Are you a contractor?

No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night! (more on that later)

Tuesday, Joe picked up the floor tiles from his co-worker and got rid of some of the big trash. He also got some the cement board cut for the bathtub area, but realized once he started to install it that because that’s a community wall between our house and the townhouse next door, the dry wall was is ¾ inch and the cement board is ½ inch. Luckily, the cement board has a much higher fire rating than that of drywall, so we can use dry wall shims. Only problem is that the Home Depot near us doesn’t carry dry wall shims! I even asked at the contractor desk and he was surprised that they didn’t have them.

We weren’t in a mood to go to a further away Home Depot, so, instead of putting up the cement board, we skim coated the parts of the dray wall that were damaged when we pulled off the tile. The largest portion of this will be covered with our backsplash tiles or baseboard, but we want the edges to blend nicely into the main part of the wall.

Then we called it a night early and headed to the Holiday Inn Express for a little R&R. I’d received a voucher for a night’s stay through an event & thought this was a perfect time to use it! We swam in the pool and sat in the hot tub, ate Culver’s custard & just hung out. We both felt better after having the chance to get really clean.

bathroom, bathroom, bathroom

That's all I've been living & breathing since Friday.

Ok, I went to work and managed to not think about it there, but once home, you know where I was.

We set in the new subfloor tonight and I removed all the caulk from the tub. *Tip: WD-40 works really well in helping to remove all the residue. It will also get you kinda high.

After finishing that up, I started prepping the walls for repairs. Lots of wholes to fill and places where the drywall is in disrepair.

There's not much to take pictures of tonight, so this is rather uninteresting visually, but I'm too exhausted to care.

bathroom demo!

When I left for work on Friday, our bathroom looked like this:
After leaving work Joe & I stopped at Menards and Lowes to compare tile prices & a buy a couple of tools. I also learned that the way our bathroom was put together was somewhat shoddy. Joe told me about the plywood-plastic sheet-particle board sandwich onto which the mosaic tile was GLUED! No thin set, just glue and then the tiles were mortared to the walls, the vanity and the tub! Eek! When we returned home that evening, I found that Joe had removed the vanity, toilet & some floor tile & sub floor.

Saturday morning we took a break from demo and went countertop shopping. We went to Stone Countertop Outlet in Albertville. We looked at pre-cuts of granite, but decided on a beautiful quartz product called Piedrafina. Our counter will be "Bianco". The really cool thing about Piedrafina is that it's similar to Cambria, but it's made up of marble bits. It's about 95% pre-consumer recycled product that would otherwise be thrown away. It's perfect for a bathroom, but not a great choice for a kitchen or laundry since it doesn't stand up to lots of abuse. This was our big splurge item at $450. I'd budgeted $500.

We also made a Menards run, this time with a list of things we needed to buy. Sponges, bucket, paint rollers, paint (mail in rebate!), Misc tools stuff.

We came home and started breaking out tile. And breaking out tile and breaking out more tile. (man, I hate that tile!)

Since we live in a townhouse and have shared walls on 2 sides of our house, we knocked off making tons of noise about 8:00 and watched part of an NCIS marathon. We went to bed with the bathroom looking like this:

Sunday, we got up, ate some waffles (from scratch, thank you very much) and ran to Home Depot (notice, this is the 3rd home improvement store we've visited, (4th trip counting 2 different Menards)). We returned a tile we don't need and purchased a circular saw, which I thought we already owned, but apparently we didn't.

Came home, cut the rest of the upper sub-floor out and discovered bigger problems. The plywood lower sub-floor is only 1/2 inch, it should be at least 5/8 inch. We also discovered that the way the walls were built is weird. Thank goodness I built in $100 into the budget as a safety misc. fund! We'll be replacing the sub-floor. (oh, joy!)

While Joe was figuring out what, exactly, they did when they build our house, I pulled down the shower tiles. These were also glued. Being larger tiles, they came out much more easily and without nearly as much swearing.

After that we ran to Lowes & Home Depot (visits to store 6 & 7) and brought home the tile for the tub/shower. Nothing exciting here, just white subway tile purchased at Depot. I know a lot of people are using subway tiles and it's almost become a cliche, but its pattern reminiscent of our backsplash and I like the classic look.

After dinner, we cut out the drywall around the shower/tub, sucked up all the drywall dust and at 8:00 called it a night.

Here's what will waiting for us (and by "us" I mean Joe, since I'll be at work) Monday morning:

There are more photos on flikr!

My New Big Girl Bike!

I still really love the style of a real vintage bike, but I came to realize that I could get that same feel with a new retro-styled bike.

Enter everyone's friend Craig & his list.

I just brought home this Manhattan Cruiser Aero Deluxe 6 Speed for about half the price of a new one! This baby's hardly been ridden! The tires still have the little hairs on them! (and although it's a little unclear in the photo, those are white-walls!)

I'm going to have to do some basic maintenance and some adjusting, but that's just normal stuff. I'd like to get a basket for the front (maybe one of those cool ones that has a handle for shopping) I also have to replace the grips, they're torn, but overall, I could squee like a little girl (wait, I already did!)

FREE paint!

Glidden is giving away free paint testers (until they "run out")

You can get 2 & send a friend a link to get 2!

Just visit here: Glidden

I'm getting some samples for the bathroom!

bikes!

After receiving the coolest bike helmet ever for my birthday, a Nutcase Watermelon, (above) I have been lurking on Craigslist for the perfect vintage bike. Technically, we have 2 bikes, so Joe and I could go for a bike ride together, but one bike needs some work & the other bike really isn't me. I do have a 10 speed in my parents' garage that is in riding condition, but again, although it's mine, it's not me anymore.

In searching, I realized that what I really really want is a Schwinn Fair Lady 3-speed. (anyone have one that you want to get rid of?)
My first bike was a blue Schwinn with chrome fenders. As a kid, I was initially bummed that my parents got me a blue bike. All of my friends had girly pink bikes & I had blue. I grew to LOVE that bike. And what I loved the most was the way I felt riding it. It's the same feeling I had when I drove all by my self for the first time. I'd like to re-capture that feeling. Hence, the Craigslist search.

I really love that the Fair Lady has the same curved lines that my first bike had and it's just a beautiful bike. It will look wonderful with basket and I'll love riding it.

I got really close today. I found a single speed w/ a coaster brake for under $100 & it's green, which would look awesome with the helmet, but it's only a single speed. The lady selling it was very nice on the phone and I felt a little badly that I had to tell her I was looking for the 3-speed.

My best friend reminded me that I'll find it, I just have to be patient. (thanks L!)

PAINT!

I'm really into silver spray paint. Like, really a lot into it.

I already posted the lamp that was sprayed and now some other things I updated with the same can of paint.

Some before and after photos:

1.

I've had this little plastic basket forever, I've used it to hold about a million different items. Now, it looks great in out kitchen holding over-the-counter meds.

2.

This plastic bin was 30 cents at Unique Thrift- it has a magnet on the back & they had 2 of them stuck together for 60 cents, I gave the other one to my mom. I put the freshened bin on the fridge to hold often used recipes.

3.

This storage bin is from the same trip to Unique as the purple bin. It was originally from Target- I scored it for $3. It looked like it had a chalkboard, but it was really only black paint. With the silver spray paint, some chalkboard paint and felt on the bottom, to prevent scratches, it's now holding stuff on the shelf of our coffee table.

I'm off to frost cupcakes and search for the perfect way to make a new camera bag...