Bathroom Flooring Photos

Flooring in the Small Bathroom

I had no idea that putting down peel-and-stick tiles on the bathroom floor would be more work that completing the flooring in the entire kitchen and den area! . . . but I should have! Why - you might ask?

Let's think about this - it's a small room and therefore there aren't many areas that you can use full tiles (about 12 or so). This means that you have part tiles along 2 entire walls and then you have to cut tiles around the toilet and the sink area. If you haven't seen the pictures of the little bathroom, then you don't know that there's a little half-wall at one end of the tub. In the end, more than half the tiles we placed, needed to be cut. In other words, a lot more time was required than I originally figured - oops!

We (Corrie, Meghan, and I) completed the job yesterday and it does look pretty good! Meghan and I put down the full tiles by ourselves. We even measured and cut the tiles around the toilet - of course, we had Corrie remove the toilet first so we couldn't mess up too badly. Neither Meghan nor I like to cut with a utility knife, but it turns out that I'm a little better at it than she is. We eventually just called Corrie to help us cut the tiles. He is definitely much better and straighter. Also, he's faster too.

We became the measurers! The only problem - Meghan and I are good with the simple measures like inches, half inches, and quarter inches . . . even eigths of inches we can handle, most of the time. If stuck, Meghan just uses the old stand by method - one tick past the half or two ticks less than the three-quarter mark. It was when the tape measure was giving us measures of 16ths that we started laughing a lot. Especially when we figured out that the walls weren't square and we had pieces where the measure was 5 1/8" at one end and 4 7/8" at the other. Of course, then we learned that there were "heavy" and "light" measures too. So - our 5 1/8" was heavy and then our 4 7/8" measure became a light 7/8". Of course, some of the pieces ended up having to be trimmed. I am happy to say that none of the pieces were too small!

I guess, toward the end, Meghan did a lot more sitting than anything else and she got bored. She filled in her boredom by playing washboard with the heat register - very annoying, but also funny. She also discovered the usefulness of a tape measure. Did you know that you can measure the height of a room from a sitting position? and the length of the next room by strategically leaning against the bathtub and facing out the door? and that a tape measure will suddenly bend over when extending it too far with nothing to lean on? Meghan taught me all those things and more.

Our bathroom floor is done now and looks wonderful with the yellow paint! Tomorrow will be a new day and another simple, but time-consuming job in our "little" bathroom.

The Second Bathroom

Well, We've been working in the upstairs bathroom, so that's where I'll start blogging.


The room that you're seeing is the small upstairs bathroom. When we first took possession of the house, I could barely stand to look in the room - never mind, use the toilet or sink. The toilet was filthy and it stunk! Everything in the room smelled and was dirty - I don't think that they cleaned in here the entire time they lived in the house! I actually cleaned the basement before I tackled this room. I had to wash it with TSP twice and then rinse it 3 times to get rid of the dirt and the smell.

What we encountered when we first looked!

• The smell! and the grime! - it was disgusting!
• Note the interesting ashtray (the half wall by the tub) - did they smoke while on the toilet or in the tub??
• We had to pull up the floor since it was peeling already and I couldn't get it clean.
• The small mirror - was held in place with 2 thumb tacks
• The vanity doors wouldn't close since they'd bent the hinges impossibly out of whack
• Under the vanity - a serious pile of old mouse droppings
• The 3 holes in the back corner for one bathroom exhaust fan (remember the old game, in and out the window - that explains the ductwork)
• plastic bags in all openings where pipes entered the room - used for insulation? keeping mice out? aesthetics to hide the holes? - by the way, these special plastic bags were painted - for camouflage?
  

What we've done to the bathroom

• first, obviously, we cleaned
• pulled out the toilet, the vanity, the sink, the mirror
• ripped out the flooring and the tile board around the tub
• replaced the old toilet with a new low-water toilet
• patched holes, primed, and painted with a pale yellow bathroom paint
• replaced the lights with new ones
• replaced the light switches and plates
• built a new vanity for the small corner (primed, painted, glued laminate top)
• bought new sink and faucet

What is left to do

• install the new flooring (unless we decide we like the rustic look!)
• install the new vanity
• hook up the new sink and faucet
• put tile board up around the tub and seal it
• baseboard along the one wall
• purchase and install a mirror of some kind
• either fix or replace the faucet in the tub
• do something about the bathroom exhaust fan and the ductwork
• figure out how Jamie can use this room without hurting his neck or bumping his head!

That's all for now! I'll post some after shots tomorrow.