Tile Style

You can completely change the look and feel of a room with a new paint color.  When it comes down to the biggest bang for your buck, paint is your best friend.

But coming in second place is new flooring. We tore out old carpet last year and put down new laminate flooring in three rooms and hallway for around $800 last year.  It made a HUGE difference in updating our home, not to mention we're all breathing easier.  I'm eager to tear out the remaining carpet in our bedrooms and Joey's office and finish out with matching laminate.

For now, our focus is the guest bathroom.  We spent a couple of days last month installing 12" x 12" porcelain tiles on the bathroom floor.  If you're playing along at home, you might remember that the floors looked like this:

Pucker up, buttercup!

Our house was built in 1971, long before the days of concrete backer board.  We have 1.5" of poured concrete for our base.  It would have taken an entire weekend to break up the tile and concrete with a sledgehammer, and since there was no structural damage to either the tile or the sub-floor we opted to install our new backer board and tile right on top.  

We measured our new concrete backer board and cut it to size, then glued it down with tile adhesive.  Once it was secure and in place, Joey used a masonry bit to drill through the backer board, the tile, and the sub-floor and then screwed the backer board into place.  All in all, it took about two hours to prep for the new tile.

The tile went down pretty quick and easy.  I did the first row along the wall before being kicked off the job by Joey.  As a result of my wrist surgery last year, it's impossible for me to put my left hand flat and apply any weight to the joint.  Consequently it takes me forever get up and down when I'm sitting on the floor.  Plus I bumped into the tiles I'd already laid and moved them out of line.  

By the time it got dark, we were on the last few tiles under the vanity.  Joey cut them on my dad's tile saw by the light of our car's headlights - true redneck engineering.  

The next morning the adhesive had cured and I started to grout.  We used roughly half a bag of dry grout and mixed it with the appropriate amount of water.  It's a messy job, but it really brings the tile to life and finishes it off.  

And there you have it - a totally transformed bathroom!

Our costs (up to the stage shown above) are as follows:

Paint & supplies: $97

Tile, adhesive mix, grout mix, and a manual tile cutter $165

Pre-primed 1" x 6" for baseboards:  $25

New shower curtain:  $20

New shower curtain rod:  $30

New blind for window:  $5

Come back on Thursday for the scoop on painting the tiles in the shower, and a review of Rustoleum's Tile Transformation kit.

Linking up with:
Twirl & Take a Bow at House on the Way

Guest Bathroom Make-over - Part One

Of all the rooms in our house, the bathrooms have received the least amount of attention. They were both decked out in some lovely early 80s vinyl wallpaper, and the guest bath had a toilet that looks like it came straight out of the Starship Enterprise.

The shower had matching 4"x4" yellow tile.  Butter yellow.  It was groovy.  In retrospect, I'm thankful it wasn't Harvest Gold, like the 70s era house my brother bought.  Or worse...Avocado Green.  

After stripping the wallpaper and scrubbing (and scrubbing) wallpaper residue, we gave the walls a coat of creamy off-white.  Gradually I added some "shabby chic" bits and pieces.  At the time, I thought I liked it, but I finally admitted to myself that I'm just not shabby.  Or chic.

But this was our first house and I had recently discovered blogs. I thought that eventually I'd figure something out.  For the better part of six and half years, we rocked this awesome look.  What a beautiful boob light.

Fast forward to April 2013.  Knowing that we were having Ally's graduation party, and family & friends would be descending upon our house, we got ourselves in gear.  The first thing to do was pull off the baseboard tiles around the perimeter of the room, which took all of ten minutes.

Then we decided on paint.  We knew we wanted to stay in the tan/khaki family, so that it would flow with the hallway outside.  But we also wanted a little bit of color to break the monotony.  Enter our inspiration:  a shower curtain.

We matched the color of the shower curtain to our Pittsburgh paint fan at home, and the perfect color was Blue Willow.  We had it tinted at Lowes using Valspar paint.  A few coats on both the vanity wall and base and we were on our way.  

To be honest, I can't remember the name of the tan color right now - ack! Once the walls were dry we cleaned up the window frame and gave it a fresh coat of semi-gloss trim paint.

Total cost for paint and supplies was $97, which was a little more than I expected, but I bought two new GOOD paintbrushes.  I will never use a cheap paintbrush again!  I couldn't believe the difference it made.

Take a good look at that groovy yellow floor tile - on Tuesday we're covering it up with some Hardy Backer Board and 12"x12" porcelain tiles.  Good times...good times.

Grad-a-Palooza

As of 3:00 pm today, Ally is officially finished with high school!  We're gearing up for the graduation ceremony next Saturday morning, followed by a huge party that afternoon.

Yes - we are Lord of the Rings geeks around here (one of our dogs is named Rosie Cotton!).  Joey printed this out for me to hang on the door.  I think I'm going to paint this on a plaque for a permanent version.  

We've been a little distracted lately (you might have noticed an extreme lack of posts).  Since we last posted, I finished a business writing course, we've given the guest bathroom a complete make-over on a very modest budget, survived the flu, and wrapped up Ally's senior year.  Whew!

Now it's time to get back in the DIY groove.  Join us on Monday for a week of budget bathroom restyling.  We installed new floor tiles, painted the walls and vanity, and added new baseboards.  We even painted the tiles in the shower - yes, you absolutely can do that.  Stay tuned for a full post and (uncompensated) review of Rustoleum Tile transformations.  Hint - it's amazing stuff.

See  you soon!