Working Wives & Bachelorettes: Ooooh tile, things are gonna get easier

And as the home projects continue, and some wrap up - whether we want to or not - we are learning a lot. And what we don’t know – we YouTube!

Still, sad to say, I am without a shower. Although progress has been made over the weekend, I am still longing for my own bathroom and losing the stress of showering at my mom’s or my future MIL’s house every day. I pray to the shower gods it is complete this week!

I’ve learned a lot about flooring. Tile, hardwoods, floating, laminate… Tiling, oh, tiling, you are bane of my existence, and I now see why people pay the big bucks for professionals to come in and do it for them. If I knew it was going to take this long, and be this tedious, I would have selected a whole shower, not a tub and tile. And remember, my bathroom is SMALL! Still, it’s a huge freakin project.

I’ve also learned that the shows on DIY TV and HGTV help set unrealistic expectations for your own home improvement projects. Unless you have a team of 30 people, all specialized in something, it is impossible to get a pretty large project done in three days, especially when you are DIYers like Nick and me.

I would now like to take you on a little transformation journey that has been my bathroom...

One fun Saturday afternoon, our friends Meagan and Kevin came over to check out the new digs... Nick enlisted Kevin in some demolition, which resulted in my bathroom looking like this - and my dining room filled with insulation and the rest of the first floor covered in a layer of dust. Who knew demolition was so dirty?

A week later, my friend Matt came to town all the way from Columbus. He is a professional contractor, and was kind enough to give DIYers like us a hand. Well, thank the dear baby Jesus he came! Clearly we had more issue than we were ready for - water damage to the floor, floor joists and a door frame that were no longer attached to the house. Ugh. A huge mess! This is what my bathroom looked like after day 1 (a gaping hole looking into the basement). Three days later we had a new floor, new plumbing and a ceiling and electric! Not what we thought, but so thankful for the help and knowledge of a GREAT friend.

Here we have a mid-project picture. Look - drywall, cement board and a new tub! All preped and ready to go. Ladies - for those of you who don't know (I learned this) cement board is different than drywall. Cement board is specially made for tiling purposes and does not absorb water! Hence it's importance in the shower area. Also, cement board doesn't expand and contract on the floor (like a plain wood base floor) so it is good for floor tile too - no cracking!

Here, we have the most updated picture that I have taken. Progress! Thanks to some other sweet friends (Adam and Aron) we now have a floor! Isn't she pretty? The hole in the middle is where the toilet will attach and the poop will go :) Since this photo was taken, we have grouted the floor and started tiling in the tub/shower area. Big things are happening in the Killmeyer-Irvine household.