the tile’s all in and grouted.  it really looks nice, i especially like the river stone floor.

riverstone floor

so now we’re waiting for the floor tile to come in,  hopefully on friday.  there was one small item that we didn’t forsee.  there’s one wall that was so bowed, brian (the tile guy) really had to lay the thinset on kinda thick to make the tiles straight. he cut all these little pieces and covered the edge, it really looks good.

warped walls

all that’s left is to install the fixtures and put in an overhead light in the shower stall. here’s a couple more pictures.

go here to see the beginning of the remodel

so the weekend was spent tiling the shower.  the river stone looks really nice. the tiler is doing a really good job, making sure everything is flat and level.  we’re thinking about getting on of those seamless shower doors, so the walls have to be near perfect or it won’t swing right.

river stone floor

all of those little red things are tiny wedges that he uses to make sure the lines are nice and level. and the stuff that looks like red paint is an extra layer of water proofing at the joints and corners.

the dark stripe is a smoked glass tile, it doesn’t really show up that well in the pictures. he also got a few stones to cut and insert around the drain so there isn’t too much of a grout area next to it.

the tiler used some of the threshold to line the shelf’s, that way there’s no seams on the bottom.  i put a small block of wood behind the wall to hold the shower fixture at the right distance from the tile face so the handle won’t have this big gap behind it.  monday, he should finish up the tiling and the small details and then he can start grouting.  we’re getting closer!

go here to see the beginning of the remodel

under the tile is a layer of what’s called cement board.  this gives the tile a firm base to sit on that won’t flex or crack. unlike the original contractor, who put wall tile on the floor right over the plywood sub-floor.

cement board

in the shower he poured in cement and shaped it so that the water will drain to the center and not pool anywhere. there’ll be a marble threshold on the little wall that’ll help visually break up the tile in the shower from the tile on the floor, a heated floor by the way.

cement floor in the shower

two cubby holes, one for the shampoo bottles and such, and the smaller one down below to step on when I shave my legs.

cubby holes

friday, the tile will start going up in the shower stall. the floor tile was damaged in shipping so had to be reordered, it’s supposed to come  in the middle of next week.  still, lots to do in the mean time.

here’s the next posting.

go here to see the beginning of the remodel

so, Tuesday the shower come out. The contractor had to cut it into six or seven pieces to get it out of the bathroom. He also got all the tile out, used an electric chisel. Most of it was glued down pretty good, but there was one section that practically came up on its own.

tile’s out

shower’s out

Contractors being the generous people that they are, the one that built our house left us a present. We found this when the shower enclosure was cut out.

presents from the house builder

After everything was cleaned up, it was time for me to do some plumbing. I had to install a new shower fixture.

It took me about two hours to cut out the old fixture and sweat in the new one, and I got it on the first try, no leaks when I turned the water back on.

new shower fixture

Wednesday, the tiler is going to build the new enclosure and put up the cement board in the shower, long with getting the floor ready for tile also.

here’s the next posting

we’ve started the remodel on the master bath this weekend.  were going to take out the old fiberglass shower insert and replace it with tile.  we’re putting white subway tile in the shower with three rows of smoked glass subway tile at about eye level, and  small river stone on the floor of the shower.

this is what the river stone tile looks like, except ours will be a bit lighter in color

then we have a light grey-ish honed limestone on the floor, WHICH WILL BE HEATED. no more cold bathroom floors in the morning.  it’ll have a controller that turns it on for the time we set, so it’ll be nice and warm when we get up in the morning.  everything else is getting replaced also.  cheryl’s brother mike is making our vanity for us, he does really nice woodwork out in las vegas.  check here to see some of his work.

the tile guy is coming out on tuesday to cut out the shower stall and remove the old tile.  then he’ll build a new shower and do all the prep work for tiling.  i spent the weekend removing all the other stuff, the sink and vanity, and the shower door and hardware.  i also ran a new separate electrical line for the heated floor, as it had to have it’s own dedicated circuit.

it’s still early in the game, but so far nothing tragic has come up.  here’s a few pictures of the progress so far.

looking in

looking out

shower stall

sink and vanity pulled out

this shows the hole i had to cut for the heated floor controller and where i drilled through the wall and floor to run the wire from the electrical box in the basement.

still left to do

the toilet will come out monday evening and then everything will be ready for the demo on tuesday.  i’ll keep posting throughout the remodel, so check back every couple of days or so.

here’s the next posting

so, we’ve been home a couple of weeks now, and i feel like i’ve finally recovered from our trip. you know how some vacations, you need another vacation when your get home. i think the heat was what whipped us out the most. it’s good to be home, and no matter how nice a bed the hotel has, there’s nothing like sleeping in your own.

we’re finally getting our patio poured this week. we tore down the deck about four years ago with the intention of pouring a patio the same year. but then we saw the price of concrete work, and decided to wait awhile. this guy was recommended by some friends, and he does really nice work. here’s what it’s looking like so far….

there’s a lot of dirt there, some of it’s for leveling off the grade when he’s done. i’ll post as things progress.

so we decided to. Leave early, we’ve had enough of the salt. we’ve got our souvenir t-shirts and we had a great time. don’t know when we’ll do it again, of if we would. i’d like to thank John Romero from White Goose Bar racing for all the hospitality he’s shown us, answering our questions and putting up with us hanging out under his tent and taking up space. we got to help out the last day, so we weren’t totally useless.

we’ll have a couple of relaxing day in vegas, doing the tourist thing, then back home.

here’s a couple more shots from the track.

and it’s kicking our butts, which is why i didn’t post yesterday. we got home yesterday afternoon about 4:30 and we were just wiped out. we grabbed a quick dinner and then crashed. slept in till about 7:30, filled up the cooler with ice and water, and headed on out to the track.

this is one of the timing shacks on the track.

our contact, John Romero from White Goose Bar racing, got us a ride with the safety crew for about an hour. we got to go out on the tracks when anything happened, and with four tracks, there was a lot happening.

most of the time we just kinda hung out under the tents trying to stay cool. we helped out a bit when we could. we helped out at the starting line for one run, Cameron was the official umbrella holder ; ), keeping the driver cool while he was waiting his turn to make a run.
is turn

here the car is still on the trailer, waiting it’s turn.

this has been a hectic three days on the salt flats, and we’re pretty whipped. we’re talking about leaving tomorrow, a day early. we’ll see how we feel in the morning.

first day on the flats, pretty amazing, and a zillion people. i’ve got some really nice images, but i didn’t bring any computer software to do any kind of editing. all of the images i’ve posted so far have been phone images.

there are four tracks on the flats, two for the faster cars and the other two for some of the slower cars and the motorcycles. the longest track is eight miles long. spectators and racers line the tracks on the one side.

we met up with some of our contacts, saw some neat cars, but only lasted in the heat, about 110 today, until about 2:30, so we went back to the hotel to cool off and jump in the pool. We’ll go eat some dinner and then have to go do some laundry.

tomorrow morning, if we can show up at 6:00am, we might be able to get on the car chase crews and help bring the cars back after the run. I just have to get the three lazy kids up early enough.

we pulled into wendover about 6:00 this evening. hot rods everywhere.

it looks like it rained on the flats today, all the cars were covered in a salt crust.

I’ve got a couple of contacts to get ahold of tomorrow, they’re going to show us around get us into the “secret” places. gotta a find a donut shop for breakfast first.