Whereas I use many, many cliches to document our laundry room reno

Let's go back in time to September - MUSIC INTERLUDE - do you remembah...

On and on baby!

Right, September.

We closed on the house in late August and moved in a week later so we could get a couple of projects done so life wasn't too disrupted for us.

Project #1 - The Laundry Room.

Some before shots...

A cacophony of pattern

On the bright side, there is lots counter/cabinet space :)

What more can I say?  Nice how the ceiling
in the sink cove is wallpapered too -
really the extras mean so much.

Actually, if I was forced to keep one wallpapered room in the house, I'd have chosen this one.  Maybe since the background of the pattern was white, it didn't seem too claustrophobic.   Who knows?  

Here is what went down.  We had a lovely little party before we moved in.  We wanted all our friends and family to see the house before we got to work, just so they would understand why we no longer have free time or extra money.  I kid, really we wanted people to come over so they could bask in the beauty of what a professional decorator's advice in 1980 looked like - and because we like them.  

Sam invited a few of his friends over and before the party started I told them that if they wanted to try to remove some wallpaper, they were confined to the laundry room and laundry room only.  In the confusion and fun of the party I didn't realize that they took it as a challenge and went to town on the walls.  

Here is what 14 year olds don't know about removing wallpaper.  Everything.  It was a mess.  So our first project was most definitely the laundry.  It made perfect sense because we could get the wall behind the washer/dryer finished before we installed the machines and then never have to worry about moving them again.  So here we go...

I think the previous owner was concerned about moisture in rooms causing the wallpaper to separate from the wall.  In the basement bathroom there was a fair amount of Elmer's glue holding some seams in place.  Nothing like the laundry at all.  Every bit of paper that wasn't ripped off the walls by sugared up 14 year olds was adhered with Elmer's.  Side note, steamers don't work so well on Elmer's glue.  

So the wallpaper removal phase that was supposed to take a few hours took 2 days.  And left a huge mess of gouge marks and embedded glue on the walls.  We decided to skim coat the entire room before painting.  Another 2 days.  Sigh.

That glue isn't very scrubbable, it's Elmer's

Moving on...

We bought some lovely glass mosaic tile to put up between the counter and upper cabinets and around the sink.  Then we picked a color to coordinate (BM Woodlawn Blue).  Then we painted.  3 coats.  Ack.  The night before we moved we went and purchased the laundry machines, but didn't have time to install them.

Here is what happened next:

We moved.

We had to unpack.

We needed to get the kids to school and feed them.
Plus we got sweet little kittens, and this room is where their food and litter box live.

We hooked up the new! improved!! washer and dryer, and since the room was painted and looked fresher - we conveniently forgot about installing the glass tile and left the room as is until November. 

Fast forward selector...   

The weekend before we hosted Thanksgiving we thought we'd give it a shot.  It went very well and looks lovely.  Here are some tips about installing glass mosaic tile:

It's really easy.
Especially if you buy the stuff already on the mesh backing.  We actually didn't have to make cuts along the horizontal line and we were able to end reasonably close to the line we wanted to without having to make cuts along the vertical lines as well.

Don't get cocky and think that since it's easy, you can mix up all the mortar you need and it won't dry out before you're done.
We had a bit of an issue with the amount of tile we purchased not being enough and had a frantic round of "what if we did this" and phone calls to Lowe's before we had to punt and install the tile around the sink 5 courses shy of where the other tiles ended.  By this time the mortar had become a bit unworkable, but we didn't let that stop us, we made it work and got er done.

Mixed cliches aside, we really should have mixed up a new batch of mortar, I'm pretty sure we just got lucky and caught the very tail end of the life of the mortar.

Don't be scared of cutting the tile. 
This is what held us up for the longest time.  John the tile cutter had never cut glass tile and was unsure of how to start.  We just tried a glass cutting tool and it worked for us since we didn't have any complicated cuts.

Don't buy that crazy expensive stuff if you're only doing a small tile job.

Here is our homemade mortar and grout mixing attachment:

 And the homemade glass cutting jig:

They worked just fine for us and we spent $0 dollars.

Since this post is dragging on and on, I'll just post a few pictures.

IN PROGRESS:  Painted, but not tiled.
This is how the room looked for a couple of months.  

IN PROGRESS:  Oops, some tiles slid!
NBD, I just popped them off and reset them with
some crazy glue.  And they are still there.

AFTER:  Not grouted yet, but very pretty.
Notice my trick photog skills, you can't tell that the tile
on the left is 5 courses higher than the tile around the sink.
Or maybe you can?  Don't tell me.

A note about grouting,  it is super easy, just do it.  It's a hassle, but so worth it in the end.

And now, the after photos...

AFTER:  All grouted and shiny

AFTER:  Lookin' good 

AFTER:  I still need a curtain.

 But for now it's nice to see Spring happening :)


 

AFTER:  I really don't know what to do with all this counter space

BEFORE:  One last time - I promise 

AFTER:  Much calmer, don't you think?

Still to do:

Sew a curtain (can't decide between something natural like burlap or some kicky fabric)

Contain the mess o'cords that connect our lives to the outside (phone/internet)

Install a shelf above the sink to hide the fact that the tile doesn't match up height-wise

Basement bathroom, part deux - MORE TILE

So, part two.

We left off with a ripped out backsplash and prepping the floor for tile, right?

John tried and tried to chip out the floor tiles underneath the toilet, but like everything else in this house, professionals did it and thus it is so much harder to undo what a pro did the right way the first time.  Alas, as problems go, it's a good problem to have isn't it?

So on to the tool rental place to rent a demolition hammer.  But of course the guys at the tool place know way more than we do about tools and told John he needed a rotary hammer.  Whatever.  Please let me rent the tool so you can charge me 25% of the retail cost of the tool.  Thanks.

Rant over.

John came back with the rotary hammer and turned that bad boy ON.

BEFORE:  there's the carpet,
blissfully unaware of it's fate

Yea, I wasn't so impressed either.  But did that thing work!  Wow.  10 minutes and it was done.  Done so well that there was no re-leveling or patching needed.  We were ready to tile baby!

So now we take out the blue carpet and are ready to start tiling!

IN PROGRESS:  see how well the rotary hammer
works?  Also, note the awesome job John did at
patching the walls where the tile was before.
There is a surprise for the back wall....

I can not stress this enough.  Plan your layout before you start mixing mortar.  We have done our share of tiling and have already learned this lesson.  We spent a fair amount of time figuring out the cuts and spacing of the tiles and drawing our level lines etc... But this work definitely pays off when you get started.  We were able to do the entire floor in about an hour.  That's with the wet saw acting up and John having to do the cuts without it.  Thankfully, our plan involved mostly straight cuts and it didn't slow us up much.  Tomorrow we grout!  

IN PROGRESS:  Hey, that's me!  Tiling!!

Yea, tomorrow....  was the Capital One Bowl (Nebraska v. S. Carolina) at noon.  We planned on having some friends over and watching the game, setting the backsplash tile, and then grouting the floor.  Who knew that the Huskers would stink it up so badly?  Ugh.  So we decided to let the day get away from us.  Next thing we knew we were ordering pizzas for dinner and watching ALL of the bowl games until way after bedtime.  Oops.  

So the next day we got to the backsplash and grout.  I say so what?  We are on holiday break and deserve a day to lay around with friends watching football and pigging out and not grouting the basement bathroom.  Sam is the only one who cared since he had to come ALL the way upstairs to go to the bathroom.  Poor baby :)

Now that backsplash was a bitch.  No other way to say it.  We didn't plan out the layout as much since it was such a small job and the tiles intersected so long runs wouldn't be a problem.  We knew there would be cuts.  We thought it would take 30 minutes tops.  Truth is, it sucked.  Since the wet saw was out of commission, John had such a tough time cutting the glass tiles with a glass cutter and snips.  We got it done in the end, but our 30 minute timeline was shot to hell.  It took about 2, maybe 2 1/2 hours to finish.    

But it is glorious, look:

IN PROGRESS:  not grouted yet and horrible lighting :)

Now it's mid afternoon and we haven't even started grouting the floor yet.  No worries.  Grout is the easiest thing, it's the cleanup that sucks.  We grouted the floor after dinner and it came out perfect.  So glad we did the planning etc... so we could just be happy with the finished project instead of wishing we'd spent more time on the prep.  I tell ya, it pays to be a grownup sometimes and think before action.  Well, in home improvement projects anyway...

Enjoy the after shots of the tile...

AFTER:  Grouted and still poorly lit

AFTER:  Ahhh, done and looking F-I-N-E

Next, part three - the little things that you don't think are going to take too long that end up taking way too long.