When last I left you, the bathroom had plumbing, but we were using moving blankets for walls.



Up until this point we'd squeezed through the stud walls to get to the bathroom because there was not actual, proper door. As I'd mentioned, when we first bought the house, the only bathroom opened into one of the two bedrooms. In our new design, we wanted to open it to the living room. Access for everyone, yay!

Bring on the Sawzall.



Now, with a real door, we could close in the walls, retire the moving blankets, start tiling and finally finish out the bathroom. But keep in mind here, we're not aiming to build just any old bathroom. No, we were going to build the coolest old-fashioned looking curbless walk-in shower ever...EVER! But first, we had to start with the basics.



First, we framed in the shower with a back shelf and a bench. Then we hired a firm to put down a fiberglass shell for the shower.



That stuff smelled so horrible, but I digress. Once the fiberglass was dry, we put in the mud base with a gentle slope toward the drain for proper drainage.



Next we hung the wall board up. We installed cement backer board where we planned to tile, and moisture resistant drywall everywhere we planned to paint. Unfortunately, this meant removing the toilet and sink AGAIN.



We comforted ourselves with the knowledge that all we had standing between us and indoor plumbing was a little bit of tile.

Of course, neither of us had ever tiled before.

First came the mud.



Then we used roll on Red Guard to provide additional water proofing and to serve as an anti-fracture membrane. It goes on pink, but drys red.



Finally, the floor was ready for tile.



Wow, it's exciting when all the sub floor and stud walls and drywall finally start to come together as a finished surface. The floor was a bit of a pain to install, but it turns out, that was the easy part.

The walls, on the other hand were a challenge.



First we used a laser level to create a straight horizontal line for the first row, then we used the vertical level line to create a center point on one of the tiles in order to create the diagonal offset pattern that make subway tile so neat. Then slowly the subway bricks went up.









What's this?



Plumbing! Yes! We bought a new toilet that is advertised as being able to flush 12 golf balls. Someday, we might actually test that. With the sink, we found a pedastal style which has a more contemporary feel. The idea is to mesh modern with classic. How's it working so far?

Despite the introduction of the toilet and sink, we were still sans shower. *sigh* That would take us an additional week or three, but eventually we capped everything out with our black stripe.





Next came the grout. For this, we went with an epoxy grout. This stuff is pretty cool. It doesn't need to be sealed, and it doesn't stain, but you HAVE to clean the grout off the tile very well, otherwise you'll end up with a permanent epoxy film on your shiny new tiles.



Once everything was grouted, we caulked the corners and edges with a special caulk made to exactly match our grout, then we were ready to hook that sucker up.

For the shower head we decided to go retro. The entire bathroom was intended to look like a 1920s bathroom but with a curbless shower in place of the good old claw foot bathtub. So for our shower hardware we found a really cool looking rain/hand held combo shower that looks like the only claw foot era shower hardware.

We ordered it online from England, so I named it Giles.



That night, we had the first shower in our new home (that we'd been living in for months!) By the way, in case you're wondering, we had access to a shower at work the whole time. We're not that die hard, or gross. Anyway, back to my point, after the first blissful shower our 20 year old hot water heater blew a gasket...literally.

And now, I'll leave you with the suspense. Stay tuned, for the next installment of Bathroom Saga, I call it "Plumbing Hell & Lighting Heaven."

For now, behold the wonder that is our beautiful (cold water) shower.