Eric Walker

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.