Bathroom Lift Off

As you know, our 'just pricing' errand ended up with us purchasing 26 sf of 12x12 marble faced porcelain tiles and thin-set on Saturday night.  Home Depot had a sale and we just couldn't pass it by!  $1.99 for marble faced porcelain tiles which totaled about $25 for a box of 13.  Similar tiles we found while pacing the aisles were about $3.99 per tile.  Our super saver mode immediately set in.  Here's what we got.

So, Sunday morning after my successful attempt to cover our living room ottoman, a coffee run, and breakfast, we set right into prepping our bathroom for floor tile.  Which meant, our plan to have a fully functional bathroom was out the door... literally.  We decided to save some bucks by saving the toilet (those babies can run $150 at Home Depot!).  So, just to be sure, we You Tubed 'how to remove your toilet' and let some British guy walk us through the steps.  Luckily we had a shop-vac handy though because it required us sucking all the water out of the bowl and tank.  After Mr. Muscles pulled that baby off and set it aside, it was time to remove the vanity.  Our plans to save the vanity as well were short lived.  As Hubs started taking it off he realized it was super cheap-o and ready to fall apart.  So, it was tossed too.

And then we were ready.  Once again, to save some money, we bought the thin-set that requires us to add water and mix.  It really isn't that bad, it just means our bath tub sees its fair share of thin-set and grout mixing as well as tile cutting (i.e. the kitchen reno was done via bathtub too).  There is a hose outside, but it was turned off for the winter.... bummer.

After the thin-set was mixed it was time for me to put my tile laying skills to good use.  See, I did the entire kitchen, so I got some skill... at least I like to think so.  When laying floor tile you should always work your way out of the room.  We did this with our kitchen, but in the case of the bathroom, it just wouldn't work out.  See, we wanted full 12x12 tiles from the door to the tub and make all necessary tile cuts behind the toilet and vanity so they were hidden as much as possible.  That meant we had to work the completely wrong way - from the entrance to the diagonal corner.  At that moment it seemed like small beans - surely I could figure something out, maybe magically float across?

We laid out the first 2 rows to make sure the tiles would run in a straight line and so I had some guidance as I laid each tile down.  Then it was 1) slap down some thin-set 2) level thin-set 3) use notched trowel to trowel thin-set 4) lay tile 5) make sure tile grout lines are correct width and tiles are level with surrounding tiles 6) repeat.

As I worked myself into a corner, literally, it required a lot of sitting and bending.....

Getting my tile selected

Getting more thin-set

Applying thin-set

Grouper being a fantastic supervisor

Setting the Tile

Making sure it fits before sliding it into its final spot

Sliding it into its final spot

Thankfully we ran out of tiles which meant that small slither of tiles on the left hand side weren't installed and I had a way out by playing hop-scotch.  We let the thin-set dry over night and during the day on Monday before stepping on them.