Happy New Year!

I took off work last week and between travelling for the holiday weekends, I put in three long days working on the bathroom. Pat and I drove to St. Louis for New Year's weekend. Friday and Saturday we spent at a Buddhist temple getting in touch with our inner zen. We wrapped up the trip with a short visit with my brother and his fiancé.

I didn’t get to grouting the shower yet, but I still have a long list of things to get done before I can get the plumber back for the finish work. I’ll dig into it again later this week. The majority of the work last week was getting the bamboo wall element up. I’m tired of looking at the plywood so I’m happy to be making progress on this. Installing the bamboo pieces is slow and tedious work. Seems that bamboo flooring is quite hard and my "HF special" pneumatic finish nailer can't quite drive the nails flush so I needed to go back to manually finish driving the nails in each board. Makes for time consuming work. To maintain a clean look and minimize the amount of trim, I decided to miter the outside corners. That involves careful measuring and cutting. Three corners done, two to go!

Bamboo planking almost complete

Ran into a few challenges that slowed me down a bit. One of which was the last box of bamboo floor planks did not match the color of all the others. The color difference was significant enough for me to need to return the box.  I thought the color would be more consistent. Anyway, I was lucky to find a box today that closely matched what is already installed. Now I can finish the dozen or so remaining pieces.

I started this hanging the planks without knowing how I was going to finish the edges. I think I have figured out what how I am going to work out the trim. Luckily, there is a premade edge trim that can serve as the chairail. Bamboo baseboard is another story, however. For now, I am planning to make my own using 5/8" bamboo floor planks. If you know of a source for bamboo baseboard I am open to suggestions.

I assembled and installed the cabinet frames that will serve as the linen closet. Nice to get these out of the garage; hopefully I’ll be able to park a car in there soon…

I elected to use IKEA cabinets because I like the ability to select the style and ability to customize our storage options. Here, I chose IKEA tall kitchen cabinets because they are 24” deep and will provide lots of storage. Many of their bath specific cabinets are only 12” deep. I modified the cabinets to fit my built in space and added a custom plumbing access panel to one. I also built a simple platform using their feet. This allows me to level both cabinets at the same time.

Adding a side piece made from plinth

The cabinets in position

For another step back, we decided we don’t like the color I painted the walls. It works OK with the bamboo but not the shower tile. Today, Pat and I selected a couple more color samples to try. Although I'm professional designer, I still find selecting paint color tricky. Stay tuned...

Tile and other things

A trip to "Newalens" two weeks ago slowed my tiling progress. I didn't have time to take photos this time, but here is a shot from a trip there last summer.

French Quarter musicians.

I burned the midnight oil working on the bathroom last week to make up lost time. Progress was slow and tedious, especially the storage niche. I discovered using large tiles requires making accurate cuts because mismatched grout lines are very noticeable; so I'm taking my time to get the measurements right. I'm glad to get this step done. Now I just have to make a decision on grout color; not as easy as it seems. Trying to find a color matched caulk makes it more challenging because retailers don't carry all the caulk colors that they have in grout! Sort of reminds me of the hot dog/hot dog bun conspiracy...
 

Shower tile progress. No grout yet.


While I try to track down the grout color, I painted the walls and started installing the bamboo wall paneling.


Bamboo flooring on the wall where the vanity will be installed.

I'm off work all next week so I am hoping to get allot done. Pat and I made a decision and purchased the floor tile. That will go down after the walls are finished.

That's it for this week. Thanks for stopping by.