Tiles, tiles, tiles!!!!!

Tile pictures are finally here! Yipee!

The upstairs bathroom had never been shower proof... in other words, you had to make sure you didn't spray the the wall since there were no tiles or backsplash of any sort.

Without further ado, here are some easy steps to tiling a shower:

1. Have a plan. Make sure you know exactly what you want before you start. Have all of your tiles, thinset, grout and tools ready and at hand. Make sure you have enough tiles to complete the job (you can always return extra's later, so it's better to have too many instead of not enough!)

2.  Mix your thinset and start to trowel it on a few rows at a time with a notched trowel. Spread it evenly. 

3.  Set a tile into the thinset by twisting it slightly. Remove the tile to make sure you have good coverage on the back. Put the tile back on the wall and keep setting tiles using spacers in between.

4. Continue to install the tiles one row at a time until you reach the top of the shower stall. Measure up from the top of the last row. Mark a line with a level as a guide for the next row.

5. Carefully use a tile cutter to cut any tiles that need trimming. We had a window right in the way of the shower, so we had to carefully cut a tile to fit in that space. 

6. Once you have tiled to the hight you prefer, let the tile set for 24-48 hours. 

7. Grout the tile. Mix up your grout and use a sponge float to smooth it into the joints. After 30-40 minutes you want to wipe the excess grout with a damp sponge in a circular motion. Continue wiping the tiles down until the tile is clear of all grout. 

8. Let the grout cure for at least 24 hours. Then caulk all the edges of the tile. 

Voila! That's all there is to it.

Aren't the tiles gorgeous!!!! Thanks to my wonderful father-in-law who taught us how to do it! Him and Shaun did an awesome job!

Better bathroom pics...

Ok, so I realize you might not see much of a difference between the "before and after's" of the bathroom... so I am putting up bigger pictures of the after's and a better explanation of what we've done.... Enjoy!

Here was the mood board of colors for the upstairs bath:

The bathroom was already sporting the red wall paneling when we moved in, so instead of ripping it all off we decided to work with it. (It might eventually go, but for now it's staying.... ps. I have a small fear of what it hiding behind it. :o) We tried to match the red as well as we could, it was near impossible finding a red paint that worked. In fact we had to buy 3 different colors to finally get this color.... 

1st can was not mixed well by the lovely young Wal-mart guy that said "I've NEVER EVER mixed the wrong color, so don't worry!" Bahaha... sure. It was pink... enough said. 

2nd can turned out pink as well. I was trying to get latex paint instead of oil based, but apparently you can't get that color in latex because it won't get dark enough. Sigh.

3rd can was as close as we were gonna get... after 4 coats of stinky oil based paint. :o) 

Thanks honey. :o)

We painted the top half of the bathroom a lovely soft tan color. We will use the same color in the kitchen and hall way. All the trim, doors and windows in this house are wood, and although they are in really awesome condition and have been well taken care of (about 6 thousand coats of varnish to keep them nice and shinny!), we have decided to paint them all white. We also added chair rail to the wall... we needed something to separate the 2 wall colors and create a more finished look. 

Once the trim, and chair rail were in and painted white, the mirror looked sad in comparison. I had originally wanted to put in a new mirror, but quickly realized it wouldn't fit... so I had to think of a plan B. We had some left over trim from a project at our old house, so I framed the existing bathroom mirror with the trim to help it flow with the rest of the bathroom. 

We also added this lovely new light fixture. I was a bugger to put up... but it is definitely an improvement to the one that was there before!

Like I said in the last post, the only thing left to do is replace the linoluem. Here is the one that we have decided to go with.... it is a lot darker in real life than in this picture. 

I just realized I haven't shown the tiles yet, so that post will come tomorrow... I promise! 

Project #2 - blinds

While my hubby was at work today, I decided it was time to move on to another house project. So I packed up my 1 year old and headed to Wal-Mart (where else) to buy some blinds for the upstairs bathroom. 

First off, let me start out by saying that having 2 bathrooms has been a luxury that we've never had the privilege of in our 4 years of marriage. :o) But, with that being said.... both bathrooms are in need of a little facelift. There are a lot of bathroom projects that we have yet to accomplish, but to start them all off I decided to replace the 50 year old curtain and curtain rod with some new gorgeous white blinds. 

I forgot to take a before picture of the curtains, but I managed to snap this shot before they got thrown out. 

And here are the beautiful new white blinds!!!