Getting ready to begin a bathroom reno

[merci_me]

Does anyone have ANY warnings or words of advice? Anything you learned about what you could have OR shouldn't have done yourself? My husband is pretty handy, but I don't want him to get in over his head, doing somethings he'll wish he'd have hired out. Hopefully, this will all get underway in about two weeks.

We're replacing the OLD white ceramic tiles with something "pretty" with a marble look in golden tones. Just getting ready to start seriously looking. Any advice on what material? Anything to avoid?

Also will be replacing the ugly grey frosted shower surround with clear glass. Is there something that's treated to be less "spotty"? Or a sure fire way to keep it looking good. We've been lazy in the past, with the ugly grey frosted stuff.

My husband took the shower glass and a lot of the tiles down, to check the looks of the plumbing. It looks ok and doesn't have any leaking going on. Our original problem was buckling of the tiles and water got behind there. The water damage seems to all be from the water from the shower seeping in, not from any leaking within the walls. Flushing the toilet and turning on the shower doesn't cause any wetness in there.

I'm really excited, because I've wanted to get rid of that white ceramic and the grey frosted glass since we moved in 20 years ago. But not looking forward to the mess to get there.

Any ideas, hints, warnings will be VERY appreciated!!

Mary

[NMDemDist2]

1. i have done a few things in the bathroom remodel area

first, be sure you get "green board" for sheetrock as it is water resistant

try car wax on the new glass door and re do it when the water stops "beading" or at least 4 times a year

seal the tile and re seal annually (but no body ever does lol)

buy several of those corse celled sponges, you use them for everything! smoothing caulk, wiping down the grout. I usually pick up one or two and wish i had a couple more (and they're cheap)--- the ones like this:



that's all that comes to mind right off the bat, post lots of pics of your progress :bounce:

[merci_me]

2. I'm going to have my husband keep up here

He'll be doing the work (along with a contractor who'll pick up some of it), so he needs to be HERE!! I haven't a clue what green board and corse cell sponges are, I only know decopodge sponges.

I'm hot on the trail of tiles (though I don't know diddly about materials) and wallpaper and paint. I have figured I need to choose a toilet and sink first, so I can match it to tile. It seems the fixtures I like come in bone, linen, almond, bisque and white, so I guess I need to get a fix on that before I order tiles.

I do need to get some before pix, although it's such a small room, it's hard to get photos. I'll do my best to get some great after shots, when it shows MY part.......candles and new towels. LOL

BTW, thanks for telling me about this forum!!

Mary

[NMDemDist2]

3. ok, candles, towels and CAR WAX hehehe

it really does help with the water spotting

[LiberalUprising]

4. Green board is good

but concrete backerboard is even better, there are several brand names on the market. "Wonderboard" is good but "Hardibacker" is better, though it can be a pain to cut, use a circular saw with a carbide tipped blade, they sell a manual hand cutter but it is a lot of work, be sure to wear a dust mask as it kicks up quite a bit of dust when cutting with a saw.

The advantage of using a backerboard is that if you do ever get water behind the tile it won't rot and fall apart the way drywall or green board will, the tiles will stay in place and not fall off and will save you re-doing the tile down the road.

Whatever you use, screws will hold longer than nails.

Avoid Home Depot and Lowes for the tile, they typically sell seconds which look the same but are a fraction off from tile to tile on size and this makes it hard to keep straight grout joints and the tile doesn't cut as smoothly and straight as quality tile that you can get from a tile dealer.

Lots of people are going with a 6' by 6' or larger tile, it is easier to set the larger tiles, takes less tiles and you will have fewer grout joints. Also stay away from the cheap mastics (the 'glue' to set tiles) expect to pay $20- 30 for a 3 gallon bucket of the good stuff, it is much easier to work with and your tiles will not slide around so much.

The porcelain tile is very popular now, it is much harder than ceramic but also harder to cut.

If you are doing a floor be sure to get tile rated for floors, the wall tile will be very slick when wet whereas the floor tile will have a little roughness to it for traction. on floors you will need to use 'thin-set' instead of mastic. Also NEVER tile over plywood without first laying down a backerboard, the grout will be poping out several months down the road if you do.

You will also need a tile cutting board or grinder with a diamond blade or 'wet saw' and a good pair of 'biters' for cutting around fixtures, you can rent these at a tool rental place. A wet saw is the fastest and easiest to use, if using a larger or porcelain tile.

There are many good books that will show you step by step how to tile that will save you time and headaches.

Tile it is really not that hard to do, just buy a good how to book to give you the basics.

[NMDemDist2]

5. thanks, that's right. We used concrete backer board to repair our tile

in our shower last year

the green board was several years ago, the concrete board did work better

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Hoooo boy .... lotta work in a bat-room!

I am also pretty handy, but some things I think I'd rather hire out. Our shower stall (in our master bath) was pretty decayed and had ruined the ceiling in the kitchen (below) with a leak. I wanted that damn shower floor in right or have someone *else* to blame! I hired a plumber to remove the old one, install the new one, and install the new shower valve. I did everything else myself.

We did marble on the floor and vanity top, and subway tiles on the walls (wainscoting), in the shower, and on the shower ceiling. The wet walls were underlain in a board like hardibacker, but made by GAF (that's what our tile guy stocked). They didn't even stock the cement backer because it is so gawdawful to use.

Lessons learned:

Hire out the stuff you do NOT want to have to redo if it goes wrong. For me, that was the shower guts (floor and valves).

Talk to as many people as will entertain your inquisitiveness. Our tile guy was absolutely invaluable. And very encouraging. We even brought him pictures and he gladly critiqued out progress.

Do not use marble. If you feel you want to ... call me. I'll slap it out of you! We (me!) just **had** to have rojo alicante marble. Our tile guy tried to talk me out of it. Nope, I wanted that "deep, rich color that no imitation can match." (Sparkly: "Get over yourself, H2S" H2S: I'm a stubborn old coot who wants m-a-r-b-l-e.) But she was sooooo right ...... the stuff's a pain in the ass once it is installed. It etches, it stains, sealing is a joke. We have hardwood floors throughout the house and we have to wax our friggin' marble. The wood does fine. The marble? Ha!

Here's the marble:

Soon after installing it I found they made a very, very convincing rojo alicante stand-in in tile. How dumb am I?

Allow for the time. Ours took me almost all summer to complete. But I was working (for my pay) very hard as I was also trying to get that done. We had a blowout business cycle last summer and I hardly had time to eat let alone do dat batchroom.

If you're going to do any substantial amount of tiling, buy a wet saw. If you calculate the rental based on the days you'll use it, buying is cheaper. And it makes the job a **ton** easier than the old score-n-snap cutters. I also found that a small (4"? 4-1/2"?) angle grinder with a masonry blade was very handy. And a Dremel with a masonry bit. Amazing how much I used *that* little jewel!

You're gunna love your new bath. I just know it. Having seen pictures of your lovely house, I know your hubby can do it right!

Post pictures when you're done (which will be ...... oh ... August, mebbe :))

[crispini]

7. Be prepared to find bad stuff.

If there's been any kind of leak over the years, you may have problems. In my bathroom we had to take out three (THREE!) floors. Then the subfloor was rotten. Then when we pulled that out and looked under there it turned out that when they had the leak somebody had done a shitty job replacing the big foundation loadbearing beam which had apparently also rotted out and it went under the HEAVY cast iron tub so I had to call a foundation company in.

Needless to say, none of THAT was in the original plan. :D

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. Yikes!

So the pink and black toile bathroom is history? Congrats!

:D
FSC

[DancingBear]

9. What type of tub is it?

The reason I ask is this: if you were having ANY type of water leakage the visible results of same are many times NOT where the problem is occurring. If you have ever had a leaking roof, for example, you were probably shocked as to where the water was getting in, in relation to where the stains are/were. Water has a "wonderful" habit of finding the path of least resistance, which is why it can crawl down 15' of joist before it decides to make its appearance known.

If you can, try and check the sub-floor under the tub very carefully before you re-tile - if it looks like ANY water damage under the tub exists please investigate further and see if the sub-floor under the tub (if one exists - I have actually seen some builders lay the tub on the joists only, then use 2x4's to "brace" it in) is damaged (you can check using a moisture meter to see if the sub-floor has problems). A fiberglass tub will naturally place far less load on the floor than a cast-iron/porcelain one, but trust me you do not want to have to come back later and replace that part of the floor!

I am guessing (from your description) that all is OK, but if not at least have someone check that part of the floor for you, and if it needs replacing....

Hire someone! :)

[merci_me]

10. No tub in that bathroom

The bathroom we're doing has an extra large shower, 42x54. We have a contractor to do the plumbing and tiling.

Currently, our bathroom has tile halfway up the walls all around, except the shower, of course, which is to the ceiling. All the old 4x4 white ceramic is coming out and the walls resurfaced for wallpaper, so we'll get to see the wall everywhere. Also, the floor is ceramic tile and that will be replaced with the same as the shower, so the old floor will be coming out also. We should have a chance to see everything.

The contractor did some other work for us and we have full confidence that he's will spot any problems.

We really like him. He's honest, very neat about keeping surrounding rooms as clean as possible while he's working and he doesn't try to over sell us. He knows we prefer to do all the finishing ourselves (wallpaper, cabinets, windows, moldings, painting, etc.) and he's fine with that. Plus, he doesn't sub-contract the work out. If he sees there's more plumbing than he can handle, he will point it out and we would call in another person for that portion of the work, hopefully someone he can recommend.

Now, if we could only find a car mechanic we had so much faith in. LOL

Mary

[shanti]

11. i feel for you

really i do! my only bathroom is being totally remodeled as we speak. the tub/surround are out, i haven't had a shower in 2 days and i'm going nuts!

the contractor still has to put the tub in, hook up the fixtures and tile the surround. thankfully, the toilet is still working!

i just want it to hurry up and be over with! now i know why the bathroom wasn't touched for 30 years -when it was built!!!!!

[merci_me]

12. UPDATE & rant

Well as I type, my husband is on a 200 mile round trip to pick up the tile. You'd think in a town the size of Houston, that wouldn't be necessary.

We found the tile at a place about 2 miles from the house and they assured us THREE times they had it in stock. So we take one tile and go around finding the toilet and sink. Let's see, would that be bone, biscuit, linen, almond, parchment or nature. So, it was Memoirs biscuit or Town Square bone. Now we have Memoirs biscuit on order (due in Monday). Then we match the tile to wallpaper and get that on "back order" (naturally).

Anyway, after we find it's a TEN day wait to get the tile now, we spent yesterday driving around with a wallpaper sample, a paint sample that matches the "biscuit" and the shower floor mosaic (which we already have) trying to find a substitute tile.....IN STOCK!! Nada!!! So anyway, Jim is on his trip, with a STRONG reminder to open each box and inspect every tile before he starts home.

We aren't changing the light fixtures or the sink faucets, which I like a lot. They're a combo of brass and chrome and we found the hardware for the cabinets that works really well with it. Then the stumbling block.....finding the plumbing for the shower in the brass/chrome combination that has a hot knob and a cold knob. For some reason, unless it's a shower/tub set, it's really hard to find the set with individual knobs, instead of one of those circular levers. Finally have that on order, since of course, the store doesn't carry it in stock.

Two good things........the pictures that I ordered came in and the colors look just like they did on the net. They'll be matted and framed and this one goes above the toilet: http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--10064890/Escaliers_a_Montmartre.htm?sOrig=SCH&ui=BBB4F9B6A39A46978DC03E0A02208B4F
and this one will be made into the door of a medicine cabinet that is set into the wall.: http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--10064891/Lile_St_Louis.htm?sOrig=SCH&ui=BBB4F9B6A39A46978DC03E0A02208B4Fhttp://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--10064891/Lile_St_Louis.htm?sOrig=SCH&ui=BBB4F9B6A39A46978DC03E0A02208B4Fhttp://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--10064891/Lile_St_Louis.htm?sOrig=SCH&ui=BBB4F9B6A39A46978DC03E0A02208B4F

The other good thing is Jim made a stained glass window, but the large center glass which is a very pretty soft butterscotch, turns out to be eye popping gold when the sun shines in.........so it will become a wall hanging in the master bedroom, where it will be the soft butterscotch all the time and he designed a really great a new stained glass window. For now, the original one is up and in the "before" pictures, which I'll post when the project is done. The new one is designed to let in a lot more light, while still using all the colors of the first one. Plus that means we were able to knock off about $500 plus labor for a small skylight. Which is really good, because we have sticker shock from the price of the glass for the shower!!

So, Monday the contractor should be here to do his thing. This weekend, Jim will cut in the medicine cabinet area and we'll get the last of the stuff out of the bathroom and he wants to take the toilet and trade it out with the one in the other bathroom. Then we need to get the cabinet doors and drawers out and strip them. He's going to work on the new window while the contractor takes care of the plumbing, walls and tile. Then we do the various molding, wallpapering, painting and all odds and ends.

Well, that's where we stand for now.

Mary