Cure Time

With the grout down, we have a few days before the sealer can be applied. So time to paint the trim and baseboards. As well ReBecca found an old china cabinet on Kijiji, it is made from Walnut, and is rather old. The smell of Walnut is still there and is fantastic. For now it will be used in the bathroom for towels and stuff.

The grout is in and curing, not that you can see much.

A sneak peek of the cabinet. ReBecca will probably have better pictures later on one of her blogs.

I know I said no sneak peeks of the baseboards, but I doubt you can see much from this picture.

A look at the quarter round that goes in front of the baseboards. A special profile for ReBecca.

The Grout Is In

It took a week for us to not get our grout. The hardware store had to order our colour from the company and we waited and waited then after a week we found out they didn't ship it, so to the phone book I went and found a great flooring store in Saint John and they had the colour. ReBecca and I went on Saturday to get it and ReBecca asked if they has samples of the dried grout on hand, they had all the colors in a nice show case to see what they look like dried. Better then a piece of paper on a bag. We are very happy our original order was delayed, because it wasn't the colour ReBecca wanted. So we changed colours, bought a bag and I put in down today. Lets hope is dries a little lighter to match the tiles. This past week wasn't waisted, I worked on milling the baseboards and trim the way ReBecca wants them. Sorry no sneak peeks, you'll have to wait until they're up.

It's a little hard to tell the grout is in, trust me.

Using All The Space

The space above the tub wasn't used when we first got the place, so when we decided to change the bathroom around I thought that this would be a good place for a couple of cupboards. I built box inserts for both sides of the exhaust fan, the far one had to be modified a bit to make room for the exhaust hose. Later I'll frame them in and add doors.

Over the tub storage.

One more shot of the floor, you may not be able to see it but the spacers are out and I cleaned up the spaces of excess adhesive, ready for the grout. Once it comes in.

The Things We Do For Love

Well the tiles are laid. After yesterdays measuring, cutting and making sure the pattern is correct we finally laid the floors today. No turning back. And they look fantastic. I applied the adhesive (mud) and ReBecca helped with everything, from ensuring I got the right tile in the right place and orientated properly to gentle remainders to back butter the tiles before they go down. It was a long day and well wroth it. The spacers are still in and we can't walk on it until late tomorrow. So grout goes on Saturday.

A bit of a glare from the window but you can still see they look great.

There will be a pedestal sink here soon.

The Things We Do For Warm Feet

Now the Protegga (the orange stuff) is down it needed to be covered with a skim coat before putting down the heating mat. Once the mat is installed we can start putting down the tiles, but there are couple of things we have to do before the tiles go down. First the layout, second the shade of tiles and where they go, and third, try to get it lined up to the tub and door frame so it looks strait. So far so good. Here is a sneak peek at what we did today, a very long day and still not done. Which is just fine with me because we don't want to rush this part of the job, we only get one shot at it.

This is some of the skim coat going down. The white line on left side coming from the tub to the door is for the power leads from the mat to the thermostat. It is a little large and has to be cut in the floor a bit.

The heating mat in place. We even checked it, twice to make sure it works.

A sneak peek at the tiles just laid in place, a few more to cut. A small room takes a lot of time to coordinate, colour and layout are important.

Now The Floor

So you thought the walls were bright, what do you think about our choice of flooring???? Just kidding its the under lay for the tiles. I have about 1¾ inches of floor boards, that's the original sub floor and ¾ inch plywood. I've been told I probably don't need the under lay to keep any shifts from cracking the grout but I wanted to make sure. Next I'll put on a self-leveling layer that goes between the under lay and the heating mat. Once that dries I can put down the mat and right away start laying the tiles. Soon, very soon.

I also go the heating vent cut in the other day.

Our over the sink light. It may not look like it but 3 60watt bulbs are very bright.