Today’s post is about bathroom decor, which, if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know is a topic I don’t write about very often. If you’re wondering why, allow me to introduce Exhibit A: “My Downstairs Lavatory, circa 2017.”
About the only good thing I can say about the room is that it’s slightly less ugly at the time that this picture was taken than it was when we first bought the house 20 years earlier. Back then the walls were covered in shiny robin’s egg blue plastic paneling.
A not-so-short-term fix
We wanted to pull the paneling down as soon as we moved in, but the plaster walls underneath it were cracked beyond redemption. In order to avoid a full-on, down-to-the-studs remodel (which we were already doing in several other rooms at the time) we decided to just hang wallpaper over top of the paneling and call it done.
The wallpaper was supposed to be a short-term fix, until we had the remodeling finished in the other rooms and had saved up some cash to tackle the bathroom properly. But somehow two decades went by and we were still living with that “short-term” solution.
Then last fall a pipe sprang a leak, and we had to take down the plastic shower surround to access the plumbling in the wall.
Here’s what we uncovered behind the shower surround. Those aren’t ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics you’re looking at. They’re dried glue trails. Apparently the DIY’ers before us wanted to make extra sure the plastic was adhered securely. They succeeded. That plastic put up quite a fight as we pried it off the wall and wrestled it to the ground. By the time we got it down, it was ripped and cracked and destined for Shower Surround Heaven.
Renovations begin
We figured the ruined surround was a sign that it was time to finally get serious about the DIY bathroom renovations we’d successfully avoided for years. So after Jim fixed the leaky pipe, we pulled the crumbling plaster off the wall and made plans to hang subway tile.
Here’s the old lath that was behind the plaster. Pretty, right? Unfortunately, we had to remove it, too, so we could hang concrete backerboard.
Here’s the backerboard, partially installed. You have to use this stuff (as opposed to regular drywall) in places like shower stalls because it’s mold- and mildew-resistant.
Once we had the backerboard up, it was time to start tiling.
Division of labor
When it comes to Cestkowski family DIY projects, our general division of labor goes something like this:
Things that require brute force and/or the use of power tools: Jim.
Things that require patience and/or attention to detail: Lisa.
Ergo, up to this point, most of our DIY bathroom renovations were on Jim. Tiling was on me.
Installing subway tile
For the most part, I just worked from the bottom up, setting the tile in a “running bond pattern” so that every other row lined up. To ensure that the tiles were equidistant from each other, I wedged these god-awful spacers in between each one.
The plastic spacers were my nemesis. Every time I would nudge a tile one way or the other, the nearby tiles would shift, and all of the spacers around them would drop to the floor. Then I’d have to bend down, pick up the fallen spacers and replace them before I could set the next tile.
In all fairness, our spacers were probably no worse than any other spacers out there, but I had tiled once before — in our upstairs bathroom — and the tiles I had used then had bumpouts on their edges. The bumpouts made spacers unnecessary. I didn’t know how much easier that made the tiling process until I started working on this project.
I wish I could tell you I eventually figured out a way to stop the spacers from falling, but I didn’t.
Making progress
Despite the cursed spacers, I eventually made progress.
Jim helped out by trimming the tiles to fit in all the spots where I needed partials, drilling holes for the spigots and shower head, and, most importantly, nodding sympathetically every time I went off on a profanity-laden rant about the evils of plastic spacers.
When I got to the inset shelf, I had no idea what I was going to do. Then we found this 12-inch-by-12-inch mosaic tile at Menards. It filled the niche almost perfectly. Maybe that’s what these tiles are designed for? I don’t know. I could write a book, or at least a blog post, about what I don’t know about tiling.
Eventually, I got the tiles all adhered — hallelujah! — and it was time to grout. This was actually my favorite part of the process. There’s something really satisfying about smooshing grout into the cracks between the tiles and seeing what the finished wall is going to look like.
I was more than a little surprised to see how straight all my lines ended up. It almost looks like I knew what I was doing.
Finishing up
With the grouting complete, Jim installed a new shower head …
… and new hot and cold water taps.
Ta-da. This project was a pain, but we were very happy with the results. In fact, we were so happy with it that we decided to keep going with our DIY bathroom renovations. More on that in my next post.
And if you’re interested in seeing what became of that beautiful lath that we pulled down, check out this post.