Anna, you can definitely do a bathroom renovation. I did! I never finished this web page but I did finish the project, maybe it will help you - https://ronelson.dynip.com:8443/wiki...stBathroom2006
Some questions you've asked:
Q. If I want to tile parts of the walls, do I have to remove the finished textured drywall that's in place and replace that with the green one, or can I just lay tile directly on dry wall?
A. Greenboard is intended for the wet areas. There are also solutions you can add to regular drywall to create a proper vapor barrier without replacing the drywall. If you are setting tile on a painted surface, I would sand the paint off or at least rough it up. You do NOT want the paint peeling away from the wall under the tile as it may come up in a whole sheet, thereby taking away huge chunks of tile at a time.
Q. If I remove the integrated tub/shower thingie and replace that with a real tub and tile around it, are there any special considerations I have to think about?
A. Check out the John Bridge Ceramic Tile Forums as someone else suggested. They have a book (literally) on how to do showers. Doing the shower itself isn't all that difficult, but the drain pan is. I plan to redo our master bath myself but I will definitely be paying someone to do the drain pan. I'm no plumber and you can't see your plumbing mistakes until months later when the floor collapses - that is money well spent on someone who knows what they are doing!
Q. And I'm supposed to remove the toilet first?
A. You should remove anything that will have tile under it. This definitely includes the toilet and may also include the vanity - I tiled under where my old vanity went because I didn't think the new one would be the same size. Also, if you later change your vanity, you don't have to worry about gaps this way. It is your choice for most everything but the toilet itself.
Q. Also, will it really stink when the toilet is removed?
A. The toilet is just a piece of porcelain so will not stink (as long as you didn't decide to use it "once, for old time's sake"!) but the sewer pipes will stink. Same goes for the sink drain, if you take the trap off don't forget to plug that.
I didn't even shove a plastic bag down, I just set a 12" square tile over the hole while I was working. I also had a window right above my head so that may have helped as well.
Q. Is this something that someone as inexperienced as I am should be doing, or do I listen to my husband and hire someone who'll probably end up not doing it exactly the way I want him to anyway?
A. Do it. I had to paint the ceiling in mine because I got grout on it, but it still only cost around $950 ($300 just for a textured mud by someone else - I couldn't get it to match). A contractor would have charged at least $1500 for the floor, not to mention a small backsplash I put above the shower/tub liner. That's at least $600 in savings, probably closer to $1500. More than pays for my woodworking tools
Q. You can put tile directly onto drywall, but that's not the optimum method.
A. Depends on the thickness of the tile. You can use mastic (a pre-mixed mortar made for vertical applications) for lighter tiles directly to a drywalled surface. Check with your local tile store, they should be able to tell you the load per square foot and what kind of mortar or mastic is required, plus any backer boards needed. Remember, if you put a backer board directly on the wall, you need a bullnose tile (rounded end tiles) that's 1/4-1/2" thicker. Those can get expensive.
Q. Any tips on moving the fridge and range out of the way? I thought I can work on the clear area first, finish that, and then move the fridge and range to get to the tiles under them. Is that a bad idea?
A. Ideally, you want all your mortar and grout to come from the same batch, installed at the same time. This means that when you put these down - in particular the grout, since you will see it every day! - everything needs to be out of there so that you can get everything at once. You cannot set anything down on your tile while the grout is drying, as you have to clean the grout haze off constantly for the first hour, so there will be shuffling of items back and forth.
Q. If I tile both walls and floor (for the bathroom), does the tile go up on the wall first or the floor first?
A. Depends on your joint. If you're putting a baseboard in, there will be a gap anyway. If you're running it straight to the edges, then you have to decide which pattern you want to be on top. If it's the same tile, then it doesn't matter, but if your floor is a brown and the walls are white, you have to make a decision. Check with a tile shop for design questions. I would say floor first, but that's me. I don't think there's a "right" answer to this one.
Q. What my husband seems to be objecting to is the prospect of having bare floors around the house for months on end since I'm a little handicapped when it comes to estimating the time of project completion (a two-week garage storage project went on for two months instead).
A. My bathroom renovation took 6 months. Two months for me to do the floor. Three months for my wife to pick out tile for the backsplash. One month for me to do the backsplash, screw up the ceiling, and have it repainted.
Q. The less water in the mix in general is better with concrete.
A. Your mortar should be the consistency of peanut-butter. Also, when adding water, don't forget to include your sealer! Nothing worse than getting it just right and realizing the sealer bottle hasn't even been opened.
Q. Oh, one last thing. When you remove the toilet to work on the floor, where do you store the toilet? And would flushing it several times before removing it help with the smell?
A. The toilet goes anywhere you can stick it. It's porcelain, so I suggest a towel underneath it and make sure no-one's walking by it every day and scratching it (I'm thinking car keys and the garage here) as repairing a porcelain scratch is not easy. Toilets are not icky, they're just like a porcelain wizard statue, but bigger.
Now, the wax ring? THAT is icky. Make sure to get all the wax off the bottom of the toilet before putting it in storage, or that towel you set it on will need to be set on fire later. The wax is disgusting looking, but thankfully it's just visual. Of course, it's wax, so you don't want to rub it into clothes and such.
Some other tips
* Make sure you use an auto-leveling compound on the subfloor. You should start at the subfloor and work your way up.
* Measure twice, cut once. Or measure 72 times, if that's what it takes. Take all your measurements a few times before buying supplies. When you have the tile, lay it all out on the ground, including spacers, and make sure it fits. Measure it again before cutting any tile!
* Tile stores are your friends. A box of 12" tiles brand new? $60. Three boxes they have sitting in the back that are leftover from some other contractor who didn't use them? $50 or less.
* Decorative pieces suck. They are expensive (up to $12 per piece), difficult to work with (anything with a mesh backing) and if you go cheap here, you'll hate it. The deco pieces I bought were cheap and each of the dozen pieces on the back of the mesh were different thicknesses, had different gaps between them, weren't straight, etc. If you go with a deco piece, make sure it's good quality
* Grout color will be seen forever. Make sure you mix your grout in a single batch if you can, but even if you need multiple batches, get it all done at once so the tone is even and blended.
* Grout haze is the buildup on the tiles as you push it into the grooves. When you're done grouting, you don't get a breather! Go back to where you started and take a damp sponge and wipe the haze off. Do this every 10 minutes until it's all gone. Otherwise you'll be like me and spend a month buying different solutions until you can get one that dissolves the haze but not the actual grout lines. Not fun, and expensive to booth (probably $100 of the $650 materials cost). Do not let this happen to you!
* When laying out tile, you start in the middle, not the edges. Chances are, your room isn't square. So, pick the wall you want the tile oriented on and bring a line out from it to the middle of the room. If you start the tile there but it's square to that wall, you'll get an even look. If you start with, say, the wall behind the vanity that no-one can see, everything will appear crooked.
The John Bridge Forums are the best. Take lots of pictures and post them there. You'll get more help than you ever wanted. Also, spend a lot of time reading ahead of time and you'll avoid some of the common blunders, unlike me (deco pieces and grout haze!).
Some questions you've asked:
Q. If I want to tile parts of the walls, do I have to remove the finished textured drywall that's in place and replace that with the green one, or can I just lay tile directly on dry wall?
A. Greenboard is intended for the wet areas. There are also solutions you can add to regular drywall to create a proper vapor barrier without replacing the drywall. If you are setting tile on a painted surface, I would sand the paint off or at least rough it up. You do NOT want the paint peeling away from the wall under the tile as it may come up in a whole sheet, thereby taking away huge chunks of tile at a time.
Q. If I remove the integrated tub/shower thingie and replace that with a real tub and tile around it, are there any special considerations I have to think about?
A. Check out the John Bridge Ceramic Tile Forums as someone else suggested. They have a book (literally) on how to do showers. Doing the shower itself isn't all that difficult, but the drain pan is. I plan to redo our master bath myself but I will definitely be paying someone to do the drain pan. I'm no plumber and you can't see your plumbing mistakes until months later when the floor collapses - that is money well spent on someone who knows what they are doing!
Q. And I'm supposed to remove the toilet first?
A. You should remove anything that will have tile under it. This definitely includes the toilet and may also include the vanity - I tiled under where my old vanity went because I didn't think the new one would be the same size. Also, if you later change your vanity, you don't have to worry about gaps this way. It is your choice for most everything but the toilet itself.
Q. Also, will it really stink when the toilet is removed?
A. The toilet is just a piece of porcelain so will not stink (as long as you didn't decide to use it "once, for old time's sake"!) but the sewer pipes will stink. Same goes for the sink drain, if you take the trap off don't forget to plug that.
I didn't even shove a plastic bag down, I just set a 12" square tile over the hole while I was working. I also had a window right above my head so that may have helped as well.
Q. Is this something that someone as inexperienced as I am should be doing, or do I listen to my husband and hire someone who'll probably end up not doing it exactly the way I want him to anyway?
A. Do it. I had to paint the ceiling in mine because I got grout on it, but it still only cost around $950 ($300 just for a textured mud by someone else - I couldn't get it to match). A contractor would have charged at least $1500 for the floor, not to mention a small backsplash I put above the shower/tub liner. That's at least $600 in savings, probably closer to $1500. More than pays for my woodworking tools
Q. You can put tile directly onto drywall, but that's not the optimum method.
A. Depends on the thickness of the tile. You can use mastic (a pre-mixed mortar made for vertical applications) for lighter tiles directly to a drywalled surface. Check with your local tile store, they should be able to tell you the load per square foot and what kind of mortar or mastic is required, plus any backer boards needed. Remember, if you put a backer board directly on the wall, you need a bullnose tile (rounded end tiles) that's 1/4-1/2" thicker. Those can get expensive.
Q. Any tips on moving the fridge and range out of the way? I thought I can work on the clear area first, finish that, and then move the fridge and range to get to the tiles under them. Is that a bad idea?
A. Ideally, you want all your mortar and grout to come from the same batch, installed at the same time. This means that when you put these down - in particular the grout, since you will see it every day! - everything needs to be out of there so that you can get everything at once. You cannot set anything down on your tile while the grout is drying, as you have to clean the grout haze off constantly for the first hour, so there will be shuffling of items back and forth.
Q. If I tile both walls and floor (for the bathroom), does the tile go up on the wall first or the floor first?
A. Depends on your joint. If you're putting a baseboard in, there will be a gap anyway. If you're running it straight to the edges, then you have to decide which pattern you want to be on top. If it's the same tile, then it doesn't matter, but if your floor is a brown and the walls are white, you have to make a decision. Check with a tile shop for design questions. I would say floor first, but that's me. I don't think there's a "right" answer to this one.
Q. What my husband seems to be objecting to is the prospect of having bare floors around the house for months on end since I'm a little handicapped when it comes to estimating the time of project completion (a two-week garage storage project went on for two months instead).
A. My bathroom renovation took 6 months. Two months for me to do the floor. Three months for my wife to pick out tile for the backsplash. One month for me to do the backsplash, screw up the ceiling, and have it repainted.
Q. The less water in the mix in general is better with concrete.
A. Your mortar should be the consistency of peanut-butter. Also, when adding water, don't forget to include your sealer! Nothing worse than getting it just right and realizing the sealer bottle hasn't even been opened.
Q. Oh, one last thing. When you remove the toilet to work on the floor, where do you store the toilet? And would flushing it several times before removing it help with the smell?
A. The toilet goes anywhere you can stick it. It's porcelain, so I suggest a towel underneath it and make sure no-one's walking by it every day and scratching it (I'm thinking car keys and the garage here) as repairing a porcelain scratch is not easy. Toilets are not icky, they're just like a porcelain wizard statue, but bigger.
Now, the wax ring? THAT is icky. Make sure to get all the wax off the bottom of the toilet before putting it in storage, or that towel you set it on will need to be set on fire later. The wax is disgusting looking, but thankfully it's just visual. Of course, it's wax, so you don't want to rub it into clothes and such.
Some other tips
* Make sure you use an auto-leveling compound on the subfloor. You should start at the subfloor and work your way up.
* Measure twice, cut once. Or measure 72 times, if that's what it takes. Take all your measurements a few times before buying supplies. When you have the tile, lay it all out on the ground, including spacers, and make sure it fits. Measure it again before cutting any tile!
* Tile stores are your friends. A box of 12" tiles brand new? $60. Three boxes they have sitting in the back that are leftover from some other contractor who didn't use them? $50 or less.
* Decorative pieces suck. They are expensive (up to $12 per piece), difficult to work with (anything with a mesh backing) and if you go cheap here, you'll hate it. The deco pieces I bought were cheap and each of the dozen pieces on the back of the mesh were different thicknesses, had different gaps between them, weren't straight, etc. If you go with a deco piece, make sure it's good quality
* Grout color will be seen forever. Make sure you mix your grout in a single batch if you can, but even if you need multiple batches, get it all done at once so the tone is even and blended.
* Grout haze is the buildup on the tiles as you push it into the grooves. When you're done grouting, you don't get a breather! Go back to where you started and take a damp sponge and wipe the haze off. Do this every 10 minutes until it's all gone. Otherwise you'll be like me and spend a month buying different solutions until you can get one that dissolves the haze but not the actual grout lines. Not fun, and expensive to booth (probably $100 of the $650 materials cost). Do not let this happen to you!
* When laying out tile, you start in the middle, not the edges. Chances are, your room isn't square. So, pick the wall you want the tile oriented on and bring a line out from it to the middle of the room. If you start the tile there but it's square to that wall, you'll get an even look. If you start with, say, the wall behind the vanity that no-one can see, everything will appear crooked.
The John Bridge Forums are the best. Take lots of pictures and post them there. You'll get more help than you ever wanted. Also, spend a lot of time reading ahead of time and you'll avoid some of the common blunders, unlike me (deco pieces and grout haze!).
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