Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Not bad for a month of work and ~$5k

The bathroom is basically done now. All it needs is soap/tooth brushes and it will be usable! We finally got to unpack our white towels (in storage since we moved because the upstairs bathroom is just too sketchy). Without further ado... my attempt at after pictures ;o)




Vanity and toilet. Vanity was a floor model (1/2 price, and it came with the mirror :D).




Glacier bay faucet. I *heart* this faucet. I was super amazed to see it was among the cheapest at Home Depot.




Pictures over the toilet, B&Ws of Mission hill winery in Kelowna, BC. Good memories.




Shower with clean white towels *woot*.




The kind of fallic looking shower faucet with our vertical subway tile.

We're super happy with how this project came out, especially given that it's basically all cheap stuff from Home Depot. It'll be exciting to do the upstairs bathroom where there will be a bit more budget to play with.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Shower door installed...

No pictures today... just pure unadulterated frustration. After 3 hours of cursing and staring at instructions that may as well have been printed in Greek we finally got the shower door installed. We got a Maax unit from Home Depot because it was cheap and short for our low ceiling basement bathroom... but oh boy was putting it together an exercise in frustration. We had about 2 screws strip so bad we had to use vice grips to screw/unscrew them (when the directions lead us astray). We also had about 2 screws where the heads just fell off them. Seriously, what the hell, the heads just fell off the screw as we were screwing them in. Then there was directions to put screws through 2 pieces of metal when only 1 of the pieces of metal had a predrilled hole.

*ARGH*

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Basement bathroom... chugging along

The subway tiles were grouted last night. Today the walls got painted and the floor tile got started. We forgot how time consuming floor tiling is... especially when you have many holes to go around... blah.

The end is nearly in site for this room. Our main motivation right now is getting it done so we can start on the upstairs bathroom. Right now it looks like we could start demo on Easter long weekend, which would be nice so we would have an extra day off work to fill up the dumpster. I think we may be a little nuts doing the bathroom marathon like this.. but the upstairs bathroom is *sooo* gross.






Sunday, March 22, 2009

Basement bathroom tiling

Today we painted the ceiling in the bathroom, and installed the ceiling odds and ends (fan, pot light, vent). In more exciting news, we installed the tile around the shower. We're super excited by how the vertical subway tile came out.






Still needs grout etc....

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Bathroom Walls: part 3

This week we finished taping the walls. Today we sanded them and primed them. Our blue-sky box is looking more and more like a room we might use :D.


Post-sanding


After priming




The entertainment station! (ipod touch + beer ;o)

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Bathroom Tiles


Yesterday we picked up our floor tile. Here is a picture of it with the wall tile. We're planning on doing the subway tile in a vertical pattern in hopes of making the ceiling look a little higher.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Bathroom Walls: part 2

Today/tonight we finished hanging the blue board and did the first round of taping (durabond... fun). Our blue box looks kind of like sky/clouds now..









Sunday, March 15, 2009

Bathroom Walls: part 1

Between yesterday afternoon and today we managed to get the majority of the drywall/cement board put up in the basement bathroom. The rest of it will have to wait until we stick down the shower pan.




Our neighbor left his handy drywall square. It makes cutting easier, and is also good for mapping out where the studs are.







Soon to be shower.



The outside of the bathroom. This is the only finished part of the basement so it is a bit amusing to have a big blue box in the middle of a messy concrete and brick basement.

Tiles for basement bathroom

Today we went to Olympia tile to pick up some tile for the basement bathroom. We ended up getting a 4"x8" white subway tile. We had hoped to find some floor tile there too, but they didn't have anything that could match the Depot's 99 cents a square foot ceramic. We're trying to do this bathroom for as little $$ as possible, so we'll probably compromise on the flooring style to keep it within our current budget.

Overall we were pretty impressed with Olympia tile. This was our first time going after reading about it in many local blogs. For identical items Olympia was cheaper than Home Depot and the amount of styles was amazing. We're pretty excited to get on to the main bathroom/kitchen where we'll have a bit more budget to work with. :o)

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Bathroom Walls: part 0.5

Well, the bathroom is starting to take shape. Our neighbor installed our plumbing and his electrician friend came to connect up all the electrical today.

Once they were all finished we insulated and installed the vapor barrier. Next up... install the pile of blue board/cement board that is occupying our porch.









Monday, March 9, 2009

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Pieces of Bathroom 2









Bathroom progress continues. So far the our neighbor jack hammered up the floor. Holes were dug to the drain line (you may remember the drain line from this post). The drain lines were all connected. Once the glue dried the dirt was put back in the holes. Today we helped our neighbour put down the concrete floor (2nd pic).

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Pieces of Bathroom

basement bathroom is now officially under way...