Cleaning up our mess
We pick up the story with a thick, gritty haze on a majority of our new tiles. The traditional method of using a wet sponge in a circular motion is not working since we’ve let the grout set too long.
I returned to Lowe’s to take back some unused materials and inquired of one of the employees what my next step should be. He seemed confused but finally pointed me to a “haze remover” product. At $7 a bottle it was a little pricey but I was desperate to save my butt. I took it home, poured it on and let it sit a couple minutes like the directions stated, then started scrubbing. A little of the residue was coming off, but not enough. I turned to Google for help.
Eventually, I found a really comprehensive tile forum and after finding no existing questions that gave me an answer, I signed up and posted my own question. Upon further reading though, it looked like using vinegar was working for a lot of people. We tried mixing it 50/50 with water but it still wasn’t working. Not even straight vinegar made much of a dent.
I got a couple responses on the tile forum, but nothing that I hadn’t read elsewhere. LW finally got the great idea to try vinegar with a scrubbing pad, so I picked up some at the store. We were positive they wouldn’t damage the tile, since we had already used a metal chisel to scrape off some of the thicker areas of leftover grout.
Success! We found that the following process worked to get the hardened grout off the tile:
- Spray vinegar on the tile and let sit for a few minutes
- Scrub like heck
Definitely not an easy task, we estimated each tile took about 5-10 minutes to scrub. With over 200 tiles…well you can do the math. Eventually we took it up a notch and tried steel wool, which worked a little better.
We’re just now (almost a month later) getting rid of all the haze and the tile looks amazing.
Finishing the Bathroom
The last major part of the tile job was to paint the bathroom and install the new pedestal sink, toilet and fixtures in the bathroom.
We choose a deep yellow color for the bathroom that seemed to go well with the existing greens we had in the living and dining room and kitchen. But when I started painting, I was worried. It was really bright. LW agreed. We deliberated and decided to try painting the floor trim white to see if that would help…..it didn’t.
After living with it a couple days, we both agreed if we left it this color all people would notice was the brightness and not pay attention to all the other work we had completed. We decided to repaint it a toned down yellow.
Disappointed by the color, we decided it was time to pick out our sink and fixtures. LW and I wanted to make a date night out of it, knowing this might be our last night out before K2 arrived. We dropped off K1 at the grandparents and headed out. After a couple other stops, we had a nice dinner and around 7 headed over to Lowes. We knew they had the toilet we wanted, since we had the same one at our first home.
First, we picked out the light fixture and tried to coordinate the faucet and accessories (TP holder, towel hoop) with it. However, we originally chose a pewter light only to find out there was no pewter faucets except one we both hated. Back to the lighting section, we choose a chrome finish light since we found both a faucet and accessories in that finish. LW even let me buy the expensive TP holder that I fell in love with, thanks sweetie! We picked up the toilet and looked at the pedestal sink we found online. The sink ended up having some funky design on top that we hated. The only other options were a really cheap looking pedestal sink combo and a really expensive one. Bummer. I guess a trip to Home Depot would be needed. But it was getting late, so we rushed to checkout just as they announced the store would be closing in a few minutes. We loaded up our purchases and headed back to pick up a sleeping K1.
Up early the next morning, I repainted the bathroom again. This time, the color was perfect, just enough to brighten up the small space but not too rich or bright to be distracting. With that success under my belt, I was ready to tackle installing the new toilet after the paint dried.
If you’ve never installed a toilet before, it really isn’t that difficult. Most are sold in kits, so everything you need is in the box. The only tricky thing with this install was the tile raised the floor up about 1/4′, so I wasn’t sure if the flange on the floor would be high enough to make a good seal. Turns out I was right, the first time I set the toilet down there was no seal at all, I was able to pick it right back up without the wax grabbing on at all. Not good.
To add to the frustration, the subfloor under one of the bolts that hold the toilet down had been cut out for the pipe to come up from the basement. The first time I put the bolt through the hole, it fell right through into the basement. I grabbed a scrap of cardboard to span the hole and hold the bolt in place temporarily. To raise the flange, I unscrewed it from the subfloor and installed some shims. I was a little concerned, because there is a little gap within the flange and the pipe beneath, but upon further investigation, it is glued together and the flange goes inside the pipe. I thought the chances of a leak would be minimal. The wax seal grabbed on the second time I lowered it on to the flange. I tightened everything up, installed the tank – being careful not to over-tighten the bolts and crack it, hooked up the water supply and crossed my fingers….flush!
No leaks! On the first try! I was pumped. I went into the basement to double-check the flange seal and didn’t see any evidence of a leak. Just to be safe I did a few more test flushes and didn’t see any water. Woohoo! I decided to take the rest of the day off and enjoy my work.
The next morning we headed over to HD to pick up a sink we found online. It was a little more pricey that the original but we both liked it. The only problem was the faucet we purchased wouldn’t fit – it was 4″ centerset – the sink was 8″. So we’d need a new faucet as well. HD actually had 2 sinks we liked, one cheaper option and the one we saw online. Factoring in the new faucet (8″ center set are more expensive), it would be about $150 extra. We debated back and forth, all while K1 was running up and down the aisles and hiding behind boxes. We were almost set on the cheaper option, when we finally agreed to spend the extra money and get what we wanted. Our budget for the project so far had been pretty close, and an extra $150 wasn’t going to hurt too bad. Plus, I thought if we bought one we loved now we’d be less likely to want to change it in the future. We loaded it on the cart and headed for the checkout.
Some background: we wanted a pedestal sink to give us a little more room since the bathroom is only about 3′ x 8′ and the door swings in. With the original vanity, it was a squeeze to open the door and get in the bathroom far enough to shut the door. We were hoping with space on either side of the sink there would be more room to maneuver.
It was already getting late in the morning when we got home and I really wanted this project done, so I unloaded everything and started working on the sink installation. It went pretty easily, other than the fact that in hindsight I definitely would have mounted the sink drain BEFORE mounting the sink on the pedestal. Like I mentioned, it is a small space and the pedestal was basically a “U” shape, so the drain was hidden inside, making it very difficult to get a wrench in there to tighten it. After some maneuvering, I found the best way to do it was to turn the whole pipe, then hold the “nut” with the wrench, while turning the pipe with my hands. I bet it took a good 20-30 minutes to get this last step done so the drain wasn’t leaking anymore. Man was I glad to get that over with.
A little later, I installed the light fixture, toilet paper holder and towel hook. It really finished off the bathroom and made all the hard work and frustration worthwhile.
Wrap Up
At this point, we’re basically done with any big projects. Our new baby is due any day now, so starting anything else really isn’t practical. Also, since LW quit working as of last Friday we are trying to conserve money as much as possible. We’re pretty sure we can live on just my income, but don’t have a lot of extra room in the budget. We’ve been planning for this for a long time, so we saved quite a while to do all the projects I’ve blogged about recently.
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