remodel Archives - A Dabbled Dwelling

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!

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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!

ungrouted tile with one dark section around the shower niche — The mortar mess up

sweet not my husband left me on the drywall patch — Sweet note of encouragement my husband left me

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.

Praying to the DIY Gods that I'll finish on time with an open ceiling behind me — *Praying*

Jeffrey Court Renovation challenge- week 5 continues with drywall mudding

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!

First time using mussel bound tile mat and experimenting with the stickiness holding up a drill and hammer

Jeffrey Court Renovation challenge- week 5 continues with one last area of tiling behind the vanity wall where I lay a mint colors herringbone subway tile pattern

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!

Prepping The Shower

Now that the floor was finished, it was time to move on to another huge task, the shower! We finished up the last bit of cement board and moved on to prep for tile. This involved taping and mudding the seams of the cement board to have a complete surface. Next, we used AquaDefense to further waterproof the cement board. This is necessary because even though cement board is water resistant, it’s not water proof. In an area like a shower that’s consistently wet, the walls should not be able to absorb any moisture. The Aqua Defense goes on like a paint (pictured in light blue) and dries like a plastic. My kid’s were dying to help so this seemed like an easy task to get them involved in. Check out the last time we remodeled a shower.

Shower prepped with cement board and mudded seams

mom and 2 kids paint on waterproofing membrane as part of the Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge- week 4

The Shower Tiling Begins

Finally, it was time to tile the shower! I got my crappy clothes on since I tend to be a messy tiler. I was a little nervous about laying all this Suburbs marble picket tile but since they are on mesh sheets it went pretty quickly. However, I did get “off” somewhere with my spacing which resulted in some frustration. Luckily, white grout will hide lots of imperfections!

At this point I started having a little bit of a meltdown which tends to happen in any big renovation project. I had thought I’d be further along at this point so it was hard to see an end in sight. Sometimes DIY is just as mentally exhausting as it is physically! I just have to remind myself of the end goal and keep on pushing through!

We end week 4 with the shower not quite finished… but close!

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