DIY

After a little encouragement from Tina, I recently picked up again on my "remodel the master bathroom" project. In this phase of the project, I'll be installing ceramic tile.

DAY 1
I started by ripping out the carpet, rolling it up and placing it aside. Under the carpet was a multicolored foam underlayment stapled to plywood. I carefully ripped that out too, rolled it up, and placed it aside. Next, I pried out the carpet tack strips with my trusty crow bar and hammer. These wood strips are about an inch wide and are covered with a bed of nails pointing up. Carpet layers use them to hold and stretch carpet over the floor. The strips are usually nailed down to the plywood right next to any walls. Finally, I cleared the plywood subfloor of the staples that held the foam underlayment. I also nailed down a few protruding nails, trying to make them flush with the plywood subfloor. You want to do this to prevent any of your tiles from sticking up later on.

Then my dad and I proceeded to remove the toilet from the upstairs bathroom. After turning off the water supply, I gave teh toliet it's last flush, used a plunger to push more water out of the bowl, and sponged out the remaining water from the tank. I then tried to remove the bolts from the base, but found them to free spinning on the flange. This means the nuts have rusted to the bolt. So I went to the garage and got myself a hacksaw blade. I didn't have the handle part, just a spare blade. But it would do. I took that blade, got on my hands and knees and sawed away.

There's something calming about hovering over a toilet but while sawing at a nut and bolt with your bare hands. First, I started thinking, "hmmm, I wish I had one of those rotary tools to make this go quicker. Then I started thinking about jailbirds who can cut bars with a single nail file, so I stopped complaining and imagined I was trying to escape from a jail cell. really, i did.

I eventually cut through both bolts. They looked like miniature golden mushrooms with their heads sliced off. My pops and I heaved up the bowl and tank, carried it downstairs, outside and in queue for disposal, alongside the water heater I took replaced last year.

All of this took about two and a half hours on Saturday morning. I didn't work on anything else the rest of the day cuz Tina, Isaac, and I spent a family afternoon, hanging out in the 4th street area of Berkeley.

Day 2

I woke up early to pick up the second layer for the floor. Unless your plywood floor is really thick, you traditionally don't want to put tile on plywood alone. So, I went to Home Depot to pick up a few square feet of Hardiboard. This is one brand of backerboard - a fiber cement board used to add thickness to the subfloor before tiling. Why do you want a thick floor? Well your tiling and grout will be as flexible as your floor. If it's too flexible, like if you tile over plywood alone, then your tiles and grout will flex when you walk on them, eventually stressing the grid enough to crack your grout and loosen your tiles.

Luckily, these 3'X5' boards were on sale, so I picked up 7 sheets. I also picked up a special cutter for these boards.

I also picked up a new flange for the toilet bowl. This the metal disc that holds the bolts that holds your toilet. The flange is glued or welded to the soil pipe (your waste pipe). Our flange was rusted through and looked like it needed replacement.

Home Depot is dangerous! You can spend hours looking at cool gadgets and materials. I even checked out some wood planks to build our coffee table for the living room (a summer project). I got the idea from a table that we saw while in Berkeley on Saturday.

My Home Depot trip took about two hours. I had to rush home to get ready for practice!