Day 68: I'm dreaming of some white grouting

My apologies for being a bit delinquent with my updates over the holidays. I've been posting photos but haven't followed these up with the story. The real issue with doing this is that I'll probably end up with a rose coloured (or Bob Villa) view of the work. "It was all easy, I made no mistakes, I did it all in 5 minutes while making dinner for the kids, learning Japanese and solving global warming"

On to today's work. With the floor grout drying and my 24 hour "no toilet" time window winding down, I decided to finish the walls off with white grouting and get everything back into place. This involved cleaning out extra tile adhesive and cleaning the tiles with some white spirit - I have no idea what this stuff is called on the other side of the Atlantic, paint thinner maybe - regardless, it works great at wiping down random stuff.

Scott's helpful hint of the day, when grouting over screw plugs, put a screw in the hole so that you're not trying to fish out grout later on. You can see that I did this on the floor tiles. 

Given the smaller tiles and more grouting seams, I ended up using much more grout than yesterday. I mixed up 2 tubs and still didn't manage to finish off all the walls. I also decided to grout all the way down to the floor to give a finished look. This will probably crack due to expansion so I'll run a bead of silicon over it later on but this will provide a good look for now and something for the silicon to bind onto later on. With the grouting done, I have to admit that the bathroom is looking pretty good - not finished, but good.

And to everyone's relief, the toilet and basin are both installed. The pipe adjustment that I made yesterday meant that I needed to make a cabinet adjustment today. I got to use my Dremel again today with the cutting attachment so not entirely a bad thing. Overall the cabinet fits well and the pipes are well located at the back to allow easy shutoff and generally keep them out of the way.

Ashleigh and Caitlin tested out the workmanship with some teeth brushing tonight and they both approve. I'll get the wall cabinet mounted tomorrow.

Day 67: Measure once, cut twice

After a relaxing Christmas, it was time to get back to work. My little helpers still seem to be on holiday and for some reason, I couldn't interest them in plumbing and tiling. Much less fun than dressing up as princesses and singing Frozen songs.

Today's fun discovery was that although the basin plumbing looked great at first glance, the waste pipe and feed pipes needed adjustment. Given that I fitted these pipes when there was no floor or walls, this could have been expected. Initially I was so proud that I got the waste pipe the exact centre of the basin ... just short of doing a jog ... then I realised that the mechanism for the plug also goes in the centre of the basin. Oops! But that was the reason for not fixing the PVC pipe until everything was measured. I just cut a new hole in the wall and extended the pipes by about 4". 

The hot and cold feed pipes were also just a bit short for the flex sink connectors. This was a much harder fix as I had to shut off the water and put some 90 degree elbows and turned the isolators upwards. Good news was that I turned on the water and not so much as a drip. 

Afterwards, I pulled the toilet - Care gave me exactly 24 hours to get it back in place so I was on the clock. The plan was to finish off the wall tiles around the toilet and basin so that I can put them back in permanently and to finish off the floor grouting. After I finished all of this, Care came home to tell me that it didn't look like much got finished. I have a very tough customer. Good thing I have photo evidence :)

Finally, I got to use the Dremel that Wince and T got me for Christmas - a great gift, thanks guys! I cut some tile, sharpened some chisels and was on the lookout for other potential uses. Dremels are the DIY version of a tablet - something that nobody really needs but you look back and wonder how you ever got on without one. I've also discovered the marketing genius of Dremel - get people into the ecosystem and live off them ordering accessories for the next 5 years. So far I've picked up a tile cutting wheel, the attachment to connect the cutting wheel, a tile filing attachment, a right angle attachment .. and the list is growing.

Day 64: Some little elves at work

Christmas day for some .. another day at the office for others. Caitlin and Ash were hard at work today earning double time and a half (i.e. extra chocolates). Ash was making progress on the wall, however, the boss didn't approve of the quality of the work however and soon intervened.

I

Day 63: all I want for Christmas is a working toilet

AKA .. The Christmas Miracle ..

 

Twas the night before Christmas,

And in the new house,

Scott was busy tiling,

For a very nervous spouse.

 

24 hours he was given,

To do what he had to do.

For tiling the floors,

And returning the Loo

 

The tiles were difficult,

Made of some type of Carbyne,

But Scott persevered,

And got it done on time!

 

To tough to do the entire blog in rhyme. The story was that Wince and T were staying over Christmas Eve and Christmas. I wanted to finish off the tiling. Care gave me a 24hr ultimatum to get it done. They arrived at 6 and I somehow managed to get it mostly done just after they arrived. T had a very frightened look on her face when she saw there was no toilet in the bathroom. And hence came the Christmas Miracle.

 

You can see how awesome the floor is on the spirit level. Yes, this is me showing off. All is not perfect in Suburbitan however - I did discover that we were about 2 tiles too short. Measured correctly, made the room bigger, and forgot to consider that we needed more tiles. Anyway, the 2 are on order but the tile place is closed until new years.

 

Now a well deserved couple of days off DIY and enjoying some family/friend time. 

 

 

Day 62 : It's beginning to look a lot like flooring

Marking our 2 month anniversary today and it was an eventful day.

8am and there was a pitter-patter on the rooftop. Could Santa have arrived early? No it was Paul the roofer punching a hole into our well .. roof .. for the bathroom extractor fan. He was a jolly fellow, but came in a white van with a bag full of tools but chose an extension ladder over the chimney. And the presents he left were a vent pipe and a bill. Overall, the work was done surprisingly quickly and the results were good.

Next came another tradesman bearing an extractor fan. Jack put up our inline fan in the loft area taking advantage of the new hole in the rooftop. This one took a bit longer but he was done by lunch time and we got a fan that really sucks, but in a good way. I can't wait to take a hot shower and see the fan in action. It's optimally located in the high point of the sloped ceiling and vents straight up. It's also quiet since all the important parts are located outside of the bathroom.

Onto my work. Today was tiling day, or mostly was. Care has given me an ultimatum of having a working toilet for Christmas Eve for when Wince and T come over. I'm not sure what the consequence is .. but it could involve a much lighter stocking. And in a way, I regressed today, starting off with a working toilet and ending up with a smelly wall decoration (see photo). On the constructive side, I washed down the floors, put down some flex tile adhesive and stuck the Aquapanel underlay down. These were fastened with 1" screws in case there wasn't enough weight and adhesive sticking them down. I can say that it's a pretty solid floor already and the tiles haven't even been put down. Finally, I started measuring up the tiles. Of course the walls are about as true as FIFA's annual report, so I'll need to make some creative cuts to set them right. As the saying goes.. "it's not crooked, it's just extra character". 

I'll start cutting and laying down the tile first thing tomorrow and hopefully have the toilet reinstalled by tomorrow night. Just in case Santa needs to use the facilities on his long journey.

And for those desperately awaiting the results of the survey ... it's going to be metro tiles * down to the floor. Thanks to the millions that responded, it was close and came down to one vote.

* Results have been independently verified and are within an acceptable margin of error.

Day 61: Deck the floors with new supports

Today I laid down the final bits for the sub-flooring ... fa la la la la la la la la ..

Tis the season to be tiling .. fa la la la la la la la la ..

Day 60 : Layin' the pipe

Day 55 : Last wall o' tiles

Tiling Survey: How do we finish off the bathroom tiling?

Select your answer on the survey form to the right. ->

Option 1: Use a white baseboard

Option 2: Tile all the way down to the floor

Option 3: Floor tile up the wall

Day 51: Tiles, Christmas trees and other random things

Today was another random task day at the house. 

Care changed over the front drapes and cleaned out the front windows. There is a poor family of spiders that are now looking for a new home. We also put up the Christmas tree as Caitlin was concerned that our neighbours would think that we didn't celebrate Christmas. No worries now with the lights and star for everyone to see. 

On the bathroom, today was tiling day. I realised that I enjoy tiling much more than plastering - less finicky. I tiled where the basin will eventually go. The results look great - and done in record time (for me at least). I might have to just tile the entire house. Stuart inspected the work and I think he approves. Hope to get the floor tiling finished next weekend which will make a huge difference. Care needs to get back to me on the floor - wall transition and the colour for the wall finishing. 

Please any suggestions would be appreciated. The 3 options that I'm pondering are 1) Put wooden baseboard down 2) Wall tile down to the floor or 3) Cut a rim of floor tiles as a pseudo baseboard. I'll attach some photos of each from the Interweb when I get a chance. 

Day50 : A different kind of housebuilding

Today the girls took part in housebuilding, of the gingerbread variety. Walls were a bit crooked, foundation seemed a bit wobbly and the colour scheme isn't to my taste, but overall it's a well built house. Good job girls!