Lets Give Them Something to Caulk About

Yup, I just hacked a Bonnie Raitt song to named my caulking post.  I know I’m cool, you don’t have to tell me.

Our master bathroom has been grossing me out since the day we moved in.  I had to do something about it, at least to make it feel a little cleaner.  Please don’t think we are dirty from these photos, I scrub this bathroom once a week.  Let me show you what I am talking about.  I should warn you if you do not like disgusting bathroom things you should skip this post completely.

This is our gross entrance to our shower.

YUUCCKK!

All of the old caulk is dirty and the shower is rusting pretty bad.

And the inside doesn’t look any better.

The corners seem to be the worst areas.

Eventually we will most likely redo this entire bathroom, which would include removing the tile and shower surround.  Since that project is down the line I needed to do something to make this shower feel cleaner.  So I got out our razor blade and box cutter and started removing the old disgusting caulk.

I first started scraping what I could off the ledge.

This got off some of the hard water and dirt but did not remove the caulk.

I used the box cutter to slice into the existing caulk, I went back a couple times until some pieces started to come loose like this…

I started peeling the caulk away by hand, and then went back with the box cutter scraping any remaining caulk until I got as much as I could.

Next I hopped in the shower and starting removing the caulk in there the same way.

Inside the shower I did have to use the razor blade a bit to get any caulk that was stuck on the tile.

I then cleaned up all of the caulk pieces that I had removed with the vacuum, then scrubbed everything with CLR spray.  This helped remove any hard water or rust that I couldn’t get off with my normal tile cleaner.

I wasn’t able to get all of the rust stains, but it was already looking a ton better.

From there I grabbed my caulking tools.

A tube of caulk, a caulk gun and a roll of painters tape.

I wanted straight lines on the ledge of the shower, so I used the painters tape to mark off where the caulk would go.  I didn’t use the tape inside the shower since the tile is white, I didn’t think the caulk would be as easily seen.

I then just snipped the end off of my tube of caulk and place it in the caulk gun.  From there I just started applying the caulk in between the taped off areas in a thin bead.

Once I had the caulk down I used my finger to smooth it out into the crevice.

Once I had finished I peeled the tape away immediately.  I didn’t want it to dry, then peel it, because I wasn’t sure if the dried caulk would peel away with it.

Ah! Look at those clean lines.

While I was at it I decided to caulk next to the tub as well.  I didn’t remove the old caulk from here because it was holding down our beautiful linoleum flooring that I didn’t want to damage with the razor. (In case you don’t get my sarcasm, I hate the linoleum, it will be the first thing to go).

Looks so much cleaner.

I then caulked the inside of the shower the same way.  Here are some before and afters…

Yay for new caulk right?  Does that not make you want to go caulk your bathroom or kitchen or everything?  I now love caulk.  Here is the whole bathroom with fresh caulk…

I love little projects that make a big difference.   I know it’s not perfect, but it makes me feel better about showering in here.  Woo hoo!

We Miss Our Toilet

Since demolishing the guest bathroom, we realized how much we miss having an extra bathroom.  Considering our other bathroom is off of our master bedroom and the guest one is off of the living room, we tend to use the guest one more.  So this weekend we were in power mode to get the this bathroom renovation on its way and better yet get our second toilet back! Hurrah!

Last weekend we ended our project with the bathroom looking like this…

Yikes! that is one scary looking bathroom. We had quite the work to get done before we had a working toilet in here. We had a few things we wanted to incorporate in the bathroom.

Here’s another handy list of our to do’s for this bath:

1. Patch and sand all walls.
2. Paint walls.
3. Add wainscoting and chair rail to walls.
4. Paint wainscoting, chair rail and trim.
5. Tile and grout floor.
6. REINSTALL TOILET.
7. Install new faucets and shower head in bathtub.
8. Install new light fixture.
9. Install vanity.
10. Install mirror.
11. Install towel bar.
12. Decorate! 🙂

We had a lot to accomplish before we had a working bathroom again, so we got right to work.  Justin started with installing the wainscoting.  He purchased full sheets of it from Lowe’s(of course).

It is pretty affordable at about $10 a sheet which are 4 feet wide.  We didn’t need very much since this bathroom is pretty small.  The sheets come in a preprimed white coating, which was nice for me considering I’m the painter in this family.  Less coats of paint! suh-weet!

Justin had the wainscoting installed in no time! He did have to make a few holes for the plumbing as you can see.

We figured this would be the best time to do all of the painting considering the flooring was unfinished and I didn’t have to edge in to close to the wainscoting because the chair rail would be covering the seem. I also didn’t have to use any drop cloths, considering we weren’t too worried about maintaining the look of our concrete floor we currently had going on.

I got everything taped off and I was ready to paint! Oh ya I forgot to mention my paint color choice.  I am going with blue, shocker right?  The color is sweet slumber by Valspar.  It is a super duper light blue color, which you can see below…

I went my usual painting route by doing all of my edging in first then rolling.  This room is crazy quick to paint, piece of cake!

I love the color, it’s really light so I hope it will brighten up this room quite a bit and make it feel a bit bigger.  My plan to go really light with the laundry room worked out well, so I am hoping the same will work in here!

Once we had the mirror down, we were able to see the original purplish-blue color that the bathroom was when we moved in.  The color we went with this time was more blue, than the more purple color they had chosen and our color is also lighter…

The new color is on the right and the old color that was under the mirror is on the left. Either color I think is better than the greenish yellow I painted the room, that you can slightly see on the top of this photo.

I also think the wainscoting is going to help to make this bathroom feel a lot lighter.

Here is all of the chair railing and trim that Justin purchased.  All of these pieces were also pre-primed in white, more great news for me!

Ah, beautiful untouched trim!

Justin used this guy to cut all of the trim and chair railing on 45 degree angles.  He had a blast doing this, seemed like a very time consuming job.

Here is the first wall with the chair rail installed.  I was so excited to see it go up, looks great already!

Next up was tiling.

We used the same Roman Stone tile that we used on the patio, but in a lighter shade.

Justin had to lay the tile before installing the trim, since the trim would lay on top of the tile.  He used the same method as he did when tiling the patio.

Here is the finished product.

I swear he did this so quick and it looks great.  I think he has tiling down, put that one on your resume Justin!

Once the tile was dry Justin started changing out the faucets in the tub.  We didn’t want the polished nickel look that we currently had, we wanted to change everything out to brushed nickel.

I know what you are thinking… why would we get rid of such a modern faucet?  Here is the new faucet…

It is Moen brand from Lowe’s.  We also replaced the shower head.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a before photo of the old shower head, Justin is just to quick for me.  Sorry folks.  Here is the new one though…

It’s huge! I might be showering in the guest bathroom from now on!  From there we called it a night and the next morning I woke up to this…

BOOM a grouted floor and half installed toilet.  I swear Justin doesn’t sleep, he thinks 5am is a good time to wake up on weekends! Crazy man!  He was even already started on installing the trim as you can see!

Looking pretty good!  From there he caulked all of the chair rail and trim.

Caulking trim just finishes it off so nicely!

From there Justin finished installing the toilet and even brought in the vanity.

So this is where two days of hard work got us.  I would say it was a job well done because we have a working toilet again!! Yahoo! Would you like a list update? Okay fine!

1. Patch and sand all walls.
2. Paint walls.
3. Add wainscoting and chair rail to walls.
4. Paint wainscoting, chair rail and trim.
5. Tile and grout floor. 
6. REINSTALL TOILET.
7. Install new faucets and shower head in bathtub.
8. Install new light fixture.
9. Install vanity.
10. Install mirror.
11. Install towel bar.
12. Decorate! 🙂

Putting Finishing Touches on the Patio

I know that all of our to dos were crossed off on our last patio post, but there were a couple things that still needed finishing.  Since laying the tile, there was still a gap that needs finishing between the tile and the back wall of the house.  You could still see some of the grout and the tiles are also not perfectly flush with the house.

See how the tile is not even and you can still see the unfinished floor below?  Well, that’s what we needed to fix.  So Justin went to Lowe’s and picked up a pack of bullnose tile in the same color of the tile he laid on the floor.  Bullnoses tile are short wide tiles with a finished top edge that are used for trim when tiling.

Basically he started laying the tile against the wall using the same method as he did when tiling the floor.

He then used small pieces of wood as wedges to be sure all of the tiles were level so they create a straight line on the wall.

Next he grouted the in between the bullnose tile and also along the seem on the floor next to the new tile trim.

Here he is again hard at work…

Once the grout was all finished and cleaned up it looked something like this…

and a close up…

Lastly Justin caulked the seem between the bullnose tile and the wall.

Here it is all caulked and cleaned…

The caulk really makes it look finished.

Here is the area underneath the doors that also needed some work…

The issue with this area is that we couldn’t use the bullnose tile, it didn’t fit in between the door and the flooring.  Justin decided to get a piece of wood and paint it white and place it under the door.  It was a pretty deep crevice that needed to be filled so wood seemed to be the best choice.

Here it is installed.

Justin isn’t sold on it just yet, but I think it looks perfectly fine.

The last thing we needed to finish up in the patio was the window.

When we moved in there was siding on the back of the house and the window had a siding type trim around it. Now since we removed the siding the window is bare.

It just needed some kind of trim to finish it off.  The trim around the doors are average size, so we needed some kind of trim that wasn’t to thick, something that would look comparable to the existing trim.  Justin picked up some thin trim that is made specifically for an outdoor area so it doesn’t rot.

He then cut it to length and installed it around the window, apparently cutting those 45 degree angles isn’t very fun. Here’s a close up.

Here it is finished…

So let’s back it up and show you the end results of everything…

Oh snap, I think we have a finished patio!

Once again thanks for checking out our progress! Hope you enjoy.

Tiling the Patio!

I came home from work on Friday and saw this on my way through the garage…

Woo Hoo! Tile.  I made it in the house and Justin was just laying the first piece…

They are 18 inch tiles, they are called roman stone noche. He laid a layer of thinset tile adhesive with a notched trowel, then laid the tiles directly on top.  He used tile spacers(the little orange things) to make sure the tiles were all the same distance apart. He also used this bad boy(wet saw)…

..to cut any tiles when needed.  As he laid the tiles he made sure they were all level and straight.

He finished one row of the tile on Friday night, apparently he had some ants in his pants. Saturday morning bright and early he got right back to work.

I unfortunately was not any help to Justin, if anything I just got in the way when taking photos. I did offer to help though!

He did so great.

`Once they were all down it already looked like a whole new patio.  I can’t believe what a difference it makes.

All that was left was grout.  So bright and early Sunday Justin was back out there.

He started by using a grout float to push the grout in between the tiles.  He made his way across the entire floor pushing the grout into the seems.  At the same time he was using a wet sponge to wipe away the excess grout that remained on the tiles.

As he moved down to the other end of the patio, the previous tiles started to dry and look like this…

They were all turning a dusty white, showing all the still remaining grout.  He had to go back a few more times and clean the tile over and over until there was only grout in between the tiles and not on top.  He also went back through another time with vinegar to clean the tile.  This is what the end result is…

YAYAYAY!

Love Love Love!

After we admired it for a while and let everything dry we brought all the patio furniture back out.

One more view…

I am obsessed.  The tile floor just makes it feel more like a room instead of a patio.  List update?

Patio to do list:

1. screen patio. 
2. replace fan.
3. texture drywall.
4. paint patio and doors.
5. tile and grout floor.
6. find patio furniture.
7. enjoy!

Oh no you are not seeing things, everything is crossed off! I would like to eventually get something to hang on the bare wall and I am sure there will be other updates.  Justin still needs to finish the tile next to the house with some sort of trim, but for the most part this room is done!