Looking back I realized that in the last post I talked about how I was looking for new books to read and I was actually really excited about reading books instead of just listening to book tapes.  In fact, I received a copy of “Sleep your way to the Top” by Jane Miller from FGPress not long after publishing that post (perfect timing right).   Also, I had some other plans of spending time on some projects that were still very rough ideas in my mind.

No sooner did all of that happen than I found myself trying to figure out why there was water dripping in our basement from the ceiling.  What caused the leak you asked.. Well of course a leaky toilet seal.  So I did what every do-it-yourself handyman would do.... I decided to redo the entire bathroom instead of just fixing the leaky Toilet ring.  If you are going to do something do it right from the beginning.

Upstairs Bathroom - Finished Product

*Before and After* *Always great to find what the previous owner did. Really shims!* *Demolition almost complete* *Replacing the floor* *Starting to go back together*

This bathroom remodeling project only too me 2 weeks until it was usable where as the first one I did took me just about 3 years (Read more here).  Here are my words of advice from my first two bathroom remodels.

  • Over-buy at your home improvement store.  You will be more frustrated driving back and forth than having to go there once in when you are done to return everything.
  • Check the tile pieces that you buy before you install them. Otherwise, you will end up installing one that wasn't the same color (Yes this happened to me see below).
  • Buy the right trowel for the size of tile you are using and then make sure you don't use too much mortar.  Especially, be careful on the small tiles as I spent a lot of time in the back end trying to scrape it out of the joints so my grout would fill it later.
  • You will run into more problems than you anticipated and are going to start replacing a lot more things (e.g., Pipes, Sub-floor, Walls).
  • Did I mention that you should overbuy things at your Home Improvement Store
  • Realize that as you are going to get sidetracked by your significant other to complete "Fluff" projects some of which are unrelated to the task at hand.