Teeny Tiny Tiles

The week and weekend has flown by and a lot has been accomplished. The bad news is that the bedroom didn't get painted as fast as I had hoped. There were a lot of areas to patch up and cracks along one of the upper corner seams. EZ Patch saved the day and it all look really good.

My gamble with the red accent wall was well worth it too...although it took a worrisome 4 coats and an additional trip to Sherwin Williams. So, everyone ended up crashing at Jens. Here's a few pics of the 'blood' being applied.



Teeny tiny tiles were the good news theme this weekend...and it's great they come on 1 ft x 2 ft sheets. Dad and I learned a few things about tiling from Uncle Steve and the bathroom made a lot of progress. It's exactly what I thought it would turn out to be...awesome! Here's a shot of Dad in action.


One of the humorous moments of the project this weekend was Dad hauling out a toilet for me from Michigan until I decide what I want to get. Just imagine the look on people walking by when we hauled a toilet out of the car and Uncle Steve was sitting on the throne, guarding all our stuff as the rest of us hauled it up to the apartment.

Humor aside, it was good that he brought it out as I found out it just fits with the tank touching the wall.

It's nice to have a toilet again though instead of running to the neighbors, down the street to Jen's or...well, you know...

Color this, color that

Work on the apartment has been dormant. The plumber is coming soon and it has been made clear to me the bathroom floor is beyond simple repair and will need to be torn up. So, the most recent activity has been making decisions on tile and bath fixtures and counting down the days until I loose the toilet.

This weekend has been filled with making decisions which I don't like to make on bathroom tiles, fixtures, etc. Yesterday I took a trip up to the Bronx to look at tile after a few unsuccessful tries in the city. Luckily, this store had everything I was look for. I picked out a small gray mosaic tile, 1" x 1" for each tile. I'm thinking this with a white or light grey grout will really help the chrome fixtures pop off the walls. The price point is right too, just under $5 per sq. ft. Way better then the stuff I was looking around $20 per sq. ft.

With the tiles picked out, I had to tackle the bathtub spout and valve. In order for my plumber to do the work that needs to be done, this also had to be picked out since a new water mixing valve is needed. So, after looking long and hard at Restoration Hardware, I picked out the following 'vintage' tub spout and handle.


Unfortunately, it was more expensive then all the tile I'll need to do the wall and floor...and the set didn't include the shower head. I'm beginning to understand why bathrooms are so expensive to renovate.

Tile Treasures...and a beer

Having worked hard during the week to clear out the remainder of living room items, the weekend was filled with demolition. After making a huge mess earlier this year, I've gotten a bit smarter about deconstructing the plaster walls. Although more fun to swing the crowbar and take out a huge chunk in one swipe, it creates a lot of dust, makes a huge mess and is noisy...not good when you have neighbors in close proximity.

So the plaster was slowly pried off the lathe, bagged, removed the lathe, took out the nails and bagged it. In addition to the mess reduction, this was also a good technique since there are now a lot of pipes to be dealt with, particularly on the bathroom wall.

The most interesting and annoying part of the demolition was the amount of debris found underneath the tub. Left over tiles, chunks of plaster and a random Schafer beer can (date TBD) were the majority of the bits and bobs.



In addition to wall demolition, I tackled the kitchen cabinets too. I was able to take down all the wall cabinets with ease. What a crappy installation job. Here's the before and after.


At the end of the day, there were 36 bags of plaster, lathe and a few bundles of wood. Monday night will mark the beginning of taking out the trash again.

I've established a schedule (to be posted in the next entry) and the next few weeks will require a lot of work, but I'm ready to tackle it and move this project forward quickly.

The weekend was rounded out with some fun at The Blaze, a festival with 4000 carved pumpkins. This picture reminded me of my apartment and the blog....there's more to see, even if it kills me.

Two Layer Tile Cake...Yum Yum!

It's Christmas Day and my Dad is visiting. I think he's the one person who's more enthused about this renovation then me and the likely reason for this is that he's not living in it. He shows up, tears apart stuff with me, and then leaves. Good plan. I look forward to the day my friends start doing this and I can show up with a crowbar, safety glasses, a six pack of beer and some Led Zeppelin to pump while we tear down a wall. Then I leave with a full belly of pizza. Good plan.

The itch got to me today, and I couldn't wait any longer to not do any work before I get these building permits. Since all my renovation work has been approved, re-tiling should be fine to start, especially since this doesn't require board approval. Remember, I've got a two layer tile cake.

We decided to quietly go-ahead and take an hour to rip up the old tile. Here's Dad hard at work on that checkerboard pattern.



The final result is the old tile is exposed. After a bit of Comet and elbow grease, it looks like...well, not new, but lts say "charming, 1923 style."

Archaeological Digs....in my apartment

So after a long evening of stripper application, I began peeling late this afternoon to find a surprise. There's a transom window above my bedroom door!

Before peeling:


After peeling:


Yup, didn't have a clue it was painted over! So, then I got a bit curious and decided to figure out why my bathroom tiles were slightly raised over the threshold. Sure enough, they tiled over the old original floor tiles.


Then I ripped out the bathroom door casings to find more old tiles behind the wall tiles.


I doubt that I'll save the bathroom tiles, but the transom window will be a cool original feature to keep around.