Painting the Dining Room

While the husbands away…I always tackle a project. This way he can’t say no!

Typically it takes a couple of weeks of prep work before he accepts a project and he never believes that it will look good in the end. Doing it while is gone means he can’t say no, can’t complain about the mess and can’t give me that look like “that could never possibly look good even though you are trained as a designer you are wrong”. He always walks back into the house after a trip somewhat hesitantly.

When we bought the house, I did not want to commit to colours for every room before moving in, but we still wanted to paint the 2 sitting rooms and the dining room before the furniture was in. So the dining room ended up white, just straight up out of the can white. Here is what it what the room looks like…kinda boring.

So to jazz it up I initially was going to run a boarder of wallpaper horizontally around the room at chair rail height. All the wallpapers in the home improvement stores were too b

old or not the right style of pattern, I knew I would get sick of them quickly. I wanted something soft and graphic; I like straight lines and geometric shapes. So I got out my tape and paint brush and got too it. The colour is one shade darker than the front hall.

I love it, it adds some personality to the room.

And now we know: creating this kind of pattern was much less painful than expected. Once the initial measuring was done (fun, I like rulers!), it was only half an hour each evening to put on 4 coats of paint, 2 white, 2 cream. And there was no leaking of paint under the tape, so no touch ups!

Painting the Bathroom

After finishing the major work on the bathroom, the next step was painting. By now I was a little sick of spending hours on end in the bathroom during a heat wave with only a tiny window for air. Over a couple of evenings after work I put 2 coats on…and the results were so-so at best. It seemed more baby blue than the light barely there grey-blue I wanted.

After living with it for a while and installing the accessories that cover some of the colour, it has grown on me. A friend also pointed out that it will look better once the trim and door are painted white as opposed to the current yellowed-white.

And now we know: get paintable caulking, otherwise if the edge of your paint gets on the caulking and pieces will peel off.

Bathroom Day 8: Cleanup and the End of the Foundation Repairs

I had to return to work, but my husband stayed home to supervise the foundation guys. They finished up by filling in the basement trench with concrete and backfilling around the exterior walls. Considering that temperatures went up to 35 degrees Celsius over the past week, they did a great job keeping on schedule. We hope this solves the water problems and we can look towards someday having a finished basement again.

We decided to rent a dumpster to dispose of all the garbage from the reno. My husband spent the day loading it, putting tools away and trying to tame the chaos in the house. The bathroom is now at a state of 95% completion. Still to be done is painting, sealing the tile and putting up towel bars, which should all get done over the next week.

And now we know: we are capable of doing a big renovation project ourselves! It was an ambition project but we learnt a lot and produced a professional looking bathroom (without too much fighting!)

Bathroom Day 7: Caulking, Baseboards and a Rock Slinger

The foundation guys were back! This was the day the filled the trench with stone and huge truck with a conveyer belt to move the stone. They also began work in the basement, cutting the concrete floor and linking the weeping tile to the sump pit.

At this point the house was hectic. There was stuff everywhere; basement stuff moved to the living room, bathroom supplies in the front room, tools in the 2^nd bedroom and hall. 3 to 5 construction workers traipsed in and out of the house all day and there was mud and dust everywhere.

This was the day we started putting the bathroom back together. I caulked and my husband installed the new fixtures. We installed new baseboard and quarter round. The toilet was put back in and the vanity moved into the room. The bathroom finally took shape and the end was in sight.

And now we know: they use some really cool machines for foundation work.

Bathroom Day 6: Grouting

After waiting 24 hours for the mortar and adhesive to dry, we set out to grout the tile. Starting with the wall I mixed half a box of non-sanded grout and got to work. My husband started to help and became very concerned that we would run out of grout due to quantity required for the mosaic border. Since it was 4 pm he rushed off to the only store open on the holiday Monday which happened to be on across the river.

I continued grouting, ran out and mixed the rest of the box. An hour later he returned to find me with the walls completed and still having grout remaining. He was not happy.

After a breather we began to work on the floors together. It went quickly but sanded grout is not as easy to work with. It required more pressure and more time on your hands and knees. The floor was also harder to clean the excess off of and get rid of the haze.

And now we know: grouting is quick and easy. Trust what the box says in terms of coverage.

Bathroom Day 5: Floor Tiling Attempt 2

Sunday morning we headed out bright and early to get regular mortar. We used the same system of 1 person cutting and 1 person laying. This time just in case the mortar dried quickly, we layed out the entire floor and pre-cut all the tiles before we started. We then mixed the mortar and easily installed the tile. A couple of hours latter we were done and as a bonus had the afternoon free as we waited for it to dry.

And now we know: regular mortar works great, so does pre-cutting all the tiles.

Bathroom Day 4: The Tiling Begins

At this point in the renovation we were a day behind our planned schedule. The time it took for the plumber had caused us to shift our tiling from Friday to Saturday.

So we got out the wet tile saw and our trowels and set to work. The system was I would lay the tile and my husband would run up and down to make cuts. This worked well but took a lot longer than planned. Although the area was only 50 square feet, there were angled walls, a window, a shelf and the fixtures to tile around. This meant lots and lots of cuts and little pieces. We worked all day and returned after dinner to complete the walls.

By this time it was around 8:30 and we had been working for over 10 hours. We decided to just plow through and finish the floor tiling so we would be on schedule for grouting. I mean it was just 45 square feet of floor and the tiles were large 12x48 so how hard could it be?

We started mixing the mortar and laid a couple of tiles. When I grabbed the trowel to apply for the third tile, I realized the mortar was setting in the bucket! Assuming we mixed it wrong, we added more water and mixed it again. And it dried again. So more water and more mixing. Finally we gave up. 20 minutes after mixing the mortar it was dried rock solid in the bucket.

Frustrated we called it a day and planned to hit up Depot for new mortar in the morning before trying again.

And now we know: do not buy fast drying mortar even if the Home Depot tile guy recommends it. Apparently in researching after the fact it is not recommended for first timers. Although who could tile 60 square feet in 20 minutes? I think even a pro would have problems.