Home Project #1: Tiling Bathroom Floors

When we moved in, our house had carpet (carpet!) in the two upstairs bathrooms.  Not just in the big spacious areas, but around the showers and toilets, too.  Yuck!  Our first project was to remove the carpet and tile both bathrooms--starting with the master bathroom--so we could use them without having to wear shower shoes.  Here's a log of our tiling adventure.  

Here's what the master bathroom looked like before we started.  In this picture, the carpet floor looks cleaner than it actually was.  :)

First, we removed the carpet and padding from the bathroom, toilet room, and two connecting closets (totaling about 180 square feet).  We also removed the baseboards, not only because the baseboards would have to be raised to accommodate the higher tile floor, but because the old baseboards were made of MDF, which is basically cardboard that expands when wet (yes, in a bathroom, duh).

Big strong Steve removed the doors, as well as the toilet from the toilet room, too.  Then we undercut the door jambs (so the tile would fit under the jambs) and screwed ½” plywood to the subfloor, which needed strengthening because of inadequate joist spacing.  In the picture below of the plywood, you can see the undercut at one of the doorways.  The John Bridge website was a good resource for our tough questions, especially about deflection limits when determining whether a floor is rated for ceramic tile.

Here is a picture of Mommy being a potty-mouth while cutting a hole for the, well, potty:

Next, we laid backerboard over thinset, screwed it in place, and taped and mortared the joints.  In this bathroom, it was a huge puzzle!

Next, we laid tile.  We had acquired the tile on clearance at Home Depot for $.44/sf, which helped offset the added expense of plywood to stabilize the subfloor.  Laying tile was the most frustratingly slow part of the project because we could only work when both of us were home, so I made no progress at all during the day (two of us needed to be available in case Sam woke up from his nap midway through a batch of thinset).  Each batch of thinset would set about 25 tiles, taking about 45 minutes from start of mixing to last tile down, so it took us about seven batches working sporadically over several days.  Also, because of the area's unusual shape, we counted 96 tiles to be cut (compared to 106 whole tiles).  We used a Workforce wet saw we got on Craigslist for $40 (we'll sell it again once we finish tiling the other bathroom).  Here is a picture of the tile after cleaning the joints but before grouting:

The next step was grouting the joints, which was easier than expected, at least compared to the tile-setting step.  The hardest part was cleaning up all the excess grout so no haze remained (boy, did our knees hurt after that day!).  Finally, I sealed the grout during a couple of Sam's naps, and it ended up looking like this:

We still have to recaulk the shower stall, paint, and install new baseboard.  We got enough baseboard for the entire house when a warehouse advertised 80-foot boxes of baseboard for $5 a box on Craigslist.  But first we need to finish the tile in the guest bathroom (about 30 sf) before Gram and Pops (Magness) visit week after next.  We'll post a picture when it's done!