Oh my goodness this is hard to type because my fingertips are raw! I have been working on the bathroom until 9pm most nights for the Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge- Week 5. We have made some really pivotal progress this week putting us right on track with the 6 week timeline! All the major tasks are complete and ready for finishing work in the last week of the challenge!
Don’t forget to keep voting!
What We Wrapped Up This Week
Last week we were still deep into tiling and this week it continued. I finally finished the shower tile and in my attempt to stretch my time, I made a huge mistake. To avoid another trip to the Home Depot I used a different color mortar that I found in my garage. I had used white mortar for the entire shower and then switched to gray to finish up the last section of tiles around the niche. I noticed right away that you could see a color difference through the marble tiles but I held onto hope that it would lighten once dry… it did not.
Cue mental breakdown.
In trying to save myself a trip to the store, I wasted a day tiling incorrectly, and realized I would spend another day correcting it. My husband picked me up out of a puddle of tears and said, “I got this”. He then spent half his Saturday ripping down the darker section of tiles, scraping out the gray mortar, and then re-tiling. MY HERO! In the same day he repaired all the drywall while I caught up on household chores that had been neglected throughout this renovation. This had such a positive impact on my mood and motivation- the shower was done and we were back on track!
Electrical
Part of my design plan was to move the wall light fixture to 2 drop down pendants. So with only a week or so to go we had part of the ceiling removed to re-route the wiring. This is AFTER we tried accessing it from the other side of the wall and both attics with no luck. As I stared at the huge hole I prayed to the DIY Gods that it wouldn’t be a huge set back! Thankfully it wasn’t and we had JUST ENOUGH drywall to get it all closed back up.
The LAST Tile Job
If you have been following my plans closely, you might recall that there is still one gorgeous Jeffrey Court tile that I have not used yet. We still had one last area that we had to tile… behind the vanity. Not only had I never worked with glass tile, but I wanted a herringbone pattern that I’ve also never attempted.
To make things go a little smoother, I decided to used a Tile Mat (Mussel Bound) which is basically a giant sticky sheet. This stuff is so strong that it held up my hammer, drill, and even my baby haha! (See Instagram for the video) This eliminated the need for mortar so no more mixing, mistakes, or mess! It also allowed for more flexibility of starting and stopping as I tended to my 6 month old.
The herringbone pattern ended up pretty simple once I figured out that each cut was some variation of a 45 degree angle stacked on a mid point (thanks Youtube). My cheapo tile saw made the cuts just fine, however it did create a lot of tiny glass shards and I wound up with some pretty cut up fingers. I finished the wall in just 1.5 days!
Grout
Lastly, I grouted both the shower and vanity wall at the same time. My mom drove into town from 3 hours away just to help with my baby and do school pick ups so that I could knock it out. I got quite the arm workout and even ditched the grout float for my bare hands to make it go quicker. Knowing that all the tile of a tile challenge was done FELT INCREDIBLE.
Just 1 week to go! I have lots of finishing work, paint, and decorating to do. I can’t wait to show you the finished space!
