The Builder and I took the entire week of Christmas off to spend time with our family. :) I convinced him that the day before Christmas and Christmas Day are non-work days, but we're itching to get this completed!
Monday was spent laying floor tiles in the bathroom. I am THRILLED at how they look. In fact I'm so excited, I'm going to show them to you without any clean up having been down of the grout being completed. You know, the stuff they never show you on the home improvement shows!
Yes, here it is, in all of it's dirty, unfinished glory. Don't you love it?! Can you almost see the tweed pattern in the tile? I can't wait to mop it and really show how pretty it is. I'm loving the tile pattern too. On Saturday, I was watching one of my favorite HGTV shows, Property Brothers, and they showed a bathroom they did with a just a glimpse of this pattern on the floor. And I KNEW I had to have it my bathroom! In fact, I rewound it and waited for The Builder to come back into the room so that I could show him. And he agreed that he could do something like that. I just love that he humors me (because rest assured, he could care less about a staggered tile pattern on the floor!). I missed taking photo's of the orange under layment that he installed, but suffice it to say, we will never have problems with a sub floor rotting out if the tub or toilet should over flow again. Because gutting an entire bathroom down to the studs is something you should only have to do once in a lifetime...
Also in it's unfinished state, here's a peak at the tub/shower tile nearing completion:
The Builder is currently upstairs cutting all the finishing tiles for this project. We tiled all the way to the ceiling (great way to find out your window and ceiling aren't plumb). The small, weird pieces in the photo are just so the tiles on the ends wouldn't sag while they were setting. Once the remainder of the tiles are installed, we'll be able to grout the entire bathroom and install the toilet. We've been using our microscopic master bath shower during this renovation for all six of us, and while the vanity hasn't even been started this will at least give our kids a toilet upstairs again, as well as a functional shower. Priorities, right?!
Side note: Have you ever priced bathroom vanities?? INSANELY expensive unless you want a cheap one coated in plastic - which I do not. So The Builder has agreed to make one for me. We'll still have to order a bathroom counter top and purchase a sink, so not a huge cost savings (is now the time to tell him what I'd really love order is a recycled glass top?!), but much better quality and will be exactly what we want, so no complaints.
I'm also debating taking the cabinet above the sink down and replacing it with floating shelves. We've never really used it and I feel it makes the bathroom feel more closed in than what it is. Ideally, I'd love glass floating shelves, but we shall see. We also took down the monstrosity of a mirror that all builders install, and have plans to cut it down and frame it out. Still on the list of things to do is install new baseboards (the old ones had water damage and additional damaged from the multiple layers of flooring that were butted up to them), take out the old in-the-wall medicine cabinet (more floating shelves are replacing it!) and a fresh coat of paint. With taking out the vanity and mirror, you can see that this bathroom is on it's third paint color since the home was built, and it just makes sense since everything it out, to make sure it's all painted fresh. The Builder also wanted to install a glass sliding shower door, but so far, I am resisting. I hate them. He's going for practicality. We shall see...
Oops, The Builder saw me working on this post with the above photo and all the clutter in the tub. He pointed out that while I was typing, he cleaned out the tub. So at his request, here's a less messy photo :) :
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