Been a little absent as of late

I've been out of town helping my poor sister, Casey, with her fiasco!

This last semester I told Case that I would love to help her with remodeling her bathroom (she purchased a fixer-upper house last year and has been slowly but surely getting it livable) but school and big exams kept getting in the way so I finally told her that I would be unable to help with her bathroom until after this semester ended. I felt like such a bad sister! But such is life.

Well Casey had some money from her tax return and decided to go ahead and hire someone to do the bathroom remodel. She got a bid and it was lower than she expected and she pulled the trigger on it. He ripped out her bathroom, and halfway installed the tiles. Part of the install looked decent, and the other part looked like he was drunk while doing it! THEN he just dropped off the face of the planet and wouldn't return her calls. :x By the way, this is her ONLY BATHROOM.

So my semester ended last month and I was finally able to make it out there two weekends ago for about 3 days and WOW. The guy she hired was such a dingbat! We ended up needing to rip everything out including the backerboard. I was walking on the "floor" he installed and it depressed in spots that had me concerned, so I talked to my sister's Boyfriend and he was all like, "Yeah, there's nothing under the backerboard floor he put down, just the support beams." ...

...

...

WHAT?! This IDIOT installed concrete backerboard as the floor?! No subfloor for support. :evil: So I ended up ripping that all up and while there were quite a few support boards, there was some empty space for feet to fall through. *Explodes with frustration* So I installed a nice plywood subfloor that felt nice and solid as you walked on it, and then applied a couple coats of RedGuard to seal it before I continued with tile. God. What an idiot. He had also cut holes in his "floor" for the air vents halfway where they were suppose to be. So when I installed the subfloor I made a point about cutting it correctly and everything fit like a glove.

Oh, and in the pictures you'll see the tub looks a bit dinged up? That's a BRAND NEW TUB that the idiot banged into place. Up close you can see a ton of stress fractures in the side of the tub and it's definitely dented as well as the obvious two places where the paint is now missing.

I came home last week for a few days to check on the buns and dogs, and then headed back out there to finish the job Sunday through Wednesday. I got it 95% finished and all my sister has to do is put up the remaining bull-nose pieces on the sides of the shower area (they were ordered and should be there in a week), grout them, and then apply a grout sealer.

We live 3.5 hours away so while I wanted to finish-finish the job, at least it's mostly done and left in her capable hands. She's also planning on adding white trim along the floor and ceiling so that's why it's not grouted at the wall.

I'm going to try and get my hands on some of the "before" pictures as I only took pictures before I left yesterday for home.


So that's where I've been! I'm catching up on RabbitTalk now, lol.

You have been busy! Great job . . . and it's nice to see you back.

Glad to see you back. Man that is one heck of a job you did there. Looks great!!

Thanks guys! I'm just glad my sister has a toilet again... 1 month without a toilet or shower! My mother lives a short distance from Casey and my niece so they've been able to use her shower.

:shock:

I'd be :evil: furious with that shoddy contractor!!! Wow, you seem to have a solid bit of experience with construction, though! I'm very impressed, the biggest demo job I did was unscrewing (yes, the idiot used screws, every 6 inches) a 14' x 12' hardie-backer-covered living room floor. My back was killing me... but nothing compared to putting in whole new floors!

That bathroom is looking pretty good, Crazy, maybe I can hire you when we find our place? :mrgreen:
We'll include lodgings and time off to see the beach, of course.

Oh she's definitely taking him to small claims court, she paid him first so he took her money and ran.

... someone put hardie backer board on the living room floor?! But... why on earth??? Some people confuddle me to no end.

You never know Nymph, I may take you up on your offer! To be honest, I really enjoy tiling, there's something so nice to see it all come together perfectly. This was actually only my second time doing a bath project, my first time doing tile I did a much bigger project (2013) and I'm happy to say it also turned out really well.

I just pulled up the pictures to share and even I'm impressed! Almost makes me want to re-do my upstairs bathroom now...............

2CrazyFools":2kn4nqgq said:

... someone put hardie backer board on the living room floor?! But... why on earth??? Some people confuddle me to no end.

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Yup. :wall:
They put tiles over pretty decent hardwood floors, which were completely ruined by all the dang screws they used to secure the hardie-backer. DH was scratching his head, too, when he first saw it (that's how I ended up being "recruited" to help). :slap:


I'd be proud of your tiling skills, too! I really like those floors... DH pretty much wants to turn our master bathroom (doesn't matter what or where we buy, this is his dream) into a steam room, so I'd like it to be completely tiled. Floor, walls, ceiling... seal it up! :lol:
We can worry about slip-protection later, but if he plans on fogging up the entire bathroom, you can be sure I want as little possibility of mold as I can make it.

Those little insets of pebbles look super cute though, were they pre-made or did you arrange those yourself?

I totally forgot I tiled THAT MUCH of the bathroom, I thought I had just tiled the shower area and the floors but now that I'm thinking about it, I think the walls were rotting or something and I figured I might as well....

The little pebbles are hand set, I know I bought a bag of pebbles from Home Depot or Walmart or something, but most were too rough so I took what I could and then mixed it with some decorative sanded pebbles from Dollar Tree that go into vases, lol.

Great job!

And aren't doing bathrooms fun! We just did ours. No contractor, just us. Blech.

2CrazyFools":1adu4jkb said:

The little pebbles are hand set, I know I bought a bag of pebbles from Home Depot or Walmart or something, but most were too rough so I took what I could and then mixed it with some decorative sanded pebbles from Dollar Tree that go into vases, lol.

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It turned out beautiful!