Now, I should say that the entire floor was not that bad; those were two particularly bad spots. But the vast majority of it was covered with a film of grout (far more than just a “haze”) that simply wasn’t coming up. I suspect there were a number of factors at play, but mostly, I think the grout set up faster than we were prepared for; it was a fast-setting grout, and it obviously means business.

That’s all purely academic, however. We still had a floor that looked like an unmitigated disaster on our hands, and needed a solution. At first, we tried just scraping it off, being careful not to damage the cork. It worked, but it took around 2 minutes per tile. With the tiles being around 1 inch in diameter, I don’t even want to think about how long that would have taken, so we needed a better solution. I tried calling the tile manufacturer; but they had suffered a fire the previous day; at least that put my disaster a bit more into perspective.

I then tried calling the grout manufacturer, with no answer. The instructions for the grout specifically advised against acid-based grout cleaners, and referred me to their “Online Technical Bulletins” for a solution to hardened grout on tiles. Except that their web site doesn’t have online technical bulletins. Handy. Google came to the rescue, finding a PDF of the manufacturer’s grout cleaning instructions. Apparently, muriatic acid is a no-no with pigmented grouts (which ours is), but phosphoric acid is acceptable. Off to the store!

We pretty quickly found a grout cleaner that contained primarily phosphoric acid. $24.95 per teeny tiny little bottle. At that point, anything sounded better than the alternative of completely re-doing the floor, so we headed for the checkout. The bottles rang up at $6.02; our first victory of the day, at last!

The instructions on the cleaner called for a 5:1 ratio of water-to-cleaner. I knew right away that wasn’t going to cut it, so I mixed it at a 2:1 ratio and tried it out. The instant the cleaner hit the hardened grout, it started bubbling – a very promising sign. After letting it sit for a few minutes, some scrubbing with a nylon brush to try to loosen things up, then a wipe-down with clean water.

Finally, a real victory! We tried a few different techniques, and ultimately found that stronger 1:1 mix of water and cleaner did the trick effectively. As best as I can tell, there’s only a slight lightening of the grout color, and no damage to the tiles that I can see. There’s still a few spots with light haze that will need to be cleaned up, but that will probably wait until after other messes are out of the way (like painting). Finally, the floor was looking great, and we only had to spend 10 hours cleaning it with caustic acid to get there.

For the before and after…

It was a lot of work, and even more frustration, getting to the finished result, but it was very much worth it. We’re both loving the look of the floor, and can’t wait to get it completely cleaned and sealed with two more coats of polyurethane.

My brother showed up again on Sunday to help with taping and mudding the drywall, which was actually more enjoyable than I expected. Although it was also terribly tedious, since there’s so many corners, seams, etc. to contend with in such a small space. But at least my brother and I got through the first coat yesterday, and Brad and I did the second coat this evening. With any luck, we’ll be done with the drywall within the next few days.

I also spent a little bit of time today making templates for the shower niche shelves. We’re using some pieces of slate we found at a building salvage store, but they’re significantly larger than we need, so they need to be cut down. Since nothing is ever perfectly square, it’s easiest to just make a template the exact size and shape needed, which is what I did. I cut some very thin strips (around 1mm thin) off a 2×4, and then trimmed those down to the sizes I needed. A dab of hot glue in the corners, and I had templates! Now when it comes time to cut the slate, I can use those to mark and cut the pieces exactly as I need them.

And the final installment in today’s excitement was to install the cement board for the mirror niche. The mirror (which will be another project) will be a few inches smaller than the niche in each dimension, and the wall around it will be tiled identically to the shower niches, including a slate shelf. While I can’t template for that until the drywall work is finished, it is at least nice to have the cement board in place.

I cut a piece of plastic sheeting to fit the outline of the floor, and traced the tubing layout onto it. That way, we can set it back down over top of floor at any time down the road and see where the tubing is. I also wanted to check into securing the pedestal sink to the floor, to make sure it would work out. And what better way than doing a dry fit/sneak peek.

So with the planning out of the way, we set about the rather uneventful business of installing the cement board. There was a little bit of extra work involved, making channels for the floor temperature sensor wiring, but nothing too spectacular.

With the mortar already mixed up from installing the cement board, I spent the time taping all of the joints and seams in the shower area. The standard seams weren’t too bad, and went quickly enough once I got the hang of it. But the niches were a real treat. Every joint, seam, gap, etc. had to be taped and mudded to make things secure. And all while working in a very confined box with poor visibility. Fun! However, the end result was definitely worth the effort.

With all of the mortared joints set by Thursday morning, we moved on to waterproofing the cement board. Another simple, if not tedious, operation. It started out with pre-treating all of the corners in the shower area, and I went a step further and also pre-treated the seams.

From there, it’s just two full coats with a roller. MUCH easier. And the same treatment for the floor, as well. That whole process created a nice waterproof membrane on top of the cement board, so that if any water ever makes its way through the tile or grout, it won’t damage the wood structure on the other side. Cheap insurance, in my book.

In an effort to keep the momentum going, and since the wateproofing had dried enough by yesterday evening, we started with tiling the floor. That’s right, the first piece of finish is starting to go in! We’re using a cork mosaic tile for the flooring, so there were lots of little modifications to be made to get the edges to fit right. After lots of test fitting, swearing, and gluing, we finished up with the tile portion of the installation around 5:30 this morning. A long night, but completely worth it.

And now that the adhesive has had a chance to set, we’ve started the process of sealing and grouting. The manufacturer calls for two coats of polyurethane, then grout, then another two coats of polyurethane. We’ve only done the first coat of poly so far, but you can already see the tile coming to life.

Before (left) and Not before (not left)

I can’t wait to get grout in to really see it pop. The cork is so pleasantly soft that walking on it barefoot is already nice, even with the discomfort from the gaps between tiles. Getting the floor finished is the main goal for this weekend, and it won’t be a problem at all. Then it’s on to finishing the drywall, but that much fun will have to wait until Monday.

I decided that the only way to really figure out what was leaking was to go ahead and fill the tubing with water. So I went ahead and hooked up one end to a temporary water supply, and set the other end in the laundry sink to drain. I also added a valve on that end, so I could close it off and let the tube pressurize with water. With that, I discovered my leak; one of the compression fittings wasn’t made right (by me), and was leaking water at a fairly decent rate. Though I was sure that was the only leak, we went ahead and inspected the rest of the tube, just to be safe. And since this is a heated floor, we were naturally using hot water, so Brad couldn’t resist checking the temperature…

Saturday morning, we started working on the drywall. One of the big challenges was that the bathroom walls, like those in the rest of the house, were originally plaster and lath. While the rest are still in tact, a previous owner had removed the plaster and lath from the bathroom and replaced it with drywall. This is all fine and dandy, except that drywall is significantly thinner than finished plaster and lath, and they made no attempt to compensate for this. So behind every piece of window and door trim in the bathroom, there was a significant (sometimes as much as one inch) gap.

With as much effort as we’ve put into the bathroom already, I was not willing to do something so glaringly sloppy. So that meant taking measurements on all sides of the window and door openings, and cutting individual furring strips for each one. At first, I thought this would be a massive pain, but it turned out to not be so bad. My circular saw rides on a guide rail that makes it blindingly simple to line up a cut exactly. So we just made one mark at each end of a 2 x 6 for the necessary thickness of each furring strip, and cut along the lines.

It was definitely worth the effort! It’s tough to photograph with my simple camera, but the face of the drywall and the edge of the door and window jambs are nearly perfectly in line. While not the most important detail by far, it will definitely improve the finish level over the previous bathroom by a long shot.

I also had to add a few bits of blocking, to support the drywall at the edge of the opening for one of the planned built-ins. A scrap piece of lumber and the framing nailer took care of that in no time.

With blocking and furring in place, it was time to start cutting and installing the drywall. One of the very annoying aspects about a room as small as this bathroom (around 58 sq. ft.) is that no wall is large enough to accommodate a full sheet of drywall. There is never a reprieve from cutting, fitting, and trimming sheets, and that gets old fast. But we did manage to get the two most difficult walls out of the way – the door wall, and the “wet” wall, which includes the mirror niche.

Those few sheets of drywall really go a long way toward turning it back into a real room! It was definitely exciting to see the mirror niche really start to take shape; up until this point, it’s just been a skeleton of excessive framing.

By Sunday, we were quite worn out, and the pace definitely slowed down. We decided to work on nothing more than the remaining furring strips, leaving the rest of the drywall installation for me and Brad to complete without my brother’s wonderful assistance. This evening, we did just that.

The two areas without drywall (one behind the shower and the other below the window) will be the future home of some custom built-in storage. During the planning phases, we had a difficult time finding any medicine cabinets that we liked that didn’t cost a small fortune. The compromise solution was to abandon that altogether, and go with a fixed mirror in a niche, with the built-ins making up for the lack of storage. But that will be another project for another day, once the main renovation is complete.

And in a stroke of luck, the off-cut from making that piece narrow was the perfect size to fill in the top few inches of the back wall. Nice and easy! Having the entire surround completed really fills in the back wall and makes it start to feel more like a room. I’ll be very excited to see tile go up, but that will have to wait a little bit longer.

Tonight’s project was to get the tubing installed for the radiant floor, since that is necessary before we can put up drywall. There were a few spots were the tracks in the panels didn’t line up perfectly, so I had to touch them up with the router. Luckily, there weren’t too many, and I didn’t make any (terrible) mistakes.

Some of the panels were also sitting at slightly different heights, since they most likely came from different batches. While not a huge deal, having small ridges everywhere isn’t the best thing for the cement backer board that will soon go down, so they needed to be smoothed out. Running a sander over installed tubing didn’t seem like a good idea to me, so we had to spend some time getting everything evened out. And unfortunately, my only power sander is for finishing, so it’s not very aggressive and took longer than I’d hoped.

With the edges of the panels all smoothed out, we could finally install some tubing! I had already fished the supply line up into the bathroom this afternoon, and then fished it back down to the basement for the return, so it was just a matter of pulling tubing up from the supply side as we needed it. And the installation was nothing more than applying some silicone adhesive to the track, then tapping the tubing into place with a rubber mallet. Doing the whole bathroom only took about 30 minutes, which I think is pretty good for a first-timer!

Tomorrow, I’ll have to hook the tubing up to the air compressor for a pressure test, just to make sure I didn’t damage it anywhere. Fingers crossed…

You may notice that I’m using a garden hose, instead of the traditional tub filler. I happen to have an extra hose spigot lying around, so I just threaded that into the drop ell connection for the tub filler, instead of temporarily installing the nice, expensive shower trim. And it worked! The only leak was because I skimped on thread sealant for the spigot, since it was a temporary installation. The rest of the plumbing performed flawlessly, including the tub drain and overflow.

The next test was to fire up the whirlpool pump and make sure it was working okay, without leaks. The pump motor will soon get its own dedicated circuit, but in the interest of getting the testing done, I made a temporary electrical connection for it in the basement (I spliced a plug onto the end of the wires and plugged it in). With my trusty outlet tester, I verified that the wiring was correct and did a quick test of the GFCI module before plugging in the pump motor. Everything was in order, so I plugged the pump in and hit the reset button on the GFCI. Nothing. I plugged the outlet tester back in; dead, and the GFCI still wouldn’t reset. I rechecked my wiring, both at the GFCI and in the basement. Everything was correct. I happen to have a spare GFCI receptacle in my toolbox, so I pulled out the GFCI module, and wired the GFCI receptacle in its place. Victory!

Eight massaging jets

Now I’ll have to get a replacement GFCI module, so I can replace the faulty one and get everything hooked up properly again. But at least I know the tub works! And with that knowledge, we were able to start really addressing the tub surround.

Yesterday, Brad and I spent quite a bit of time marking, measuring, carrying, cutting, and test-fitting the piece of cement board that will have the two niche cutouts in it. It probably would have been easier to piece the layout together from many smaller pieces, but I’d like to keep the number of seams down, since that’s less chance for failure. With the tub tested, we were able to proceed with installing insulation and a vapor barrier around the tub/shower area, and finally, our first piece of cement board!

Note the fine selection of toiletries

They say the first piece always takes the longest to install, and that one definitely had the most cuts. We’ll still have a few cuts to make for the shower hardware, but nothing nearly as involved (or precise). With any luck, we’ll be done with that tomorrow night, and can move on to installing the rest of the drywall. Good times!

A niche product

Then it was on to bringing the rest of the plumbing lines into the bathroom, and plumbing the shower “tree” (lines from the valve to the tub filler and shower head). Unfortunately, I ran out of the plastic bend supports that are somewhat necessary when working with PEX; they help to ensure that any bends in the tubing aren’t so tight that they kink the tube. So for now, I have the lines all connected and routed in the bathroom, but they’re just dangling in the basement. And of course, the bend supports are on backorder, so I’m at the mercy of my supplier.

Being unable to finish up the plumbing, I decided to start working on some of the trim-related projects. During a previous renovation, the original baseboards were removed and replaced with plastic “tile” panels; part of our goal is to bring back as much of that detail as possible. Unfortunately, the baseboards on the second floor are approximately 8 inches tall, and I’ve been unable to find a readily available replacement, so I decided to make my own. It’s a crazy thought, really, since I made that decision before I’d even bought or used a router. But yesterday and today, I set about making it happen.

I bought my router a few months ago, without really knowing much of what exactly goes into making moldings. Any experienced woodworker would know, as I now do, that I would be much better served using a router table, rather than a standalone plunge router. But since that’s what I have, that’s what I used. I had managed to find a “champagne ogee” router bit that came remarkably close to the profile of the existing trim, and bought some 1×8 lengths of poplar to mill down. After several practice runs, I managed to get the settings on the router locked in to cut the bulk of the profile with the ogee bit. Three passes on each board, and I was most of the way there. But unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to photograph that part.

The original trim has a small rabbet at the top that the ogee bit didn’t include, so I still had to cut that. I decided to use a simple spiral-cut bit, mostly because I don’t really have a huge assortment of bits to choose from yet. Since cutting the ogee had removed enough material that using the router’s edge guide was now tricky, I had to find a different way to keep the rabbet consistent. I settled on using the guide rails from my circular saw, set a fixed distance back from the top edge of the molding.

With a few quick practice cuts, I quickly had the settings dialed in to give me results that look very close to the existing baseboards. The new baseboards still need to be sanded down to take the “machined” look off of them, but they already look remarkably close to the desired result. I’ll be sure to take some side-by-side shots once I have some scraps to play with.

And since I was working on the moldings today, I decided to also spend some time stripping the old paint off of the existing window and door trim. Most of the casework was removed during demo, and is being stripped in the basement, but some of it (like the door jamb) has to be stripped in place. We’re using a soy-based paint stripper that has turned out to be pretty easy to use. It comes as a paste that you apply to the painted surface and let sit for up to 24 hours. It doesn’t take long before you can see the layers of paint literally bubbling off of the wood.

The manufacturer claims that one application can remove up to 15 layers of paint, but I’ve found that to be a bit idealistic. When stripping the salvaged stone that we bought, I found it took 4-5 applications to remove all of the paint. The wood trim that’s currently in the basement has had two applications so far, and will probably take at least one more. But it is still nice to see some quick progress on the door jamb, at least. With that much bubbling, I decided to scrape it away. One of the nice things about this stripper is that the paint peels off in sheets, so there’s no dust, and minimal mess. Plus, it doesn’t really smell bad, just a little soy-ish.

I’m sure it will take a few more applications to get it where it needs to be, but at least it’s a start. And it’s especially important since we’ll start drywalling once all of the plumbing work is finished. Then it will really be a room!

One of the little “luxuries” we decided to add as part of the remodel is a hot water (hydronic) radiant heated floor. Since the cost wasn’t terribly large, and the additional labor wouldn’t take too long, we decided to spring for it. We’d eventually like to run radiant floor heat throughout the house, and the bathroom seemed like the perfect place to start. We picked a track-based subfloor system for the bathroom; it consists of plywood panels with grooves cut in them to accept flexible tubing for the hot water. There’s also a thin piece of aluminum under each track to transfer heat evenly across the floor.

We got started yesterday evening installing a few of the panels, and spent a good chunk of today finishing things off. The trickiest part of the installation was figuring out a layout for the panels that will cover as much of the floor as possible, and still make a complete continuous loop for the tubing. The rest of it was just a lot of measuring and cutting.

There’s still a few spots that will need to be filled in with standard plywood, like underneath the toilet. Once that is done, we’ll be able to plumb in the drain line for the toilet, as well as start installing the cement board base for the floor tile. There’s also just a few more small things to do, and we can start putting drywall on the walls, too. Slowly but surely, it’s coming back together.

And today, with the help of my friend Jeremy, we got the bath tub up the stairs, and set it into place for a dry fit. Everything lined up right, and there’s just enough free space on either side for an easy fit.

Next up was assembling the drain and overflow for the tub, which comes as a kit of PVC parts that you get to measure and assemble yourself. Sort of like a model car kit, but with much less excitement, and glue that will make you a lot loopier if you’re not careful. I bought organic vapor cartridges for my respirator for doing all of the PVC work on the project, since I can’t stand the smell of PVC cement, and it has really worked out well. I can’t smell a thing with them, which is great.

Once drain was all glued together and installed on the tub, we were able to start thinking about getting it permanently installed. The manufacturer suggests two methods to set the tub in place; one involves using construction adhesive on the support feet, and the other is to set a bed of mortar/cement and place the tub into that. We opted for the latter method, since it ends up supporting the entire base of the tub, not just the feet. The only question… how to get the tub in place, over the mortar, without making a huge mess?

The answer!

We used two 2×4s, one under each set of feet on the tub, and propped them up at either end with some addition blocks. That way, we could slide the tub into place in the alcove, keeping it safely above the mortar. Once it was in the right spot, it was just a matter of pulling the 2×4s out and lowering the tub into place. With a few practice runs, it worked rather well.

Following the directions on the mortar mix, we mixed up two batches, and started spreading it out on the subfloor. The tub manufacturer suggests a 2″ deep bed under the entire tub, being careful to leave space where the feet need to rest, so they can sit directly on the subfloor. So we did just that, and covered it with plastic, to prevent it from bonding to the tub.

Is it a skull?

With the mortar laid down as directed, we slid the tub into place and lowered it into the mortar. Completely out of level! We tried standing in the tub, jumping up and down. Still nowhere near level! Since the tub is sloped towards the drain, there’s much less room underneath as you near the drain end, and there was just too much mortar on that side. ARGH!

We pulled the tub back out, scooped out a bunch of mortar and smoothed out the rest, and set the tub back into place. With just a little bit of persuasion, the tub is now sitting nice and level. A few shims to snug it up to the studs and a nail through each stud, and now it’s nice and secure in place.

Next up on the list is getting the drain for the tub plumbed into the stack. Then we can run supply plumbing up to the bathroom and test it out. It’s starting to actually look like a bathroom in there!

After installing the subfloor, the next part of the project was framing in the niche for the vanity mirror. The preparation ended up being quite tricky; we had to cut out about 6 feet of two studs that form part of the bedroom wall, which is, of course, plaster and lath. Making the cuts in the studs was exceptionally easy. Separating the studs from the lath without destroying the plaster took about 3 hours each. Impressively, there’s only one small crack to the surface on the other side, which will be easy to patch.

Then it was a matter of adding in new framing for the niche itself. Since it’s similar in concept to a window, just with wall on one side, it gets framed exactly like a window. Although considering that the wall isn’t load-bearing, I think I may have gone a *bit* overboard…

Needless to say, doing that much work on the back side of a plaster wall sent a lot of plaster dust to the floor. But Brad vacuumed it up; some of it, anyway.

From there, we had to add some additional framing to get the niche down to its rough dimensions. This also gave us the chance to add in some of the accent lighting that we’ll be using.

Another ongoing part of the project has been plumbing the new drain stack. The original cast iron stack was badly cracked in several spots, and leaking in others, so it had to go. Since the drain vent penetration through the roof was still in great shape, and since I’m no fan of roofing, we kept that and tied the new stack into it. There’s still a little bit of work to do, tying in the tub and toilet, and making the final connection in the basement, but the big part is behind us.

Next up was installing the electrical fixtures in the ceiling, including two recessed lights and an exhaust fan. The old bathroom didn’t have a fan, so I’m particularly excited about that addition. And for the recessed lights, I opted to spend quite a bit more and get LED fixtures. They put out a ton of light, using only 14 watts, and should last about 50,000 hours. Even if I leave them on for 4 hours a day, it’ll be 35 years before they need replacement. And in my opinion, the light they produce is a lot more pleasant than CFLs.

Just tonight, we finished installing the last of the insulation required for the ceiling.

It took two evenings of sweaty, itchy work, but now that it’s done, we can install the drywall on the ceiling. That will be a big milestone, not just because it will help stop all of the disgusting hot attic air from pouring into the house. It will also mean we can get to work bringing the bathtub up into place.

Slowly but surely, it’s starting to come together.

Before putting that final piece into place, though, we took the opportunity to fish some new wires up from the basement. Finding space to run three new cables through the first floor walls wasn’t exactly easy, but with some help from my friend Jeremy, we were able to get it done.

Our inspector even showed up around 11:30 tonight to offer her glare of approval…