One Room Challenge Week 6: Finished Shower & Floor Tile Progress

The past two weeks have been a little crazy around here. With sickness running through our family and other life responsibilities needing our attention, making progress on the bathroom has slowed down just a bit. But! We have just two weeks left in the One Room Challenge and I think we’re going to make it. I think.

Ty worked so hard on getting the shower tile finished and it turned out beautifully! I love the look of bright, clean tile walls. I loved the floor mosaic in the shower so much that I seriously considered using the same tile all over the bathroom floor.

The fixtures in this bathroom will all be black and chrome, which I know it somewhat off-trend with brass in the spotlight recently. I love natural brass as much as the next girl, but I wanted this bathroom to have a more laid-back, classic feel to it. All of the shower fixtures and faucets are Kingston Brass — which I will share details on next week.

Now onto everyones favorite: the floor tile. This tile… oh man, guys. It almost got the boot. We spent a long time trying to figure out if it was even possible to lay this tile in a straight, even herringbone pattern. The size of the tile is 2 1/3″ x 10″ making it difficult to work with when working on 45 and 90 degree angles, because the width is not a multiple of the length (tile that is 2×8″, 4×8″, 2×10″, etc. would be less complicated to lay). We have to consistently double check that the tiles are forming right angles as it moves out from the center, and that our cuts along the wall will be even and not “drift” to the right or left. Ty figured out how to adjust for the size discrepancy and it of course it looking a-mazing:

Another question I kept getting over the weekend was what the orange underlayment was that we used for under the floor tile. It’s a tile membrane that you want to lay under floor tile to allow for movement that neutralizes the stress between the subfloor and the tile. Because of its ribbed structure, it allows the subfloor & tile to move independently due to temperature changes (called “uncoupling”). If you didn’t do this, for example, during the winter the tile might expand a bit with heat and the subfloor contract with the cold. If the tile is coupled directly to the floor, there is a greater chance of their movements conflicting too much. Plus it provides waterproofing (but for your floor to be completely waterproof, you would have needed to place Schluter Kerdi bands at each seam).

Tile is definitely a big job. If I was to give advice to someone who is wanting to remodel their own bathroom I would suggest hiring out two trades: drywall and tile.

This next week I’m aiming for a big push toward the finish: finishing the floors, getting the vanity and trim painted, sewing my cafe curtain and hopefully installing the toilet. I will be so happy to have two functioning bathrooms again!!