I look forward to bossing you around your tiling job in your bathroom.

Bump. Wazzup next?

We were just talking about that in the beer thread.

I'm in College Station for the next week and a half. If I get far enough, I might need to drag you away from your renovations to help with mine for a day -- free all-expenses paid trip to College Station on the 8th, but you might end up watching the Tceh game from a bar in Aggieland after helping with my self-leveling cement.

Let me know. I can come in for the day.

Hopefully mine is done by then!

We can hope. Hey, I had an idea -- you can probably use the rolls of ComfortTherm (plastic wrapped) insulation by JMansfield, just strip the plastic off of it and suddenly it's not a vapor barrier. The plastic isn't glued to it at all. I just tried it with some spare I had in my garage.

I think I saw that stuff at Lowe's but it wasn't R-13. I found a couple of JM distributors in Houston. They're on my list to call today.

Sweet. Yeah, they have the R-13 rolls ... I have some of it here. Probably not enough to get your job done. Picture of me stuffing it in my walls:



Amazing how green my yard was back then...

BTW, I showed this thread to one of my friends who has an almost identical project to do next year, and she said after reading it that she felt like hiding in the back of the closet with her arms around her knees rocking and talking gently to herself.

Ah! Here's a picture of where I installed the unfaced insulation in my living room wall. No picture of the part number or label though...

Found a company that supposedly has it. A commercial insulation company of all places! I'll go pick some up this week.

Kind of leaning towards contracting out the drywall...

Look what I found! I got these at Insulating Products, Inc. in Houston off of 249/Grant. 281-897-8500, ask for Ozzie.

Highly recommend this guy. They had a warehouse stocked to the roof with all sorts of insulation and insulation accessories. Super friendly service and he was able to answer all of my questions. I will definitely be going back to these guys for my insulation needs.

Insulation! I put up a bag's worth of insulation today and found it to be not as exciting as I thought. Hanging it was a breeze but trying to cut it was no fun. It turns out that not every one of my studs were the same width, so I had to cut each batt accordingly. Also, the batts were 4" longer than the height of the walls so I had to trim each batt as well.

I did not hang insulation in part of the back wall because I want to clean up the roach mess more and install some horizontal 2x4s to create a niche to put shower supplies.

Couple of questions for the experts:

1) Should I put insulation in every wall, including the interior walls behind the vanity?

2) Since the wall containing the shower plumbing is furred out, do I need to put a second layer of insulation there?

Left wall, including part of the shower:


Above the door leading to the master bedroom:


Behind the shower and toilet plumbing:


More behind the shower plumbing:

I wouldn't double up around the plumbing. You still want some air movement in there to dry out any sweated pipes or leaks.

Looks good. Get that last bit of concrete poured!

We're not doing anything at my place next weekend. I was sick as a dog all week and didn't do anything.

Sorry to hear that. Hope you're feeling better!

If you're in town next weekend, wanna pour some SLC? I think I'm going to schedule the drywall guy for Saturday so we could pour Sunday.

Thoughts on putting insulation in all of the walls? If I don't, I'll have a good amount of excess that you and Mike are more than welcome to.

Maybe I missed something, but why insulate a wall that is interior on both sides? Sound control? You want your shower and duece dropping to be hidding from the adjoining rooms?

Yeah pretty much. Each bag of insulation had 11 batts in it and since it's not really easy to store open insulation, I just went ahead and put it up. I still have 2-3 more batts to put somewhere.

I still have 2 full bags left if you need some Mike.

quote:

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Sound control? You want your shower and duece dropping to be hidding from the adjoining rooms?

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Yep. That's why I put it in the wall between the bedroom and the living room. That way someone can comfortably sleep in the bedroom without hearing me rustling around in the kitchen/living room.

As expected, I'm gonna be unavailable this weekend and back in CS on the 15th.

nm

[This message has been edited by Worth 1000 Words (edited 10/10/2011 11:31a).]

Well, I got a referral from a friend on a new drywall guy. He called me back on Friday as promised and we arranged to have him come by Saturday morning at 9. His English isn't all that great, but I thought he understood.

Saturday morning comes and I'm running on about 4-5 hours of sleep. He shows up in a 4-door sedan and I'm already unimpressed. We take a look at the bathroom and he quotes me a great price. Then, he says "Oh, but I can't start today and I don't have a truck to go get the material". -__-

Now I'm another week behind. He may be fired before he even starts...

Where are you located? I have an uncle who has a Drywall company in College Station.

I'm in Houston.

A couple long overdue updates here. I added another bag of concrete to the gap 2 weeks ago. There is still about another 1/2" to go before it's level with the floor:



I got the moisture barrier up around the gap in the ceiling around the return air vent (which got covered up). I'll climb into the crawl space and install the insulation later:





The drywall guy came by today and got about halfway done after putting up some extra support in the walls.

Above where the sink will be:



Right corner of the shower:



Left corner of the shower:



He will be back next weekend to finish up all of the walls, tape and mud, and texture the walls.

[This message has been edited by AgDrumma07 (edited 10/30/2011 12:51a).]

Looks good. Glad to finally have walls again?

Yes and no. I was really digging the log cabin feel, plus now it feels a lot smaller. I'm glad I went with a light-colored tile.

Walls are getting finished up right now!

Walls! Finally!

There are a few small rough spots I need to fix before painting (missed them before the drywall guy left), but other than that, we're ready for primer and paint.

Minor framework done, all new drywall, mud and tape, and texture - $400

It took 3 days of the guy working alone, but it's done:

Where the mirror and vanity will go:


Left wall:


This is where the return vent and soffit was, but that has been covered up. It just leaves the A/C vent:


Plumbing for the sink:


The ceiling:


This is just outside the bathroom door in the hallway. There was an ugly vent grill where the filter would go, but I had that covered up as well:

Nice keep going!

[This message has been edited by Sent (edited 2/26/2012 7:40p).]

Progress! Finally! Many many thanks to superspeck and his better half. We got a lot done this weekend, despite some ridiculous setbacks in the other bathroom.

Saturday...

First step was to remove the cheap glue-on laminate tiles. I then scrubbed down the glue with trisodium phosphate in preparation for the new concrete. We ran 3/8" weaterstripping along the edges of the walls and secured it with latex caulk. Super also installed some furring strips in the doorframes to keep the SLC away from the carpet.







The shower pan still needed a few bags of Quikrete, so we made a cardboard barrier around the drain pipe so we could have some room to install the new drain later.



We also primed the entire floor for Self-Leveling Concrete.

While the Quikrete and primer dried, we ventured upstairs to install a new toilet. 4 HOURS LATER, we got it done. I think super will agree with me...we would prefer not to speak of that adventure.

Sunday...

Today we poured the SLC throughout the whole floor and shower pan, as well as installed the shower curb with a modified thin-set.





The shower pan still needs one more bag of SLC, but things are looking really good.



Although we didn't get to install the Prova shower system, we made some excellent progress. All of the materials have been purchased for the waterproofing...just need to find the time!

[This message has been edited by AgDrumma07 (edited 2/26/2012 8:29p).]

Another brutal remodel weekend has been completed. Big thanks to superspeck and aggiemike96 for their help with everything. We got a LOT done, though much still remains. Pic updates here:

First we had to install the Prova Shower System to completely waterproof the shower. The first step was to lay the pre-sloped shower pan, which had to be cut to fit the existing area:



We then cut out a niche with 4 shelves so there would be storage space up off the floor. The shower is pretty small so adding corner shelves would take up too much room:



When connecting the new drain to the current drain pipe, some primer spilled on the styrofoam curb and started to eat it:



We laid the Prova fabric on the floor, in the corners, and all the way up to the ceiling in the corners. The next step was to attach the big sheets to the walls. Here is super working on the right wall:





Flaps needed to be cut for the shower curb:



Here I am raking thin-set for the left wall:



The back wall was done the same way:



The niche was a total PITA. My original idea was alright, but the concept of 4 shelves off-center was super's. I have to say...it's a MUCH better idea. We cut flaps from the original Prova sheet first:



I then laid mud inside all the wall cavities to attach the flaps:



Next, super cut out more Prova material to push inside all of the shelves:



Here is the completely waterproof lower half of the shower:



Completed upper half:



Completed niche:



On Sunday, after the Prova had dried, we began to tile. The wall tiles are 3"x6" travertine. Setting up the first row was tricky, but then it went much quicker:



After part of the first wall went up, we began the back wall. We left off the very bottom rows because we will need to make lots of cuts to accommodate the sloped floor and floor tile:



Me adding onto the first wall:



We stopped part of the way up because we will be doing a 4" band of glass sticks, then more wall tile, then another 4" band of glass sticks, then finishing with wall tile up to the ceiling. The 3"x12" bullnoose were installed to the ceiling so we had the border done:



Here I am working on the right wall while aggiemike96 supervises:



Check out these straight grout lines...like a boss:



Left wall complete and clean, up to the spot for the glass sticks. It is still un-grouted and un-sealed:



Super took over to help speed up the tile around the shower valve:





Right wall complete up to the spot for the glass sticks. I will pull the remaining spacers and clean it up tonight:



EDIT: typos

[This message has been edited by AgDrumma07 (edited 3/6/2012 11:30a).]

Thanks for the shot of my fat gut.

20 rows of tile up on each side...perfectly level across.

quote:

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we ventured upstairs to install a new toilet. 4 HOURS LATER, we got it done. I think super will agree with me...we would prefer not to speak of that adventure.

---

Oh, and you guys really need to wear safety glasses. I know it's just tile and stuff, but I started wearing them several years ago when I do almost anything in the house.

Working construction has just implanted it into my brain. Even when I clean out the drain trap in my wife's sink, I put them on. Just don't want anything flying into my eye. I make my kids' wear them when the cut the grass as well. Can't believe how stupid I was when I was younger. Can't believe how many little thing have hit them as well.

Nice work! Looks much better than my epic shower fail.