Peter and I are finally both feeling better. We’re pretty behind on returning emails and phone calls so if you haven’t heard from us in a bit, we’re sorry and will get back to you really soon.
The bathroom project is being dragged out much more than I ever thought it would. This is partially due to us getting sick and being really busy and not have time to knock out as many tasks as we thought we would and partially because we keep finding other things to fix. About a week and a half ago we had to call a plumber to fix a leak mostly because both the knobs outside and the knobs under the sink that turn the water off no longer worked. I’m all for trying things ourselves but without the ability to turn off the water neither of us were going to attempt it. So on we go. I can’t wait to get to the accessorizing part of the project, but after painting the bathroom closet we submitted to the fact that the actual bathroom really needs a paint job as well. The previous owners decided to use a flat paint and it left the walls looking like this.
See all those tiny cracks?
And because the main readers of this blog are my dog-obsessed soon-to-be -in-laws, I will show you all this photo. Peter and I went over to our friends’ house for dinner on Saturday. In addition to cooking us a fabulous dinner, they invited our Poms over to play with theirs. Here is a group photo of the dogs with Anita and Peter working to get them to all stay still. Ours just look like black little smears. The concept of not moving is way too hard for them.
So much fun!
How was everyone else’s weekend?
I have to say that the most satisfying thing I’ve done in a really long time was to take our window from this
To this:
I’m not going to lie, a lot of happy jumping and a joyful trip out to the garbage can to chunk the rotting piece of mess away forever ensued. Obviously we need to put in a new window cover, but that will come soon.
I hope you all had a good weekend. I spent last week fighting the crowds at SXSW. Now that the event is over, I’m stuck in bed at home fighting a cold that I picked up somewhere along the way. Ugh, being sick on a weekend is the worst! There are so many more productive things that I could be doing right now.
Anyway, while I’m resting I’ll bring you a bit more up to speed on the bathroom makeover. Last week I showed you a photo of the bathtub after we had bleached and re-caulked the area. We made a ton of progress but there were still little tiles and grout lines that needed help. After searching the aisles of the hardware store for something that could help, I found this.
Using the grout coating pen was really similar to using a white out pen. You press the tip a few times to start the paint flow and then you draw along the grout. There were two problems that I had using this tool. First, my grout was not bright white so it didn’t blend well ( I could’ve predicted this issue). Secondly, the coverage is not great. I needed to go over dark spots of the grout repeatedly and I still ended up with uneven coverage. Here’s the best “during photo” that I have.
The above portion of the grout in this photo has been painted with the grout pen. The lower darker lines have not. When you look at the painted portion, you can see a messy-looking finish. Overall it helped mask the stains, but if I had to rate this product I would probably give it a C. It helped, but I was unimpressed by the messiness.
After painting over some of the grout and using a razor blade to scratch off bits of mildewed caulk that the previous owners had spread over the actual tiles, things were looking much much better.
Has anyone else tried a grout pen? Do you have any techniques that might help for next time?
After Peter finished removing the grout and caulk that sealed our bathtub, we were stuck with the question of which one to use. We knew that you weren’t supposed to mix grout and caulk but which one do you use for a bathtub seal? After a lot of googling I learned that the correct answer is caulk. Here’s why: The foundation of a house will inevitably shift over time. Grout is such a hard substance that if you have used grout to connect seams (think bathtub to wall or one tile wall to another) it will crack when there is any shifting in your foundation. Since caulk had a bit more give, it can hold up better to any minor shifting. If you own a used house/condo/apartment and the previous owner used grout to fill these parts, you need to beware that if/when the grout cracks mold, mildew, and other types of ick are likely to accumulate in those wet crevices. Make sense?
Even after we knew that we would need to caulk things we still had some decisions to make. Many caulks swear that they will not mildew. After researching this on google and talking to my dad (have I mentioned that he’s the handiest person I know?) I learned that a lot of the brands that promise not to mildew still do it anyway. Apparently a lot of handy people do not consider it to be a permanent solution. You’re supposed to go into it knowing that it will eventually get gross again and at that time you’ll have to rip it out and start over.
My dad swears by using tape to get sooth edges. So this was the technique that we used. Start with a clean, dry surface. Use tape to expose only the surface that you want to be covered in caulk.
We used relatively inexpensive caulk that came out of a tube rather than buying a caulk gun. This may seem like common knowledge but if you choose to use a tube, start by cutting a smaller hole and then make it larger as need be. Squeeze a steady stream of caulk into the hole and then use a wet finger to smooth out the top. Make sure not to put an excessive amount, otherwise when you remove the tape you will have a raised caulk line.
Remove the tape while the caulk is still wet.
Let the caulk dry per the directions on the back on the container. Then you’re done. As tempting as they may seem, you really don’t need any of the special gadgets. It’s actually a lot easier than I thought and my dad’s trick of using tape left us with a really professional-looking line.
Here’s a before photo to remind you of the progress.
Have you ever caulked a bathroom? If so, feel free to add the tricks that worked for you.
Before I got started planning out the bathroom closet, Peter had a much less pleasant job to face. While I was at work he created various pastes of bleach that we left sitting on the tiles for long periods of time. Is this the safest thing for you to do? Probably not, but we were desperate and as I mentioned before we didn’t have much money to throw at our bathroom makeover. He managed to gently chip away some of the freestanding grout that was dried to some of the individual tiles. Unfortunately, for fear of chipping the tiles themselves, he did leave some of the more stubborn grout. After just the bleach the bathroom was looking a million times better.
As you can tell from the photo above, the caulk and grout was way too disgusting to leave in tact. Even after bleaching it repeatedly, it still looked like a gross gray color.
Peter went in and removed the strange caulk/grout combination that lined each of the walls and connected the walls to the shower. After vacuuming up the debris, we were ready for a fresh new start.
