Car wash now open

The shower glass was finally installed just before July 4th. We ended up with 3/8" thick glass versus 1/2" thick since it's a little cheaper and not as heavy. This way there wouldn't be as much wear and tear on the door hinges. We also used pivot door hinges on the top and bottom by CRL instead of side mounted hinges so that all of the weight would be supported by the bottom hinge.




Here you can see the shower in action. We have 3 separate heads; 1 fixed (the heavenly shower head), 1 rain, and 1 handheld. All three have their own volume control and I removed all of the water restrictors since I can control the volume using the valve.

Almost done

Do it yourself closet systems

We looked at 3 different closet system companies. California Closets and two online companies, easyclosets.com and closetstogo.com. California closets was nice but pretty pricey. One thing California closets had going for them were these pull out hamper bags. We liked these a lot better than the tilt out hamper or even wire baskets. Easyclosets and closetstogo were both significantly cheaper than California closets but you have to install the system yourself. We ended up going with closetstogo.com primarily because they had a better mounting brackets for the side panels (more like California closets hardware) and the fact that you could also get the exact same hamper bags as Cal closets minus the Cal closet label.



Here we have three drawers plus a pull out hamper. Installation wasn't too difficult but it did take a while. Removing all of the pieces from the boxes took 3 hours by itself.


Here's the exact same drawer and hamper section plus our only long hanging section.


I think someone needs to go shoe shopping now....maybe I shouldn't have gotten so many shelves. By putting in a pocket door, we were able to utilize the wall space for shelves. Much better use of the space than before.

No bathroom is complete without a....

I finally installed the toilet. Overall it was pretty easy although the bolt that holds it to the floor kept coming out of the flange slot. Whenever I have to tighten something I usually tighten it too much. In plumbing I noticed you usually only tighten things just beyond hand tight. They'll say something like hand tighten and then 1/4 turn beyond. However for the toilet, they said, "tighten but not too tight so that you don't break the porcelain". Can you get any more vague? You want to make sure the toilet is secure but go too far and you break the toilet.


Here's the drain with the flange on it. On a side note, our A/C is finally working again in the house. We've spent the last two nights without any A/C. The temp in the house would get up to 87.

Tile, tile, and more tile

The tile is all up. With the exception of the glass mosaics in the shower (ran out of grout), all of the tile in the bathroom is done. Just need to let the grout dry for 4 days and then I can start sealing all the tile. The bathroom is probably a little more modern than what we had thought but oh well.

Let the tiling begin

After repairing some spots in the kerdi and cutting all of the 18" x 18" limestone tiles in half, the tile is all ready to go.

Orange wallpaper

The drawers are too close to the wall, so I had to cut the end off so that it will clear the door trim. Here's the wood after a table saw.


Here's my nicely sanded and rounded edges. Just need to stain them and put them back on.


Here's the drain and shower pan kit. The rails are presloped so you know exactly how to slope the concrete. Unfortunately the hole around the drain wasn't large enough so this kit is sitting on top of the concrete base. This means the shower pan is going to be an inch thicker than it should be. I didn't realize this until the tile guy had already poured most of the concrete.


Here's the orange wallpaper. This is actually a waterproofing membrane called Kerdi. It goes on with thinset and then the tile goes on top of it. The whole shower is covered in this including the ceiling. I just hope the kerdi on the ceiling has enough strength to hold the tile.

Nice top

Our quartz counters were finally installed. We just need to tile, paint, and then get the shower glass ordered.


Here's the top on the corner unit we have in the toilet room.


Before the tops went on, I finished wiring 3 outlets in each of the boxes and installing the 1/4 turn ball valves for the hot and cold pipes. In this box, I actually ran the dedicated circuit for the air tub into this cabinet so that the hairdryer won't trip anymore. As long as the tub isn't on, the hairdryer will be the only thing on the circuit. Previously the hairdryer would always trip the bathroom breaker especially in the summer.


Here I added in the two breakers on the right that are for the tub and the heater in the exhaust fan. There's normally a cover panel that hides all the wires. :)

Master bathroom remodel day 300

Okay it hasn't taken 300 days but it is dragging on. Here you can see the vanity cabinets installed and the drywall textured. This is after I took down the drywall and had the framer lower the medicine cabinets 3 inches. I also lowered the lights 5 inches and then re-hung the drywall and repaired the old cutouts. Although I measured the vanity width and took into account the door trim, I didn't take into account the tile on the side of the tub. As a result, the drawers will not open so we placed the cabinets so that the drawers will clear the tile on the left side but now they won't clear the door trim. We'll need to cut the drawer faces a little in order to clear it and hence why there are no drawers on the right side. There are just way too many details to plan for.



With all the careful planning, you'd think I would have measured the door to see if the cabinet would fit. Luckily it fit after removing the door and some of the trim.


I also had the plumbers come back out so they could center the showerhead and the temperature control. I took down the cementboard and then made a patch so that the holes matched the new locations of the rough valves. I also changed out some of the 1/2 inch cementboard for 1/4 inch hardiebacker(white-ish gray) so that the shampoo niche would be just a little bit larger.


Concrete patch.

2 steps forward, 1 step back

We have made some more progress but only to discover that some things need to be fixed. The framer installed this access panel so that we can change the air pump or electronics for the tub. The plumbers also finished the shower plumbing and setting the tub in concrete.


Here you can see all the rough plumbing and the insulation that I put around the pipes.


Here I relocated the pump closer to the access panel for easy services. I also mounted the electronics near the door as well as wired up an outlet for the pump and lights.


Here you can see the duct work and exhaust fan that I installed. The long duct is going to the shower where we have another exhaust fan. I'm so glad I don't have to breath in that insulation anymore.


After I finished installing the duct work, adding 2 more recessed lights, and moving the pump, the drywallers were ready to hang. Here you can see the cementboard (gray) and the drywall.



Here's the inside of the shower with the rough plumbing. If you look closely, you'll notice that the plumbing is not centered on the wall. It's off by like 1 inch to 1.5 inches depending on the item. The light in the ceiling is centered. We might have the plumbers come back and fix this. Unfortunately I didn't catch this before the drywallers hung the cementboard.


Here we installed one of our medicine cabinets so that we could check the height. It turns out that the opening is a tad too high for a certain someone so we are going to get the framer to lower the opening 3 inches and then I'm going to lower the light outlets 5 inches. Hopefully all this rework won't take too long.

Light therapy

Master bathroom: Year's end progress

The work kind of stalled the last two weeks with a flurry of activity the day before and after Christmas. Here you can see the framing for the shower and the air tub. You can also see my handiwork with the recessed lights over the tub. The glass block windows were knocked out and smaller windows were framed in. The exterior was also stuccoed.


Here you can see the rough plumbing installed although not completed. We have a thermostatic valve with 3 volume controls above. These will control the shower head, hand shower, and rain head.


They needed to move the drain and increase the size so they took a sledgehammer to the foundation. They also plan on piping hot water from the tub area since it's 3/4 inch versus 1/2 inch pipe.

Master Bath Demo

Time for the master bath since the guest bath is almost done. This definitely won't be finished by Christmas.

Bathroom nearing the final stages

The guest bath is getting closer and closer to being done. I installed the handshower bar, the curved shower rod, and the lights. The handshower bar needed wood backing in order to be really secure to the wall. Unfortunately we didn't have any in place when they put up the cementboard so I had to cut a hole in the wall from the back. We decided to keep the light box where it's at. It's a little low but still looks fine.


You can see the hole here and one of the studs for the handshower bar.


Here you can see into the wall looking up towards the wall spout. There's another piece of wood for the upper handshower bar connection. If you look closely, you'll see water dripping down the wall. The plumber didn't connect the wall union correctly so there was water leaking inside the wall. If I hadn't cut open the wall to put the wood in, I would have never caught this leak. I can only imagine the amount of damage or mold that this would have caused.


I installed this fan timer so that you can have the fan running long after you've left.

Bathroom Week 3

The counters went in on Tuesday. The shop was able to fix the old piece by cutting off the old edge. As a result, the counter got shorter by on the side and rear. To fix it, they added a little filler piece so you can't see it from the edge. The rest of the area is covered by the back splash. Since we didn't want to wait any longer, we went ahead and installed this.



The plumbers came and installed the faucets, shower trim, and toilet. The toilet is a toto drake which is one of the best. It even has a soft close seat so it can never be slammed. The cabinet drawers are soft close as well. :)



Here you can see our faucets. They are Santec builder's series. Their more customized estate series were all too ornate for our tastes. Also the counter is a little pinker than we had hoped. The tone seems to be clashing with our wall color so we might have to repaint the bathroom or pay for a new top.

We still need to get a mirror and install the light. We bought a light but noticed that the light is too low so we'll have to move the junction box. Bad planning on my part. I just assumed it was at the right height. Since we can't find a light we like, it's easier to move the box.

Bathroom Day 9-15: 2nd time is almost a charm

Here you can see the tile for the shower. It's not quite what we had in mind but it should be fine. You can see the shade that we wanted on the sample tiles in front of the tub. We picked the grout color to match our samples but since the actual tile was a different shade, the grout sticks out a lot more.

We were supposed to have counters last Friday but when they came to install it, the counter had the wrong edge. Hopefully they'll get it right the second time around. That seems to be a trend as the drywallers and the tile guy had to come back a second time. At this pace, we most likely won't have the master bath done by the holidays.



Here you can see my handy work. I wired the outlet in the cabinet and also cut out and wired the side outlet.

Bathroom Day 4-8. Dust and more dust

They installed the drywall and also put in cementboard for the shower area. The drywall still needs some more work but that will come after the holidays. You can also see the two vanities too.


Here you can see my handiwork cutting out all the holes for the plumbing in the back of the cabinet. I also wired an outlet inside the cabinet so that you can plug in things without having the cord show.