THIS is Season 6 of the Jeffrey Court Fall Renovation Challenge, where we will renovate our kid’s full bathroom… taking it from an outdated, carpeted, builder-grade bath to a functional, beautiful oasis where my boy-girl siblings can fight over counter space in style!
14 contestants – 1 grand prize winner – YOU get to choose!
Come behind the scenes with me on INSTAGRAM, where I will show you live video of the entire process. Then, hop over to the blog for a weekly breakdown of our progress. Lastly, head over to the Jeffrey Court Site and VOTE VOTE VOTE for our design along the way! The design that YOU – the voters – choose will win a grand prize of $5,000!
You have the chance to vote once a day EVERY day, from each internet-accessible device you own. Your cell phone, tablet and computer? Absolutely! And don’t worry… I’ll remind you 🙂
WEEK 4
RECAP
In week 1, we removed the vanity doors, took down the hardware, and demoed the shower. If you missed the before pictures or the design plan, you can find them HERE.
In week 2, we had the plumbing roughed in, removed the tub, and finished demoing the rest of the bathroom – mirror, countertop, and floors. You can find the week 2 blog HERE.
For a list of tools I like to have on hand during demo, head back to my WEEK 1 post. I have found several must-have bathroom reno tools that I will list when we are done with the project.
In week 3, we laid cement board on the floors, framed out the niche and built up the curb, installed the shower pan, put cement board up in the shower, and waterproofed the shower walls with Redgard. The tile was delivered (Yay!!!) and we purchased a tile saw.
In week 4, tiling began! I have been nervous and excited at the same time. I have never tiled before, so this was a completely new skill to me. Luckily, being a local woodworker, I have several friends in the area who have tiled and came through for me in big ways! I was able to borrow a better tile saw than I had originally purchased and got a first hand tiling lesson from a contractor friend who specializes in kitchen and bathroom renovations.
TILING 101
The first difficult thing if you’ve never tiled before is your shopping list. Walking into a section in the hardware store that you aren’t familiar with can be daunting, especially when you have no idea what you’re looking at. I suggest watching some tutorials on tiling to become familiar with some of the terms and tools that are used. Then when you see them in person, they won’t look so foreign.
Also, set aside a time to go to the store when you have time to read and browse. I looked up a lot of items on my phone while I was there, both to look at different brand reviews and to see what the items were used for. The Home Depot app was great because it tells you the exact isle and bay to find your items!
I was also lucky to be able to phone-a-friend. My friend Truitt of Taylor Construction and Design walked me through everything I would need for tiling, and also came by this week to give me a one-on-one tiling lesson!
Before you begin to tile, you need to know how to mix your mortar. There is a ratio on the bag of how much water-to-powder to use, but it’s really only good if you are using the whole bag. It’s difficult to calculate when you’re using a bit at a time, so the best thing is begin with a little water and add the dry mortar until you get your desired consistency.
Always add water to your bucket first, then add the mortar. Use a corded drill to mix the mortar if you have one. I burned up the motor in my cordless. Oops.
You want the consistency to be similar to peanut butter. If the mortar is too thin, it will run down the walls and be difficult to work with. Once you have it mixed to the consistency that you want it, mixing for about 2-3 minutes, let the mortar sit for 5-10 minutes. This allows the chemical reaction to take place. After the time has passed, mix it again for another minute or two. NEVER add more water once your mortar has been sitting.
To begin tiling, you will add mortar to the wall, notch it with your trowel, back butter* your tile, then press firmly to the wall. Always shift the tile left to right to collapse the ridges that were formed with the trowel. Check for level and add your spacers around the edges.
* Back buttering your tile is simply adding a layer of mortar to the back to help adhesion. This is necessary on large format tiles, meaning anything 12” square or larger.
Below are my progress pictures for this week. Week 4 didn’t hold a lot of variation, I only worked on the shower walls, but I will have a lot more exciting progress next week!
Here are a few helpful tips I learned from beginning to tile this week:
- Always, always dry fit your tile before putting mortar on the wall.
- Only use a trim piece if you are certain that you will be able to line it up straight. I ended up ripping mine out and we decided to use pencil tile for the edges. If you do use a trim piece, I recommend metal over pvc.
- Level your tiles one-by-one, as you go. A slight imperfection can snowball and end up making things VERY crooked.
- If you will be tiling for multiple days, make sure to add your spacers around the top and sides before the mortar dries. Otherwise you won’t be able to get anything behind your tile.
NEXT WEEK
Next week, week 5, I will continue my tiling journey and will have a list of my favorite tiling tools for you as well as a list of vocabulary that you will hear when tiling.
In the sink space, the shiplap will be going up behind the mirrors, the counter will be installed and we will hopefully be installing the lighting and plumbing.
I also plan to begin tiling the floors so that we are ready to install the shower doors in week 6!
I’m so glad that you guys have been here to jump into tiling with me and I can’t wait to see you guys next week!
You can vote for our design HERE and remember to follow along on INSTAGRAM for behind the scenes video and DIY tips!