Bathroom (almost) done!

First off, we apologize for a lack of Christmas cards to many of you. Getting the bathroom done (okay, working since we're still not done) took longer than we expected - in fact right up to when Megan's family got here. Since without that bathroom working, we'd only have one shower for 6 people, we spent most of our awake time working on it and not on prepping for Christmas. We got out cards for immediate family, but even those were pretty impersonal! So, while you may not have gotten a card (or you got a lame one), we were thinking of you and hope you had a good day!

Now to the bathroom. First, if you plan on doing a bathroom consider not using hard ceramic tile on the walls. Seriously. Or be willing to pay big $$ for a diamond-coated hole saw. We went with carbide-coated (since it was much cheaper - I mean we're only cutting 5 holes total for the faucets and spouts right?). Ugh. I spent literally most of a day trying to cut 4 holes for the tub spout and faucets. I got 2 done and then broke the tile on the 3rd hole. Nope - not doing that anymore. We went with a slate mosaic around the faucets and the spacing was just right - all I had to do was pop a few squares off. If we ever do any of this again (still have the upstairs shower in principle) we'll either use something softer (like slate or marble or ....) or buy a diamond-coated hole saw on eBay where they're much cheaper than at Lowe's. The slate was a joy to work with (easy to cut when I had to do so) - I'm pretty sure you could gnaw through it if necessary.

Second - seriously consider slate. I like it and when it's sealed properly it's gorgeous. And, let me mention again, it's really easy to cut and work with. Honey, are you listening? I'll pay the extra cost to decrease my frustration levels!!!

So what's left? Well, we need to caulk around the toilet yet (we had a leak problem with it which is a huge other story). We also need to put up the towel bars and TP holder. I've tried mounting these using, again, masonry bits to drill the holes in the tile and given up. I've ordered some 1/4" diamond-coated hole saws to put these up - hopefully get here soon. I could always hang them in the drywall above the tile, but then they'd be over 4' above the floor which might be awkward for TP. :-) We need to change out the chrome faucet flanges with the brushed nickel ones we just bought to match the rest of the hardware (we couldn't find the nickel ones orignally and time was running short). We have some epoxy/paint to primp up the tub to a "new" white finish - much cheaper and easier than replacing the tub, especially since the tub is built into the wall! Finally, we also have some almond caulk (~ wall color) to seal up the top edge of the slate on the walls and the top and vertical portions of the shower stall edges.

Here's a picture of the shower in its "we're cleaning this up" state - note the sponge and wet paper towel, along with the grout and mortar in the tub still. Click on the photo for a medium-sized version or click here for a large (3 MB) version which really shows up the slate.