Bathroom update

Phew, no Labor day celebration for us... just lots of LABOR.

I'll go back a few weeks first though.

The weekend of September 21st, some friends watched the girls for us in the morning, and Kevin and I assembled our new bathroom vanity. Things went pretty smooth until we got to the drawers and were trying to understand how to assemble the slides with very minimal instructions (as in, one piece of paper) - in fact, I'm pretty sure our instructions were for another model of cabinetry altogether. I wish I could locate them to share on the blog because I was amazed at the basic spelling mistakes. I guess they were probably written and translated in whatever foreign country that makes the cabinets.

Anyway, after finding a youtube instruction video, Kevin triumphed. We then we waited another week for a trim piece that we needed so my drawer wouldn't open into our door molding, and it was finally complete.

Move on to September 28th, and we started doing plumbing. Four faucets later, and we finallly had two working faucets and plumbing that didn't leak or drip. Most of the problems were defective parts for the faucets. I was so frustrated with one that I ended up completely reinstalling the drain from a new box (the drain comes with the faucet). And after Kevin gave it a manly tighten, that seemed to do the trick.


We ended up keeping the old sinks, even though they have the dated seashell shape. But the shape of the faucet and extra height to the cabinets, has given me a new appreciation for them.


Then, I spent all last week installing the vapor barrier and shower pan. It took me three evenings in all, since I was working after the girls were in bed and had to let different portions dry before I could work on others. The next photo is before I lined the shower pan floor.

Then, for Labor day weekend, we embarked on tiling. Kevin's mom kept the girls, so I dropped them off on Friday afternoon, grabbed a quick bite to eat with Kevin, and then we started. We worked Friday night, and most of Saturday, before heading to pick the girls up in College Station.

Here I am cleaning grout lines in the tub, with our ever technical tool - a plastic knife.

Kevin did some cool cut work on the tile saw to make shelves for our shampoo niche.

We didn't get nearly as much done as I'd have expected. Tiling a shower, tub, and floor is taking a lot longer than the simple white ceramic we put in the tub surrounds at our Bryan house. But, it's going to look amazing in the end.

Kevin's been sick today, but he cut some tiles for me and I worked for four hours on the shower and floor today.

Here is the current state:

I love that the tile and color choices is making our garden tub look more ivory than almond now.