- 20
- Sep
So it’s been awhile since I’ve updated this site mainly because I just haven’t felt like taking the time to. I decided I would take a look at my last entry and started laughing when I read that I posted “bathroom almost done” back in May. Hah. I could say now that it’s somewhat almost done but still not close enough.
Since may I’ve finished the floor and installed a vent fan and exhaust out the top of the roof. I did not take any pictures of the vent installation since I wanted to be up in the attic as little as possible. I’ll sum it up. Step 1: I cut a hole in the roof, cut and lifted shingles surrounding the hole, put some roof tar around the edge of the hole, put the bottom of the vent in, put more tar around the vent and then set the shingles back down around it. I hope it never leaks!
In the bathroom, I cut a square hole in the center of the room and mounted the metal box for the vent and fan. Then up into the attic to connect the foil vent (looks like a dryer vent) from the metal box to the vent sticking out of the roof.
Now for the floor. Last year when I was replacing the steel plumbing in the bathroom with copper, it was necessary to cut up and remove the old floor. Way back in December (Christmas eve in fact) I put a new sub floor of plywood down and it’s been just that up until a few weeks ago. The original plan was to slap some luan over the plywood and then some self stick vinyl flooring over that. I decided that with all the work and blood I put into this tiny room that real tile would be more appropriate.
After researching a bit on the many Internets I had a pretty good idea of what was necessary to do the floor. First thin set mortar, then cement backer board, more thin set, tile, and finally grout.
The backer board I used is called Hardi Backer and it seems to be perfect for tiling. It was a PAIN IN THE ASS to cut. I read to use a circular saw with the blade reversed. That worked well despite the blade glowing orange and smoking after a foot or so of cutting. I ended up using mostly a sawzall with a “rescue” blade (the type used to cut up cars, etc in emergency situations) to make the cuts and a razor to clean up the rough edges. A drywall rasp seemed to work well on the edges too. After a lot of agony, I made all the cuts to fit in the room.
A few days later I mixed up some thin set, spread it with one of those notched trowls, laid the backer board and secured it with some overpriced special hardi backer screws. Drywall screws would probably work fine. I’m convinced the only thing special about these is the square bit head. At least they give you a bit when you by a box. All the joints are then taped with mesh to help with leveling with the thin set for the tile goes down.
The next step was to layout the tile, cut it to fit and then set it.
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