on Wednesday night). 

Next Steps:
- Choose paint color
- Prime
- Paint
- Install Flooring
- Casings & Trim
- Think of a Linen Closet Solution
- ....start our kitchen?

Extra Bedroom

So along with the bathroom renovation that is heavily delayed but sort of in progress, we're planning to also complete the extra bedroom, which means when we're done the bedroom and bathroom the back of our house is "done". 

We don't really need the extra bedroom right now, but we figured we'd do it at the same time so we don't have an unusable room, and because some of the tasks just make sense to do at the same time.

One of those is drywalling the ceiling. In the master bedroom and office, we patched the air conditioning vent holes ourselves, but this bedroom has popcorn ceilings and so we decided a thin drywall ceiling over top will be easier and look better in the end than patching the circle shaped hole and then emulating some kind of popcorn effect over top of it. 

Since we'll be drywalling the bathroom, we figured we may as well do the third bedroom at the same time.

As this room doesn't really have a function, we'll be putting our guest bed in it, and a vanity desk I have, but we don't really anticipate any guests. All of our immediate family lives in the city, and so no one is really coming to visit over night...but if they do...we're ready. The other eventual function for this room will be a residence for future offspring. 

We wanted the color to be something that would work for all of those possible functions: guests, boy room, girl room. This way we won't have to repaint it anytime soon. Right now we're leaning towards a shade of mint - although by the time we're done the trend will probably be done too. I'm already totally digging 2013's Emerald...we'll have to see where we bring that into the house. 

Here are some mint shades we're currently crushing on, any other ideas? We're definitely open minded to other colors, this just seemed gender neutral enough and guest friendly, as well as just being a color we both really like. 

Definitely enjoying the blue/green of this fresh mint. This is also going to sound dumb, but if it has mint in the title, it is automatically in the favourites column. 

This is more of a pale green shade, but it definitely also tickles my fancy. I would like to bring green into the color palette, as we've already used primarily blue in our bedroom and office. It's nice to stay with some coordinating colors, but I'd really like to expand the horizons to some other colors that complement the blues we've already used.

Which is your favourite? Any other colors you'd suggest? I'd like something cheerful, but not too loud...and something we could definitely accessorize for a certain gendered child when the time comes.

Anyone else picking out paint colors right now? Using the mint trend anywhere in your house? Don't forget to answer the poll before tomorrow!

With what shall I mend it, dear Liza, dear Liza?

Sorry about how late in the day this post is coming, it has been a bit of a hectic week.

With the removal of the boiler system and radiators, we were left with some serious wall to patch. Unlike bucket holes, a straw just wouldn't do (I've never understood the whole straw as a patching system in that song if someone wants to explain that to me).

Philip enjoying the last moments before patching the unplastered area of our wall.

We're new to the idea of plaster walls and so we weren't exactly sure what material we should use to patch them. Our window installer  (clearly the leading expert in plaster repair) recommended quick-drying drywall compound, the kind that dries in approximately twenty minutes. His reasoning is that longer-drying mud is more likely to bubble and takes longer to be sandable, so you can do more coats faster with the quick-drying stuff. So off we went to The Home Depot (are there any other Home Depots that those orange big boxes should need the preceding "The")  and purchased it for $7 a box. We ended up using about two and a half boxes so far, and will probably buy more of it for doing the living room and guest room when we get to them. 

Sheetrock 20 "The name the pros trust" - by pros they clearly meant us.

The only food Philip makes in our kitchen is waffles, so this was right up his alley.

Before getting to the real patching, we practiced with this snow woman, our snow wasn't perfect and kept falling apart so we had some serious hole patchage to get to. (Yes, I made up that word. No, it won't be the last time.) Here's the finished result. You can also see our updates on Instagram if you follow myself or Philip.

Cassy and Concetta, in order to give a better idea of how our snow woman is posed.

Concetta - named after the person who I've made friends with at the Bomber stadium. We don't know her real name, but this word is on her sweater.

The first patching assignment we began to tackle was the baseboard radiator's previous residence, below the window in both the office and master bedroom. We mixed up the drywall compound, which I would compare to mixing pancake batter. Basically you just add more or less water depending on the consistency you're going for. We mostly followed the instructions on the box (but I've been known to be a little free with the measuring cup - we've talked about my lack of measuring skills in the past and that happens to continue in the kitchen where I prefer to "eyeball it" when baking or cooking). The final consistency ends up being crepe-like (really thin pancakes) and can definitely be a little drippy at first when it comes to troweling it on, but is best in order to get a thin and smooth coat. 

Yes I am wearing klompen slippers. Heritage heritage.

Me patching away, as you can see we have some floor to patch after this from where the radiator pipes came up from the basement.

The basic idea was a bunch of thin coats, so we spent the past few days patching, followed by sanding, followed by patching again. It's not easy work, and it was complicated by... well, I'll let Philip explain it in his own words:

"Some mistakes are worse than others. On a scale of "minor miscalculation" to "Steve Smith in the '86 Stanley Cup Final," this one might not even rank.

You see, we've been patching over the spaces where our baseboard radiators used to be, and if you've patched an area that large and with more than one section you know there's an intense amount of sanding required. And being so close to the floor, it's tough to get a good angle with decent leverage.

Now, put yourself in my shoes. You're halfway through the sanding you have to do. Your arm and shoulder are hurting. And you look over and see a power palm sander.

I made what I thought was the logical choice. I even remembered to close the heat vents in the room and wear a dust-filtering mask. But I didn't remember a few other also-critical details. Which leads me to my list of 5 Things I Should Have Thought Of (But Didn't):

5. How much dust will this create?
4. Where will that dust go?
3. Should I put the door to this room back up first so the dust stays contained in this room?
2. Should I attach the dust filter to the palm sander?
1. (Halfway through) Is it getting cloudy in here?

Long story short, when I finally looked up from what I was doing, the room looked like how I imagine a London morning, except replace Big Ben with Dumb Philip. And when I walked out into the hallway, it wasn't much better. It appears I had inadvertently discovered the Best Way to Make Your Whole House Dusty in Half an Hour Or Less! (Patent pending.)

As you might have guessed (since she probably would have talked me out of it), my wife was not home at the time, and so I fired off the following texts.

I love her objection at the end. You're about 20 minutes too late with that one, honey.

On the plus side, the dust did make my hair look salt-and-peppery. I'm not going to be so forward as to say I looked devastatingly handsome; I'll just say, if I go gray instead of bald, my wife is a lucky lady."

Thanks Philip. By way of update, the walls did get pretty smooth, thanks to another layer or two of the crepe batter and my mom coming to help me out.

And, yes, the dust is still everywhere, partly because we've been advised it's not smart to vacuum it up (it can really clog a vacuum's filter), so we've mainly been avoiding wearing black socks and eagerly awaiting the day we'll be done with the patching so we can Swiffer the house to death.

But that won't happen until we're all done. And we can't show you the final results until we tell you the tale of how we patched the holes left by the A/C vents. Which were in the ceiling. As in above our heads. Despite making those sentences real short, they don't convey the epic nature of this challenge. But believe me. You. Will. Be. Stunned. (There, that's better.)

By the way, anyone willing to leave a comment with your biggest, bone-headiest mistake you've ever made while renovating? It would really make Philip feel like less of a doorknob (or at least less alone in his door-knobbedness).