Bathroom Remodel: success! Functional shower & toilet

Grouting the tile turned out to be a more tedious job than I anticipated; we did the shower tile together one night and it kept us up until 2am. I made the mistake of not wearing gloves and rubbed my fingers raw scrubbing with the sponge and rubbing the grout smooth with my finger. Heather wore gloves - smart. The results were perfectly satisfying, however. The next day I installed the shower fixtures and applied caulk between the tub and tile:

Our brand new, fully functional tub and shower! We love the ability to control temperature and flow separately, which allows you to turn down the pressure and save water, or get a full-on environmentally UN-friendly tsunami. The detachable head is great.

Shelves coming in handy already.

I did some research about caulk and learned a few things. (1) the new acrylic caulk holds up better and bonds better than the silicone caulk, and is easier to work with. (2) the caulk allows your tub to move a little as it settles with a full load of water then springs back as it's emptied. I've noticed grout between the tub and tile in a few of my relatives' bathrooms, and more often than not there was a section of grout missing, cracked, or bulging out. It just doesn't flex like caulk does. (3) You have to FILL THE TUB with water and caulk with it full! This was bizarre to me until I realized the concept: you want the crack filled when it's biggest so that it has to deal more with compression forces rather than stretching forces. I don't know how much this will matter in our case as I secured the tub to the wall with multiple steel brackets, plus it's on a very solid bed of cement. Nevertheless, it's satisfying to know I've done it right.

As I mentioned before there's a slope to our floor - nearly 1" from one side of the room to the other - and this was a challenge when laying tile, to get the 12" tile to match at the corners elevation-wise. In fact, where the slope changes, it's impossible to get it to match without breaking a tile in half. Thus I chose 1/4" grout lines which helped to cover up the small elevation changes.

Heather, Alex Hay (her niece), and I did the floor grout on Friday night in about 2 hours. We worked quickly and I think it went quicker having learned a bit about grout from the wall tile. Or maybe it was the motivation of the Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie awaiting, and the movie Source Code (great movie, fairly clean for a PG-13). We chose a darker color for the tile to hide dirt and, I guess, make it feel like a floor.

Here's proof Heather did help with the project! Turns out she's a natural pro grouter.

You'll have to trust us for now - the final result is great.

Yesterday, I stumbled through a toilet installation. First hook-up only took an hour or so, and I had the toilet assembled and working. Then I noticed a small leak from the old supply line valve (which, I discovered, was missing a small brass ring required to achieve a water-tight seal). Ran to Home Depot for a new valve (and got side-tracked in the plumbing aisle and purchased a fridge ice-maker supply line kit), and came back to see that there was apparently a leak from the base of the toilet as well. After THREE wax rings and some adjusting of the PVC replacement flange that the toilet sits on, it finally sealed well. Finally, finally, no more sewer fumes in my face!

Then as I was tapping in some shims to help stabilize the base, I knocked the rim of the toilet ever so slightly as I was moving a hammer from one side to the other, and CHIPPED the rim!!! So, our brand new toilet has about a 5mm chip on the rim, clearly visible even with the lid closed. When wiping down the toilet after installation, the dirt on my rag turned that chip a nice dark brown color. Totally obvious. Feels like a brand new car with a ding on the door. I guess I'll buy a porcelain chip fix kit next!

Our Kohler toilet. (No you're not supposed to fully assemble it before placing it unless you really want a back workout.) Oh, here you can see the finished grout and how dark it is when wet, vs. dry. And there in the corner a crumpled up wax ring and the little wooden shims I used to stabilize the toilet (they'll be hidden by the caulking)

Now we can SHOWER and TOILET in our upstairs full bath! Yay! After a month without a shower in the house, it feels great. But we have to use the tub to wash hands after toileting, and the vanity, sink, and mirror await electrical wiring, which I'll have to learn about because I've never done that either.