axa small bath

[axa]

Tiles started to pop off in HORRIFICALLY ugly pathetic shower...
I was horrified at what i found...
First the shower was actually made of a framed box, sheathed with 1/4" LUAN plywood, then poorly tiled without even completely grouting the joints...
Water was seeping in for years i imagine...

One day i was cooking in the kitchen below, and drops started comming down...
I knew it was from the shower...
It had to go...
Ripped it out only to find a huge colony of carpenter ants, it was gross...
Hundreds of ants started to scramble carrying the wet rice looking larva...
i grabbed the wasp spray and luckily it sent them to the after life...

Ive been rebuilding the entire home, roof down since...

Since ive been working on this for a while now... too busy to post my progress but, but now that im almost done, i thought id start to put up what ive recorded.
and get some feedback.

Ripped up floor found ROT!

[axa]

Nice.... found a nail below the floor portion of the toilet vent pipe...
No surprise at this point...

[axa]

Lets jump ahead...
new PVC plumbing, new floor and walls in progress...
Getting rid of all that crud felt good

[axa]

Finished replacing all the drywall chose to go with American olean tile.
Mainly because they made it easy to get samples, any sample any size, 8$ shipped.

Now to chose tile.
Im a electronics engineer and have no eye for interior decoration...
So this was one of the most time consuming difficult choice.

For the floor:
COLORBODY™ PORCELAIN
terreno™
Redwood

The rest for walls, niches, shower pan enclosure:
COLORBODY™ PORCELAIN
highland ridge™
Evergreen
Dark River Stone

http://americanolean.com/series.cfm?series=112

(I ended up getting flat dark river stone tile from another supplier as it was WAY cheaper....)

I wanted a brick patter, but the 12x12 field tile was the most economical...
So i chose to cut it down to size...
more about my experience with this later

[axa]

Being a small space, need to be smart with the fixtures...
This round Shower from Vigo would be nice...
But there would be NO plastic in this bath... an old fashion pan would be the most economic way, but how would it look...
Enter Google sketchup.
Thought something like this...

[axa]

Time to make the pan...
Lucky Vigo posts their spec sheet with dimensions.
Sprung for that prepitch and preslope system, forget the name...
Flooded the pan for a day, all seems well.

Came out better than i thought it would


PS. I'm well aware this pan isnt to code without higher dam walls, but I just truth is i just didnt care.
I cant stand stepping over a threshold and just didnt want one...
If it wasn't the second floor, i would have sunk the shower pan, but that wasn't possible with the joists in place.

[axa]

Used 6mil poly on the studs and got the CBU up.
Made the niche and a bench
Again wire lathe helped hold the form...

[axa]

then.... i realized the floor needed leveling...
I swear this house was built by drunks.

[axa]

time to tile...
tiled from the ground up cuz i wanted to properly overlap, but thats a mistake, cuz gravity interfered and all the finished work got dirty as i progressed.

set 1/8" spaces for the Torreno but wish i had gone smaller, only thing is American olean suggests 3/16, what did i know...

Fearful of cutting compound angles precisely, i went with rocks on the round surfaces

[axa]

at this point sort of glad to see it coming as planned...
only i needed to insert those to vertical 1/2" CBU strips on the walls for my original measurements were a bit off, the shower doors needed to come out just a bit.

[axa]

On to the walls...
Niches first, then many sessions later... the walls are complete...
As can be seen, cutting down the field tile and using 1/16" spacing was A LOT of work... there is NO room for error in the cut...
Needed to tune up my harbor freight bridge saw to be able to pull off this kind of accuracy.
Also got myself a 3/8" round profile blade to bull nose the through body porcelain for the corner cuts...
Shluter edging would have been nice looking and much quicker but the good stainless steel stuff isn't cheap, and i found the aluminum scratches much too easy.

[axa]

At this point i thought i dry fit the vanity
sure enough the drain hole was left too low... so ill have to go with the decorative trap and it will have to go through a hole in the bottom of the vanity...
sort of a bummer.

[axa]

grout is in... spectralock river rock on the walls and bench, hemp on the floor and pan wall. I wanted the 2 to blend together subtly, but sort of hoping that hemp dries darker than that...
That epoxy grout dries harder than the thin set...

And the medicine cabinet is now framed, tiled, grouted as well.

Those long straight planks in the shower sure do drain quick..
I no longer worry about the choice of a low dam height at all.

[axa]

found i could get a like new sponge by slicing an old dry one on the band saw...
a crusty sponge cuts well, underneath is like new.
used this one for the entire job.

i like to think of myself not so much as cheap but say, resourceful :>

[jondon]

Axa, cool shower! I agree great idea on the sponges, the outside gets clogged I am going to stop tossing mine out and run them through. I like resourcefulness

One quickie, why so many shelves? candles?