Day Five-thirty-one: part one

After preparing the basement bathroom this week we finished the job. Naturally step one was to lay the tile. We fired up our friend's wet saw and settled in for the day. To make the top and bottom borders we sliced a piece of bullnose lengthwise in half and mitered the two corners where a vertical and horizontal piece meet (on the far left and right). We maxed out the number of tile spacers in this fairly small space to keep gravity from working its magic on the tiles until the ThinSet had set. So here's the pretty close version.

While we had the ThinSet out we put the four vertical pieces on the riser, which used to match the stone floor tiles that we took up. One other thing we were careful to do was align the grout lines. It's the little things that make us happy. The contractors who did the previous tile work in this room are great, but they'll never be as careful John and Suzy Homemaker.

Our decision to mirror the design from the shower in the sink backsplash meant we maximized the number of grout lines. But it was worth it. After cleaning up the excess and adding the matching caulk to waterproof the whole countertop here's the virtually complete vanity (the replacement doors and drawer front are on order and we need to move the one outlet that's now stuck behind the mirror).

And here's how the shower side looks all complete with a new shower curtain that we made.

While we're at it, here's the final version of the door as well, now with a privacy screen that we made by using the mechanism from a regular vinyl shade but replacing the vinyl with the same fabric as the shower curtain to tie everything together nicely.

The final tally on this bathroom is:

• shower worked on by two contractors (first team quit before finishing it)
• floor tiled with stone, then added to when room expanded, and finally replaced with ceramic tile
• sink vanity in left corner facing shower, then after room expanded moved to right corner facing door, and finally rotated 90 degrees in right corner to face shower
• added second vanity and oak countertop in left corner next to sink vanity
• second light added when we expanded the room and placed over the sink vanity
• exhaust fan added, replacing one that incomprehensibly was in the shower

To be fair, here's a reminder of what we had to start with. You can see why we were impatient to make changes, even if that haste meant we've had to undo a lot of our first attempts now that we've had more time to think.

This is the exhaust fan.