Day 410: Basement bathroom drywall and tiling

There were high hopes on Day 400 about containment coming down and tiling happening last weekend. I knew as soon as I typed "Definitely doable" that I should have found something wooden to knock on. We drove to the house through some very unploughed snow (30 cm of it!) that Friday evening to find the containment still up and the water still shut off. We had actually shut the water off ourselves when we disconnected the kitchen sink. Unfortunately, with the kitchen still sealed off, we couldn't get in to cap off the those open supply lines and get the water flowing again. No water, no tiling. That weekend wasn't a total bust as we hung half of the ceiling drywall, the priority being the boards around the shower for tiling. The goal was to maximize the number of factory edges in the drywall layout (as opposed to having to deal with lots of butt joints) and incorporate some of the drywall scraps lying around. It worked out that it made the most sense to hang all of the drywall for the shower/laundry side of the room.

Drywall installed above the laundry pair (hence the red reflection).

Since we only got back into the house on Tuesday evening, we decided to reschedule the shower door installation from Thursday to after the weekend. This gave us a few days (rather than one and a half evenings) to de-haze the floor and install the trim tile and grout and do laundry and eat and sleep.

I should maybe explain why we're rushing to get this trim tile up last minute and didn't just do it when we installed all of the other tile. When the shower was built and initially tiled way back in June, it was a bit of a mad dash to pick out the tile just before we left for a trip Boston and welcomed our fabulous helping hands immediately on return. (I'm not joking about immediate, here. I got off the plane from Boston and met Garrett's sister who had also just arrived for the visit  in the next terminal over.) At the time, we hadn't even fully committed to the curbless shower idea so, while we had looked at shower doors and knew we'd have to figure out a nice tile to drywall transition solution, it wasn't a priority. After we finally brought in the shower door installer to do some measurements, we figured out where we wanted the panels to sit - right along the edge of the main floor tile and the grey shower floor - and the placement needed a trim piece for the other side of the door hinge to rest on. We talked about several options but since the edge of what we had tiled back in June was a rough, cut edge (which was a consequence of centering the middle tile on the shower valve), finishing the outside with trim tile made the most sense.

The problem was that the edge of what we had tiled was right at the edge of the window sill. Once a piece of drywall was added, we had just about 1.5" to work with.

Garrett putting adhesive on the small sliver of space between the 3 x 3 tiled shower and the window box. This determined the width of the trim tile all the way around. 

We considering looking for plain 1" white bullnose tile but decided to go with a trim piece in the same series as the wall tile (Caroline by Olympia Tile) to get as close to the same colour as possible. Based on a tiny drawn diagram on the website, this was available but only as a 2.5 x 8" piece.

Bullnose trim tile picked to match the wall tile. The lines run the width of the tile because it's meant to be placed  above the wall tile at the top edge of a half tiled wall, for example.

Cue the tile cutter. I love this thing. We used it a bunch for the wall tiles and it even handled the very thick floor tiles we used. Score, press, and you have a nice straight cut.

Awesome, simple tile cutter does the job.

We needed 30 tiles but ordered a few more just in case. Good thing too because it took a couple of cuts to 1) remember that you need to press at the end to split the tile, not in the middle and 2) realize that the guard was not square to the rail so the blade wasn't cutting parallel with the edge of the tile. All it took was a bit of adjusting and I started pumping out cut tiles while Garrett stuck them on.

Bullnose trim tiles (note the tapered and glazed edges) on the left ready to install and the scrap pile on the right. We've got so many of these long, thin strips that I'm thinking we can find some other random thing to tile.

I'm glad I had the cutting job because I got to use one of my favourite tools: the speed square. Throw it up against the guard and you now have an easy 45° angle to get a clean, consistent cut to match the installed tile.

Tile cut to meet at 45° on the corner.

Here's a close shot to show the lines that drew us to this tile. We thought they would make it a bit more interesting than plain white tiles but still keep things simple...though it's maybe still a bit too simple?

I thought the perpendicular vines might look weird but it seems to work.

While the trim tile is the same series as the wall tile and they've got the same pattern, they weren't dyed at the same time so the colour isn't exactly identical. The difference was quite striking before we grouted so it's possible some of it was the grout haze on the wall tile. The glass panels will sit along the grout line so even if there is a difference in colour, it shouldn't be noticeable.

Tiled curbless shower so, so close to being usable!

Trim tile lined up along the window sill edge.

Posting that photo of the fully tiled shower, I realize that we never even talked about grouting the floor and ceiling. We used sanded grey grout for the floor, having picked out the colour based on little plastic sample strips in the store. I can't remember if we had an actual tile sample with us to compare at the time so it may have been a problem with our selection but the grout turned out much more white than promised by the plastic sample or the colour sticker on the bag.

The grout looks much darker than this when it's wet... almost what it is supposed to look like.

If all goes as planned, we should have ourselves a functional shower by the weekend. Knock on wood.