Tile (almost) Complete!

I hope you enjoyed the little trip down memory lane – it’s always nice to look back and see what you accomplished. The first year had much bigger differences but I guess it’s normal to lose some motivation when your house is in livable condition!

The last couple weeks we have been working on finishing the tile in the tub surround. The diagonal tile was a little trickier than we anticipated (but then again that’s always the case!).


We put in some glass/natural stone mosaic accents between the different tiles.


The subway tile was surprisingly fast to install – maybe we’ll go that route with the master bathroom.


I think we did a pretty good job going from our plan to the actual tile – the only real difference is the type of accent tile we used.



Of course we’re not going to see the tub surround the same way as our guests – we’ll be on our knees bathing the baby and get to see it from this angle instead…


This weekend we started installing the bullnose tile on the baseboard area. The job went pretty quickly but we had to leave some space for the vanity since we haven’t selected one yet. And of course we were short about 5 tiles– I guess pregnant women should not be the only ones taking measurements! I did get to do some fun cuts with the tile saw for the corners though.



The most challenging part was the little wall near the tub.


We still have to grout and we’ve spent a lot of time looking for a color that we like. We have tried two so far and didn’t like either of them. We did find one color we liked at Home Depot and another one at the Tile Shop. Unfortunately neither one is available in a non-sanded version. So we may just mix a couple of the ones we have together to get a grayish/tan color. We’ll see what happens!

During the week we actually didn’t have much time for house work because we were busy with baby classes. We finished up our “Prepared Childbirth” class and took both sessions of the “Infant Care” class. Now all we have left is the tour of the hospital and we should be ready (HAHA!!).

My co-workers threw a baby shower for me on Friday – I was completely surprised. And Chris was able to keep the secret for over a month!

I am definitely getting larger though – now people on the street can tell that I’m pregnant. It’s hard to believe that there is only a month and a half before my due date – we really need to finish those bathrooms!

On the Twelfth Month of Home Renovation…(November)

November was a little slower with the bathroom work (projects always slow down in the middle). Chris worked hard putting drywall compound all over the main bathroom – and dust all over the house.


After the drywall compound was in place, he put two coats of primer everywhere.


We shopped and shopped and shopped for tile and eventually bought some online. Of course before we could make the purchase we had to come up with a design for the tile – one for the floor and one for the bathtub surround.




While we were waiting for the tile to be delivered, we installed the cement board on the floor.


Then we got to tile the floor.



We grouted the tile, decided we didn’t like it, and removed the grout the next day (not as easy as it sounds!).



We then moved on to starting the tile work in the bathtub surround. We got a pretty good portion of this done before traveling for Thanksgiving.



It was about this time that we got embarrassed by our yard and decided to clean up a bunch of leaves.


Over Thanksgiving we ate a ton of delicious food, met our new nephew, and had my baby shower. It was a busy holiday but great to see a lot of family and friends!



Right before Thanksgiving, we got to see a preview of our baby and I started to get even bigger!



And that concludes this year’s Twelve Months of Home Renovation! Hopefully next year’s will have plenty of big projects complete!

On the Eleventh Month of Home Renovation…(October)

The next two months were by far the most productive of the year – it helps to have some deadline motivation with the baby on the way! At the beginning of the month we got the permits to start the work on the bathrooms. We started with this…





…performed some major demolition…






…installed framing, flooring, plumbing, and electrical…






…and installed insulation, greenboard, and cement board.




We went through 4 different bathtubs this month – one was chipped from the factory, the second one was perfect (then was damaged by the electricians dropping something on it), the third one had a big dent in the apron, and the fourth one was perfect (and hopefully will stay that way!).



This was also the month that Tucker was picked up by the cops…


…we celebrated our second wedding anniversary…


…and the baby grew so that my center of gravity shifted!

On the Tenth Month of Home Renovation…(September)

Most of September was spent planning our next big projects – the bathrooms.


We were able to finish the den – and set up our new entertainment center.






We sold some of our scrap metal for over $300…



…and I got even bigger…