Hallelujah, praise the grout! We have a penny tile floor in the bathroom and it is 99.1% DONE.
Celebration? CELEBRATION!
Why not recap the saga? I’ll keep it brief. Back in March, we planned this bathroom renovation. Part of it included using leftover tiles from our kitchen backsplash. You can see the full bathroom plans here.
We ripped out the vanity, tore out the floor and laid concrete backerboard. And forgot to white balance. Oops!
Then it came time to buy the tiles – moss penny rounds from The Tile Shop. Love ’em. They’re nice and cheap and easy to install (ie, don’t require a saw or tile cutter). Perfect for our floor. Only problem? The Tile Shop in Raleigh was out of stock. I ordered, waited 10 days for the tiles to come in, and guess what? Something went wrong with the order. Another two weeks elapsed with my floor looking like this.
Good times. But then, the tile came and we rejoiced! I got down to laying it as quickly as possible.
I’m not going to repeat the how-to process because the backsplash installation how-to is fairly thorough (I think?). For reference, we used all the same products. The tile was laid and set with thinset.
Twenty-four hours later, I grouted.
The grout was still wet when I took these pictures, so it looks a bit darker than it really is. We reused our backsplash grout because 1) it looks good, 2) it saved us money and 3) it’ll hide dirt well. 😀 But seriously, how awful does cleaning white grout sound? With THIS MUCH grout? Nothankyouplease.
I let that dry another day and started scrubbing to remove the grouty haze. Can you tell which side I hadn’t gotten to? Yes, yes you can. Note the much lighter appearance of the grout, particularly in the upper right quadrant (the lower half was clean and wet, explaining the shine and darkness). Cleaning was tedious, especially with a toothbrush, but was well worth it.
Just as a reminder for what this floor has been through over the past month and a half! From linoleum to (very briefly and undocumented) subfloor, ungrouted tile to sparkly clean tile.
Last night I sealed the grout (might need a second coat for posterity?). Next steps?
- caulk edges around baseboard
- scrape baseboard and repaint (they’re caulky from the quarter rounds, which I will not replacing because I like the naked look)
- move the vanity in, install new sink and plumbing
- install a new marble-ish threshold (guess what? the old brass one looks REALLY stupid now)
- put the toilet back in (it told me it’s tired of hanging out in the shower)
- hang new shower curtain
- install shelf above toilet, accessorize
- toilet paper holder, hand towel ring, soap dish/dispenser
- new contact paper in the vanity
- organize cleaning supplies under sink
- go on brush your shoulders off
Confession: last night I thought about repainting the whole room. It hasn’t even been gray for two months. I don’t know why, I got an overwhelming urge to go all white. Or any other color that would coordinate with the vanity. I think I have a love-hate relationship with the gray because, while I adore it as the overall neutral, I’m getting bored with it in the kitchen (gray-black-white-blahs) but I’m sort of stuck with it there because of our open floor plan. Maybe the kitchen needs an accent wall?
I’m veering way off topic here, but I needed to get that off my chest.
So, with that said, I’m withholding full bathroom update pictures until a big reveal is ready. We’ll show you how we do the plumbing (especially because we replaced the toilet flange and THAT HAS A STORY), but everything else is a pseudo secret.
What projects are you completing this weekend? Hiding any secrets? Confessing longing desires to repaint rooms you JUST painted? Learning the Wednesday Addams dance? Get it, Lurch.
I love penny tile so much – this looks amazing! I’m starting to get tired of my bathroom wall color too…funny though- I was thinking of going gray, ha! It’s in the beige family right now. I’m so over it. Can’t wait to see the all the details come together!
Haha. You know, I need you to come over to tell me if I could split colors between my living room and kitchen. I think that would help my gray dilemma. I’m just so unsure of it!