Other posts in this series: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Days 4-5, Days 6-7, Days 8-9, Days 12-13, Week 3, Before&After

This is one of my more fun updates, I think.  Our bathroom finally looks like a bathroom again!! First of all, the contractor finished grouting and caulking. We picked out a black grout for dramatic contrast with the white tile.  He also installed the shower fixtures, the sink, the toilet, the medicine cabinet, the mirror, and the new lighting.  All we have left is the faucet for the sink (which arrives today), the towel bar,  the toilet paper holder, and the shower curtain rod. I think all of that can be done in a day, so we are almost there!

The floor's a little dusty, but its pretty much finished now that it has been grouted

New Kohler fixtures and dramatic black grout. Oh, and caulk too.

I LOVE the new shower head. Too bad this photo is terrible.

The lower half of the shower fixtures. Note to self, must remove those stickers from the tub.

New everything! You don't know how much trouble we went though to get that Ikea mirror. It included trips to two different Ikeas and other hijinks. You'll have to ask Joe about it sometime.

Alternate view. A friend with a wide angle lense is going to help me photograph the final product, so stay tuned for the big reveal!

This is the new light fixture. We got it for $40 from the Restoration Hardware Outlet at Tanger.

Our contractor also patched up a hole in the floor that was left behind when we ripped down a wall to expand the mater closet.

Luckily most of this will exist inside of the new master closet, so you won't really be able to see it. But they put down new planks of wood and filled in the cracks with some kind of brown stuff. All of this will get sanded and re-stained along with the rest of the hardwood in the apartment.

In case you didn't notice it in my previous posts, this is the footprint of the old wall. It left behind a rather nasty void.

So that was day 10 and 11.  This morning I got up early and stopped by the apartment before work.  The floor guys had arrived and I got to pick out the stain color for refinishing the hardwood.  They sanded down a patch of floor and gave me three options (see below), and I ended up picking the one on the far left. Its called “Ebony” and I felt that it looked the most neutral and the most sophisticated.

Our hardwood stain options from left to right: "Ebony," "Dark Walnut," and "Mahogany"

They will be doing all the sanding and staining today, so I won’t be able to go back to the apartment till Tuesday when it dries.  Then they will be doing the varnishing on Wednesday.

Other posts in this series: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Days 4-5, Days 8-9, Days 10-11, Days 12-13, Week 3, Before&After

I decided to combine renovation progress posts two days at a time…especially considering our contractor told us we still have two weeks to go.

On day 6, they put up the cement backers in the bathroom. I was mistaken about the fact that tiling was next.  But thanks to some helpful advice from Allan’s comments in my last post, we know what important steps to look out for in building a quality, long lasting bathroom.  We checked in with our contractor about the materials he was using and asked him to make sure everything was waterproofed.  However, our contractor and a second opinion we got from a plumber that a friend knows, both said that redgard is not necessary if you have proper ventilation in the bathroom.  Sigh, whoever is correct, you can check out the comments from the last post for more specific information.

Not much else was completed.  But we chose out tile spacing.  below you can see our two options.  I had a really hard time deciding because this was a detail i had never considered before.  But I chose the narrower spacing figuring you cant go wrong with subtlety.  I am planning to use “charcoal” colored grout to contrast with the white tiles and I’m thinking less is more.  Especially since the penny tile floors will already be showing a large amount of grout, just because of the nature of round tiles.

Our two options: The tile spacing on the left is about 1/16 inch, and the spacing on the right is about an eigth of an inch.

On day 7, they started tiling as well as a few other things around the apartment.  They glued up the tiles in half of the bathroom, but they still have not started grouting.

The right side of the bathroom has now been tiled. Still no grout though. You can also see two rectangular bald spots in the shower corner. We are getting ceramic shelving installed there.

Newly attached tile with spacers

All the other work was pretty minor.  They painted the closet interiors and sanded down the window sills.  The windows, like everything else, had many gunked on layers of paint, and its nice to see them looking new and smooth again.

Master closet with a new coat of paint.

hallway closets have also been painted.

our sanded window sill.

everything looks so much better in the daylight.