Bathroom Remodel: Sealing the Tile, Shower Slope and Toilet Wax Ring

tile, toilet, slope

DIY Sealing the Tile

Alriiight. Now that we’ve got our shower and floors tiled, we just needed to seal them. That is not a job for the faint of heart, let me tell you. Luckily, it’s fast.

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Bathroom Remodel: How to Tile a Shower

shower tile header

 

DIY Shower Tile

Tiling a shower is where the fun really comes in. We’ve been so excited for this phase of the bathroom remodel. And for good reason! It’s actually starting to look like a shower. Joe’s dad gave us a huge hand so we were able to knock out all the tile in a weekend. Check it out!

 

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Bathroom Remodel: Priming and Painting

priming and painting header

Project Updates

Let’s step back and recap: We are unfortunately way over budget, but hey, we’re ahead of schedule! We should be done by May 1. We had a lofty goal of $2,500 for our bathroom renovation, but we’re currently around $3,200. This was our ambitious plan, but we realized all the little things we forgot to take into account along the way: Nails, screws, bags of mortar, caulk… That stuff adds up fast! We do have returns to make which will hopefully bring some balance back to our universe. In the grand scheme of things, that’s still extremely inexpensive for a whole new bathroom that we DIY’d. We’re almost done, and we don’t expect to exceed $3,500.

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Bathroom Remodel: Knockdown and Niches

DIY shower niches inset

Niches get Stitches

First things first. We had in mind that we’d like some shelves in the shower, right? Not any after-the-fact shelves, but real built-ins. There are a few ways to get recessed, inset shelves installed from the get go. Let’s explore the options.

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Bathroom & Shower: Taping and Mudding Walls

shower walls header

Mud and Tape

The natural next step after pouring the shower pan is? You guessed it: Adding shower walls. And you can’t just use regular drywall, you need to really waterproof that new shower of yours. It’s a high-stakes job, but you can do it!

Here’s a glimpse of us mudding and taping (with a little help). It’s in reverse order, so you’ll see the shower walls up first, then the rest of the bathroom. Enjoy!

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Shower Pan Part 2: Lining and Final Pour

pouring a shower pan

 

Insane in the Membrane

The shower “membrane”, that is. After your shower pre-slope is fully dried— you waited 48 hours, right?— you can place the shower liner in and do your final pour of shower mix (sand and cement mixture). Then it’s smooth sailing. Honestly, don’t skip the pre-slope! Without it, your water will sit and mold will grow below your shower’s surface. Ewww, nobody’s got time for that.

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Bathroom Remodel: Plumbing, Electrical & Exhaust Fan

bathroom remodel lighting, plumbing, fan

 

Status Report

Joe says we’re half way done with the bathroom! I’m wary of this prognosis; I think we’re still a little shy of the halfway mark… Luckily, it’s basically uphill from here. We’ve done most of the dirty jobs already. Very dirty indeed: Demo, rerouting the drain, reframing, and now we’ve finished up the electrical, plumbing and the exhaust fan.

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Bathroom Remodel | Shower Drain

Shower Drain Bathroom remodel

 

The Drain Game

We knew moving the shower drain would be difficult, but this was one of our biggest challenges. Usually when people move a drain, they only move it a few inches. We needed to move it a few feet. It’s time to crack through some concrete!

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Winter Fun 2015

winter st. paul Minnesota

All things considered, I think it’s been a pretty fun and eventful winter so far! I’m 100% happy with being in MN for the season. (I’ll get back to you around March). I’m equally thankful we don’t live on the east coast right now! So Minnesota isn’t really so bad. In fact, MN is the best kept secret in the US. This article pretty much sums up what we already know.

Anyway, we’ve been out and about these last couple weekends exploring MN and WI and have many adventures to share.

Fishing

Joe won an all-inclusive, luxury one night stay at his company fish house on Lake Mille Lacs last Friday, so we figured we better use it or lose it 🙂

ice fishing Minnesota

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Smowmobile Day Trip

Snow Show

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vintage Snowmobile Show

Don’t let all these projects fool you – We do have some fun too ya know.  That’s a picture of Joe’s baby. The Dragonfly I call her. And we rode all morning last Saturday.

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