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For the past several weeks I have been in the midst of a complete master bathroom remodel. Our existing bathroom left much to be desired. It has a nice cast iron tub that is still in perfect condition, but the vanity, sinks, toilet and shower fixtures, as well as the shower tiling, were at best "builder grade," meaning the cheapest carp the builder could get away with. The floor was half tile and half carpet. Originally it was all carpet (stupid!!) so about 10 years ago I took out half the carpet and tiled the area around the toilet and tub. Now, I want to take out that previous tile and remove all carpet and re-tile the entire space with large format tiles. After months of planning and looking at different tile options and different vanities and sinks and shower fixtures, late summer I decided it was time to begin the project in earnest.
The first thing I did was to replace the old inefficient toilet with a modern, low flow Toto Drake toilet. I actually did the toilet replacement last year (now I had to temporarily remove the new toilet in order to facilitate re-tiling the floor.)
Next on the list was to replace the large, aged window in the shower. I decided I wanted to eliminate to regular sliding glass window with a slightly smaller (but still large) glass block window. I designed the window I wanted on paper and had a company in Ohio build the window. I had to contract out having the old window removed, building down the opening (the original window was 48" x 36" but I wanted the block window to be 48" x 32" (4 inched less tall)):
My Glass Block Window Design. The dark/light grey blocks are alternating clear wavy glass and frosted glass 4"x8" blocks with three 8"x8" colored blocks in the center.
This was the finished glass block window when it arrived from the maker. They captured exactly what I wanted;. I was quite happy with how it came out. Note I had them pre-install a vinyl frame to facilitate installation.
This is a shot of the "before" bathroom as seen from standing in the doorway of the walk-in closet behind me. (The new Toto toilet is seen)
Things get serious when I started tearing out the old shower tile and backer board. I had to take all the old tile and backboard off, exposing just the studs in the shower/tub area. This was not a fun task. You can see the old copper plumbing, which as you will see, I replaced with Pex.
The next step was to replace the window with the new Glass block window. Because the new window weighs nearly 200 lbs, this was one task I decided to contract out. Between the cost of the window, shipping and the contractors, this brought the total cost for the new window to around $3800.
Now that the window was installed, I needed to "shim" all the studs to ensure they were perfectly plum and straight before installing the "Go Board" (a waterproof backer board on which the tiles will be cemented). I used a combination of drywall shims and ripped wood shims to get the studs all perfectly plum and straight. This is critical, especially when installing large format tiles.
Here I have replaced the plumbing with Pex (except after this picture I decided to replace the tub faucet drop-down and "faucet stub-out" with new copper as I'd read in several places that it was not recommended to use Pex for this part of the system).
Finally all the Go Board is installed. Note also that I eliminated the popcorn from the ceiling immediately above the tub - I plan to eliminate all the popcorn from the entire bathroom ceiling before it's all said and done. (Whoever invented that horrible stuff?)
Finally the tiling begins. Note the use of "leveling clips" to keep all the tiles in alignment. Normally they don't recommend a 50% overlap with large format tile like I'm doing here. However, when I tried other layouts (straight side by side or 1/3 stagger), I always ended up with some very thin, weird looking small tile cuts that would have looked bad, so I decided to do 50% overlapping tiles and try my best to keep the tiles level with the clips. In the end I was quite happy with the results and had almost no "lippage."
The first thing I did was to replace the old inefficient toilet with a modern, low flow Toto Drake toilet. I actually did the toilet replacement last year (now I had to temporarily remove the new toilet in order to facilitate re-tiling the floor.)
Next on the list was to replace the large, aged window in the shower. I decided I wanted to eliminate to regular sliding glass window with a slightly smaller (but still large) glass block window. I designed the window I wanted on paper and had a company in Ohio build the window. I had to contract out having the old window removed, building down the opening (the original window was 48" x 36" but I wanted the block window to be 48" x 32" (4 inched less tall)):
My Glass Block Window Design. The dark/light grey blocks are alternating clear wavy glass and frosted glass 4"x8" blocks with three 8"x8" colored blocks in the center.
This was the finished glass block window when it arrived from the maker. They captured exactly what I wanted;. I was quite happy with how it came out. Note I had them pre-install a vinyl frame to facilitate installation.
This is a shot of the "before" bathroom as seen from standing in the doorway of the walk-in closet behind me. (The new Toto toilet is seen)
Things get serious when I started tearing out the old shower tile and backer board. I had to take all the old tile and backboard off, exposing just the studs in the shower/tub area. This was not a fun task. You can see the old copper plumbing, which as you will see, I replaced with Pex.
The next step was to replace the window with the new Glass block window. Because the new window weighs nearly 200 lbs, this was one task I decided to contract out. Between the cost of the window, shipping and the contractors, this brought the total cost for the new window to around $3800.
Now that the window was installed, I needed to "shim" all the studs to ensure they were perfectly plum and straight before installing the "Go Board" (a waterproof backer board on which the tiles will be cemented). I used a combination of drywall shims and ripped wood shims to get the studs all perfectly plum and straight. This is critical, especially when installing large format tiles.
Here I have replaced the plumbing with Pex (except after this picture I decided to replace the tub faucet drop-down and "faucet stub-out" with new copper as I'd read in several places that it was not recommended to use Pex for this part of the system).
Finally all the Go Board is installed. Note also that I eliminated the popcorn from the ceiling immediately above the tub - I plan to eliminate all the popcorn from the entire bathroom ceiling before it's all said and done. (Whoever invented that horrible stuff?)
Finally the tiling begins. Note the use of "leveling clips" to keep all the tiles in alignment. Normally they don't recommend a 50% overlap with large format tile like I'm doing here. However, when I tried other layouts (straight side by side or 1/3 stagger), I always ended up with some very thin, weird looking small tile cuts that would have looked bad, so I decided to do 50% overlapping tiles and try my best to keep the tiles level with the clips. In the end I was quite happy with the results and had almost no "lippage."
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