Bathroom Renovations

May 1, 2022

With our water pressure recently fixed, renovating our upstairs bathroom became more of a priority for us.  With the low water pressure that we had had before, we barely had a trickle of water out of the upstairs shower, so renovating the bathroom to make it nice to use was not high on our priority list.  However, with our increased water pressure, we longed for a long, hot shower in a larger and nicer shower space.  The shower stall that we had been using downstairs was quite small and cramped.

Back in November and December we had pulled out the sink and large, ugly vanity from the upstairs bathroom.  We had also sanded the walls and they were painted when we finally got the right colour of paint for the upstairs. 

So, to carry forward with our bathroom renovations we started by sanding down the wood around the shower and we painted it black.  Then we began the big job of doing the floor.  Since buying the house we wanted to do a heated tile floor in the bathroom and while we were out in Victoria we purchased all of the necessary items.  First we had to pull up the old stick-on vinyl flooring that was on top of the plywood.  Although some of it was peeling up on its own, the rest of it was stuck down surprisingly well, and we had to use a hammer and paint-scraper to get it up.   

Then it was time to remove the toilet.  Luckily we had a toilet to use in the downstairs bathroom, but it made it particularly annoying on cold nights.  We were pleasantly surprised when we pulled up the toilet to find that the plywood underneath it was in fairly good shape.  We had thought that it would be quite likely that we would need to replace some of the floor, but thankfully that was not necessary.  

 

We proceeded to do a dry tile run in which each tile was laid with the tile spacers in place, and we cut all of the necessary tiles.  Jason got quite skilled with our grinder and a tile blade for making intricate cuts and shapes to go around our door moulding, around our toilet hole, and also the cut-out in the middle of a tile for over the heat vent. 

For the tiles that needed a simple straight edge cut we used a tile wet saw that we had borrowed from a friend.  Once the dry fit was completed we picked up all of the tiles and stacked them neatly in organized piles in the order in which we would lay them. 

Then we began to lay down the electric heat trace.  It took us two times to get the spacing right so that the length would be perfect for the area that we wanted to cover.  We ran the heat coil into the shower stall so that we would also have a heated floor in the shower.  With the blue tracks screwed down it was easy to snap the wire into the grooves and run it back and forth.  We installed the heat sensor in between the wires and ran everything up into the wall to where we were going to install the temperature control unit just inside the bathroom door. 

Then it was time to lay some mortar and place our tiles.  Since we did not have any self-levelling mortar we had to lay an extra thick layer, half of the thickness was to cover up the heat trace, and the other half of the thickness was to press the tiles into.  We ended up using way more mortar than we had thought we would so it was a good thing that we had brought up two bags with the idea of also having enough to do the tile work on the kitchen wall.  We ended up using all of the mortar that we had and it was the perfect amount.   

The tiles in the shower stall were the hardest to lay.  We wanted the floor to feel level, and to be sloped just enough that the water would all run to the drain.  This meant that each tile had to be not only sloped slightly back towards the end of the shower with the drain, but also sloped slightly inwards to the middle so that the water would run into the centre and down to the drain hole.  It was challenging to get it perfect, but when we were happy, we moved on.   

Laying the tile in the main part of the bathroom floor went smoothly and we were very happy with how it looked when we finally backed our way out of the doorway.  Several days later we were able to go in and lay the grout.  Several more days and we were able to put the toilet back in with a brand new seal.  A couple more days of drying time and we carefully applied multiple coats of grout sealer.   

The last and very exciting part was when we finally put in our new bathroom sink, which we had purchased when we were out in Victoria.  Unfortunately, instead of that being a simple job it turned into a long and frustrating one.  It turned out, when we started to try to thread our new p-trap drain pipe onto the existing drain pipe protruding from the wall, that the existing cast iron pipe was quite rusted and very thin-walled in some places.  As we threaded on the new pipe we cut through the threads of the old pipe causing pinholes that would inevitably leak.  Two times we cut back the threads and tried to make it work.  In the end we jerry-rigged the connection with some plumbing parts that we had on hand.  Since we did not have access to the parts necessary to fix our problem properly, we were at least happy that we were able to make it work for the time being.  In the future we will have to bring in some parts, cut a hole in the wall, and replace the old pipe as much as we can. 

It is discouraging to think that at a later time we will have to remove the sink once again and cut out a chunk of our freshly painted wall, but for now, when we step back and look, we think our bathroom looks pretty sharp. Since finishing our bathroom we have been thoroughly enjoying our heated floor, spacious shower, newly installed bathroom fan, and sink.  It is a pleasure to use, and Jiji likes the heated floor too!