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the bathroom, part 2 -- tiling the floor
learning the hard way since 2002
We knew as soon as we
moved into the house that we wanted to tile the bathroom floor. It already
had those peel and stick tiles and although they weren't exactly us, they
weren't hideous or anything. What we wanted, though, was a nice slate or
ceramic floor using 12x12 tiles. Very classic and clean.
Since tiling is a
relatively simple home improvement project, and since we couldn't afford yet
to get the bathtub re-location/shower install done, we decided we'd tackle
tiling the floor next. We'd only be able to do two-thirds of it -- the tub
has to be moved out of the way and the plumbing for the tub and shower
have to be roughed in before we can finish that side of the bathroom --
but we could at least do the rest of the bathroom.
First things, first,
though. That peel and stick tile had to come up (easy) but underneath was
some kind of glue and cardboard thing (not so easy). It's too bad they
used whatever that glue stuff was because the bathroom has the original
hardwood floors and probably would've been really cool if we were willing
to invest in the time and sweat of refinishing it. It also would've meant
waiting until the bathub could be relocated so we could do the whole floor
all at once. So we quickly got over the idea.
[photogallery/tiling1/real.htm]
Our original plan of using
slate meant driving all over the tri-county area looking for the right
color range we wanted (dark grey). Lots of places had it, but not within
spitting distance of our price range. We even spent almost three hours in
Lowe's while the sales guy tried to find the kind the one that we wanted,
to no avail. Even though it was ON DISPLAY with THE PRICE WE WANTED and
included a STOCK NUMBER, apparently, their warehouse inventory system
catalogs product using a random number generator. Either that, or their
display consisted of stock items that they don't actually sell.
That meant a new plan.
We'd seen a lot of great tile ideas at several tile showrooms in town, but
all of it was way out of our price range. Then Sal came up with a great
idea of using those little hex tiles in white with small black hex tiles
here and there. Which was a brilliant idea, of course, since they'd be in
keeping with the style and period of the house and would still go with the
vintage spa look we want the bathroom to have. Not to mention being easier
to install since they come on the little mesh backings so you don't have
to use spacers or special thinset.
The next morning, we head
to Home Depot at 7 AM, trying to explain what we're looking for to a high
school kid who doesn't even know what a hexagon is, let alone a hex tile.
We did finally find it in their catalog and showed it to him, but they
don't keep those in stock, which meant a special order and special price
to go right along with it. "Special", as in "expensive". More expensive,
even, than the tiles we'd seen at the tile showroom. Which is weird, since
they're pretty much the same size as those little one inch tiles that are like,
ten thousand for a buck.
So we're now in the middle
of Home Depot on a Saturday morning, which might as well be in the middle
of a toy store on Christmas Eve, trying to figure out what to do. We decide
finally on 12x12 black ceramic tiles, but we can't be happy with just a
plain grid, oh no. We just have to make it special, make it ours
somehow, without busting our budget. I had a flash of inspiration -- using
4x4 white tiles with the black to create a kind of herringbone pattern. We
even found these fantastic textured white tiles, just to give it a little,
well, texture.
You'd think by now we'd
learned to make things easy for ourselves. Considering that our bathroom
has these three recessed sections on one wall, a built-in cabinet to work
around, and some custom wood trim that was going to require special cuts,
we should've made things simpler by sticking with an easy grid, especially
since we'd have to use spacers and special thinset for the unusual
underlayment. (Since we had a hardwood floor to work with and not enough
clearance to add the usual plywood subfloor, we had to find an
alternative. Sal did some online research and found that we could use the
heavy-duty PVC sheeting they use for tub/shower liner instead of the
plywood and actually, that turned out to be an even better underlayment
than wood would've been, anyway.)
The herringbone pattern was
pretty easy, though we had to use a lot of extra spacers due to the
different size tiles in order to keep everything straight. But it was all
the special cuts that really got us. We went through an entire box of tile
before we finally conceded defeat and rented a tile saw. We stayed up all
night doing all of our special cuts -- me measuring and Sal cutting so we
didn't have to rent it more than 24 hours. And while he was
doing that, I did all of the regular cuts with a nifty little manual tile
cutter contraption that was worth every penny of the 25 bucks we spent on
it; don't even bother with the little glass cutter tool they say you can
use because "they" are lying to you. Trust me on this.
[photogallery/tiling2/real.htm]
We used a dark charcoal
grout, though we were tempted to add the glow-in-the-dark powder you can
buy because that? Would've been so awesome. Eh, even though we chickened
out and don't have a glow-in-the-dark floor, we're pleased with how it
turned out and anxious to do the rest so we can get to the next phase of
the bathroom renovation.
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