I feel like we have very little to show thus far but soon it will all come together! I am not gonna lie, I am so grateful for the deadline push because I had to get my dining room windows painted and my rug is sick of being in the garage - I'll show you another day!
This week wouldn't have happened without my husband. This man, how did i get so lucky. He is my DIY king and who I go to for ALL THE THINGS!
Basically if I am doing a project now, he most likely has already done it somewhere else in the house. A major win is that he was a plumber in a previous life and he was able to do all the work himself to switch out the valve for the new handle. I wish I could share how it was done but this task would be one I would reach out to a professional for.
We needed to cut the hole in the wall to get to the pipes. This work can be done in advance and might save you some money with a plumber for labor cost. He used a sheetrock cutter to cut into the wall. TIP - keep the piece you cut because you will need it to patch the wall.
He then removed the old valve and added the new one in. This is where the plumber comes in... there is welding and cutting pipe, turning off and on pipes, the whole shebang.
Next up test to make sure there are no leaks. This is by far the most important part because once you patch it you DO NOT want to open the wall again.
Something really cool he did was drill holes into the piece of sheet rock that you removed and along the perimeter of the hole in the wall. We then used scrap wood to secure the patch back into the wall.
Caulk would have worked but we used liquid nails to secure the patch and smooth the surround.
Finally put your tile up with mortar ONLY once it is all dry and secure.
Now back to my work - grout
This is typically after 16 / 24 hours of the mortar because you need to make sure it is dry and in place. We had 2 tiles and some patches to grout so I did 3/4 cup water and then eyeballed the grout... you want to get a nice gritty substance that is thick enough to not fall off the soft smooth trowel. Directions read mix for 3 minutes, wait for 5, mix for 1 then go for it.
Our patch was along the wall so I needed to make sure we got it all in and ended up using an array of tools, the soft trowel, a paint stick, and my hands were my tools of choice. Gloves would probably be smart here but it washes right off.
You want to make sure its smooth and full so i would take quite a few passes to fit it all in.
Once you have all of it on, its a waiting game - 20 minutes.
Next take a soft round sponge to clean all the access off.
Sooo this was as far as I got. Tile in place of the old, new handle for the shower, and everything patched. Also removed the baseboards and started painting the walls but not even close to one coat done...
Check out all the host and guest participants who are practically finished with their rooms on this weeks One Room Challenge ... give me a few more weeks to catch up! www.oneroomchallenge.com/orc-blog
