bathroom progress

Who would have thought it would take me nearly nine months to get this project finished? Nothing moves fast around here, unless it's boys chasing boys when they're fighting.

Tiling is tedious work, especially when you take a wall down because you forgot you wanted to put cubbies in the shower.

Then I decided I didn't want to put the tiles all the way to the ceiling, so I had to mud the walls above to smooth them out to match the sheetrock.

And I had planned to put the tile all the way around the edge of the wall, but ended up deciding it would look funny, so I had to put a sheetrock corner in. First time I'd ever tried that. Wasn't too bad. Just made a mental note to put more mud behind the paper/mental corner next time so there wasn't any air bubbles. Also using at least a 5" putty knife is key, proving once again that bigger actually is better.

I'm pretty happy with my solution for not being able to use the granite backsplash. I used extra pieces of slate from the flooring and the tile design in the shower. The stones were a first for me - but they went up just as easily as the lady from The Tile Shop said they would. Rough up the back sides with a file and stick them in mortar. Easy as that. I cheaped out and made the outlet covers myself. It took me a full day to do all four. Not exactly time well spent, but it didn't cost any extra money. Same goes for the edge tiles - I spent a lot of time sanding the edges to round them down.

The grout in the shower was another case altogether. Apparently I used too much water or too wet of a sponge when I wiped the tiles down after applying the grout. The color ended up looking almost like a pasty white, definitely not the beige I was going for like on the backsplash.

Here's where asking a lot of questions comes in very handy, as does being fully ready to admit that something went wrong when you go back to the home improvement store with all your questions. Turns out there is a cool product called Grout Renew that actually paints the grout with a sealer and covers up the too-light color that I created. And even better, I was able to choose a different color that was closer to the actual color of the tile for a more uniform look. I used a small paintbrush to paint it on, but it wasn't an quick process.

I could only paint small sections at a time, so that I could wipe off areas that I put too much on before it dried. It will stick to tile and it will be very difficult to get off. It looks just like the grout was that color to begin with and keeps the texture of the grout intact. Would definitely use it again, but hopefully next time I'll not remove all the coloring out in the first place.

The only other thing I'm not sure about it how well slate will hold up in a shower, but I sealed it at least six times just in case. I'm not thrilled with the sanded caulking that is supposed to "match" the grout. Mainly because it doesn't match - it's much lighter and took FOREVER to dry.

Update: Two years later and there is still a couple spots where I got the Grout Renew on the slate and it hasn't come off, in spite of multiple showers every day, so I'm fairly certain it will hold up as advertised. Also, the slate still seems to be waterproof - in other words, water still beads up on it and doesn't soak in. I don't think that would be the case if it were a slate floor in a shower, but on a vertical surface the sealer seems to be holding up fine. I read somewhere you were supposed to re-seal once a year, but I haven't yet. 

Also, a note on the caulking: it has refused to stick to the edges of the tile, in spite of being redone once along the whole long side of the tub about a year ago. At this point I've left it until I can do it quickly before we're gone for a few days because it will likely take 72 hours to cure. It's frustrating because I took the time to clean all the tiles after grouting and sealing and it still didn't stick. The tile guy at Menards told me I should have used rubbing alcohol to clean the edges, but I've never, ever had to do that before. I'm left to choose from another brand of caulking or to use the shiny white stuff, which I know won't look as nice. The brand of caulking I used came from Home Depot, so I will definitely not be purchasing that again. I'll probably visit a tile shop to see what they recommend.