Bathroom: day 3

Tiling, tiling, tiling.  We're getting there...the shower is almost 100% tiled.  Here Mitch is getting started on the second half of the shower.

Making a hole for the shower head:

Getting the holes for the faucets planned out:

Finished with the wall:

Now on to the trim!  I totally love how it looks.  Its classy!

Trim close up:

Now we just need to put on grout and add the shelves.  The shelves have presented some technical difficulties that I don't know if we can overcome...but here's hoping.   Merry Christmas to me: a newly tiled shower!  Tiling the rest of the wall should be a snap.

Bathroom: Day 2

So actually day 3, I spent one day getting the wall ready for tile but that didn't take too long.

Mixing the thin-set mortar. 

Yeah, I was using a wooden spoon.  Its not the ideal tool.  Mitch got a drill attachment that mixes it, so when we did the main tiling I didn't have to mix it by spoon every time.  Here is the wall with the joints taken care of.

We also tore down more of the wall tile because it will be continuous with part of the tub tile.

And now with backer board in place:

Ok, time to tile.  The tiling stuff came to a total of about $140, with an extra $100 for a saw to cut the tile.  We found out after we bought tile spacers that subway tile actually doesn't need them.  Luckily they're cheap.  Now we know.

Here are some sequential progress shots.  We are doing a basic white subway tile, with a little black and white detail in there.  We will be tiling the floor with that pattern, and a ring of it will continue around the room.  There will be a black border on top eventually.  We just got the one wall done today.

There will be little corner shelves where those gaps are.

Rogue was very sad that we tiled all day instead of playing with her.  She brought her toy into the bathroom and kept trying to convince us to throw it.

I feel like now we have a much clearer idea of how to tile efficiently and I think the rest will go quickly from here.  We still need to pull all the rest of the pink tile off,  put up backerboard, and tile.  Oh, and tiling the floor.  Oh, and removing the rest of the brown tile from the built ins, sanding, and painting.  And painting the walls.  So yeah, the bathroom isn't near done yet.  But there is progress.

Dishwasher, bitches!

Our sweet dishwasher finally got delivered.  I ordered it on black friday, the first time in a long time I've bought anything on black friday but the deal was too good to pass up.  Plus now we have a dishwasher. 

We had to rip out some cabinetry to put it in.

After much destruction, dishwasher shaped hole.  The picture is sideways and my ass is too lazy to edit it and upload an upright version. 

Dishwasher!  Atlas is not convinced.

Mitch was very proud of the fact that he did new wiring for it and even put in a new breaker, lucky number 15.  He only shocked himself twice.

There is she is in place.  Its going to be a while before we do the entire kitchen remodel, so she's a bit precarious for now, but totally working well and thats what matters! 

And a close up.  She is a beauty.

Bathroom: Day 1

We have officially started the bathroom remodel.  I guess we really started it when Mitch tore down the walls to rewire, but today we started putting new stuff up.

Here are the walls down to the studs.

We put in some supports to keep the pipes and fixtures in place.  Mitchie was annoyed in this picture because I was taking pictures instead of helping him.  :)

Done and ready for wall.

Felt in place:

And then hardieboard in place.

Now we have to caulk and then start the tiling process.  Once we get the tub tiled, then we're going to tile the rest of the room and the floor.  Its going to be a looong process, I think.  I did also start with the process of taking the ugly brown tile of the built ins.

Ugly brown tile:

This is as far as I got today: those tiles are a bitch to get off.

We're going to sand it down and paint the built ins and trim white, have black and white tile for the wall and floor (pictures to follow...eventually, when we get the tiles up) and then pick a color for the walls.  I'm pretty excited about it. 

Painting the living room, new kitchen light

We installed a new light in the kitchen since Mitch was already rewiring.  I think its going to look much better once we actually get a chance to remodel the kitchen, but that won't be for a little while. 

Also, I finally got the paint on in the living room.  We still need to paint the trim and built ins in both the living room and dining room, but that might wait until after christmas.  We'll see how we feel. 

Primer on!

And paint on:

I can't wait to get the living room done, it feels like its been a mess forever.  The rat cage is going to be sitting in the living room until after we get both downstairs bedrooms done.  That is to say: a very very long time.  We still have some finishing touches and some trim to paint in the living room, but it is mostly done!  On to the bathroom next!

mudding and wiring

First, here is the most current photo of our new drywall section with all the mudding done.  we need to sand it and then we're going to paint that half of the living room.

Mitchie's day before thanksgiving project was to tear down the bathroom wall to rewire.  I wasn't expecting that, so I got home and found the bathroom a war zone.  Messy!

We've been using the Black & Decker book as a how to.  I guess I should say "mitch" and not "we."  I don't mess around with wiring.

The black wiring is the old wiring, the gray wiring is Mitch's new wiring. 

New light switch, not yet all the way in its home:

Last but not least, a beer can from 1938 and a ginger ale bottle from who knows when (sometime before 1965, when this company apparently went out of business) that Mitch found in the walls/crawl spaces while trying to wire.

Next will be more painting, then hopefully drywalling and tiling the bathroom.

Guest star: the Schoellenbach girls put up drywall

So Amelia came to visit me, and I put her to work putting up some drywall in the living room where we uncovered the windows.

Here is the wall with all the plaster and lath taken down:

Mitch and I putting up the first hunk of drywall.  He helped with the first bit, then went to work and Amelia and I took it from there.

Don't mess with a girl with tools.

Yeah, thats some nice drywall.

After drywalling, some celebratory carnage at Pok Pok.

Up next: mudding the joints.  Whoo hoo.