Isn't she lookin' lovely?

Oh man, this post is very overdue.  The bathroom has been at a standstill for the last couple weeks while we were debating over what floor tile we should use.  But since our last bathroom post we (aka Matt) have made a lot of beautiful progress. 

Once the drywall was up, we headed off to Home Depot to pick up Thinset.  Thinset is what you spread on the walls and then place the tile over.  Basically, it keeps the tiles connected to the wall for all eternity.  After consulting the "helpful/Thinset educated" salesman at the Depot, we were advised to use pre-mixed  Thinset. 

Because our wall tile is marble, we had to be very careful about which type we got.  So we went with what the Depot-er suggested because, hey they know what they're talking about, right? Um, wrong.  But first things first.  Before applying the Thinset to the walls, we needed a level base to start off at.  So, my very smart husband  made a level line, exactly one tile high (from the tub rim) and attached a piece of wood all the way across, in order to give us a solid, level beginning to the project.  This enabled us to make sure all the tile going up the wall would be supported and stay in place while the Thinset dried.

Here is Matt applying the Thinset to the walls:

Once it was applied to the walls, Matt took a piece of the 12"x12" tile and slapped it into place.  Using the level, he made sure everything was straight, then did the same thing over and over and over again.  He also used grout spacers, to make sure our grout lines would be straight and even throughout the shower walls.

Now, this doesn't sound so bad, right?  But unfortunately, our tub space is exactly 5 feet long, which would have worked out perfectly given that our tile is 12"x12".  However, you have to account for the grout lines....and the fancy schmancy glass tile was just over 12".  Sooo, once the glass tile was up, and the marble tile was up on either side of that, we were just short enough room for two more full columns...which meant we would have to cut the tile.  Now, we never thought we would get away with not cutting any tile, but it would have been nice to win this one battle.  So, Matt had to cut the tiles for both columns down about 1/2-3/4" along one edge.

Here is a half-way done shot (with the before mentioned support "beam" across the bottom.  Please note that the glass tile is actually a grey/blue-ish color and only looks green because of the drywall).  Look!

Gosh, is the suspense of seeing just a little bit  of the tile job killing you?!  I thought as much.  Here are some pictures of the almost completed job :)

There!  Aren't you so very impressed with how awesome the whole shower area looks?!  Bahaha, here are some photos actually showing Matt's tile job off for real this time (pre-grouting):

And with grout!  Grouting is pretty simple.  You simple swipe/smear it on, wait a bit, then wipe the tile clean with a sponge.  And then you buff it with a soft rag, to make sure you got all the filminess of the grout off.  Seriously, how awesome is Mr. Matthew?!  He did that all on his own, with zero prior experience! Oh so proud :)

Gah!  Look at that glass tile sparkle!  I am so in love.  With Matt of course, but he may take a backseat to this tile right now...

We're working on the floor this week and weekend.  Which we finally decided is to be the same tile as the marble wall tile.  We saw a bathroom redo on TV and the marble on marble look was so classic/elegant/freaking gorgeous that we changed our minds again and went with our original idea.  So excited!

So anyway, the Thinset fiasco.  It turns out that certain big stores are required to suggest their products to you, even when they may not be the best choice.  So, a very loyal worker told us to use a certain kind of Thinset, which we did.  And then it turns out that using that type of thinset on your shower walls is not good because it takes a really long time to dry completely, and when it will be surrounded my moisture all the time, the tile never 100% sets (or something like that).  We found this out from a very good (but not so loyal) worker right after we were finished tiling.  Turns out we will be fine, but we had to wait an extra week to grout.  So, not so awful, but mostly annoying.

Thoughts on the tiling job??? :) 

Oh, and for the record....We realize that we don't 100% know what we're doing at every moment, or the exact terminology, but we're learning more every day and with each task we take on.  Think happy renovating thoughts for us! :)

 

~S~