Our Living Stones

real life | real love for design

Tiling over old tile

Hey Everyone! One of the key components in our bathroom remodel was changing out the 1970’s green floor tile for something a bit more updated. Several years before we moved into our house this bathroom’s shower was re-tiled, and enough extra tile was purchased to do the floor too. When we moved in we started working on other projects, and the poor tile sat neglected out in the garage until we finally got ready to rehab this bathroom.

Old Green Tile

Once we started renovations After much discussion, I decided that the best way to set the tile in the bathroom was to go directly over the existing floor. The original tile in the house was set on top of a thick mortar bed, and taking up the old tile would have made a mess of this perfectly leveled floor causing us nothing but more work (and more money!). With the proper additive in our thinset and good tiling technique the new tile should stay firmly in place for years to come. Going over the original tile will raise the floor about 1/2″, which we will compensate for with a custom transition in the doorway.

Before starting to mix up mortar, we did a quick test layout to get a rough idea of how the tiles were going to lay out.

Testing tile layout

Next I picked a starting spot; in such a small space, the room being out of square shouldn’t be too much of an issue but it’s always a good idea to check. For the bathroom I decided to start tiling against the tub, this gave me a great straight line to start from, and allowed me to control the size of the grout joint at the tub (I wanted this to be as thin as possible since this is the spot most likely to get discolored from water).

We mixed up our thinset mortar with a good latex additive instead of water to increase the bond strength and then it was time to tile. This is the one we used:

Get it here

Check out this great video about the correct way to trowel out thinset if you haven’t done it before –

 

 

Once the tile was set, we let it dry for a day and then put down some grout. What a difference it makes!

Let us know if you have any questions!

– John

The Guest Bathroom Vanity Update

Hey Guys! If you follow me on social media (and you should on instragram @ourlivingstones!) than you know that we chose to splurge on our vanity top since we are saving money in other areas of our bathroom renovation (see my last post on how we are doing that). I posted a picture of 4 different types of countertop that we were thinking about choosing from.

The top left is granite, the top right is quartz, the bottom left is also quartz, and the bottom right is marble.

When we went to go look at the remnants they had available (remnants are much cheaper than getting an actual slab but of course you have less selection), my first thought immediately was that I wanted quartz or marble. I love the clean look of quartz and the classic beauty of marble. So when I saw the quartz (top right) I thought that we might have a winner. It had some veining that mimicked marble and it also had the white clean look that quartz usually has.

Then I looked at the actual marble slab they had available.

And it was absolutely GORGEOUS! It went perfectly with the colors that I chose and it even had this subtle blue tone veining that was really pretty. The only problem was that this was going in our kid’s bathroom and the more research I did on marble, the more I thought it might not be a good idea. There are definitely conflicting arguments out there about the maintenance of marble. Some people say that it is very prone to etching and staining but then there are others who say that have never had a problem with it. Either way, I REALLY REALLY wanted the marble.

But I couldn’t do it.

With how much it cost and the maintenance it would probably take to keep it up, I was afraid that it would just be too much for a kid’s bathroom.

So then I returned to the quartz that mimicked marble. Quartz was the highest rated material for countertops. There is no sealing, no staining, etching or scratching. It cleans well and is made from natural stone. It is literally the holy grail of countertops. So why was I hesitating? Because it will never be the real thing. And since I am spending all this money on a brand new countertop, I really wanted to love it. And I didn’t love it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the IDEA of quartz. I love all the qualities of quartz. But after seeing the real deal marble slab, this could never measure up to that in the looks department. (I tried convincing my husband of getting just classic white quartz but he has this thing against all white everything) Every time I looked at it, it just always looked fake to me.

So then there was the other quartz (bottom left) that had the little chips in it. My husband really liked it but I just thought it looked too modern for our house (and my sister said it looked like a gym floor haha) So that was out.

So what was left?

Granite.

Granite was never something I thought I would want. All of my experiences with granite (no offense) were the typical weird speckled granite that just wasn’t pretty. I also that it could look really busy and fussy.

But when I started looking, I realized there really were some pretty pieces of granite that were different than the typical ones you usually see. Unfortunately, the granite in the top left was not available so I went searching for pieces that fit my criteria. I knew that I wanted a piece that had at least some white in it and that went with the paint colors that I have chosen.

And then I saw this:

So…. I actually fell in LOVE with it! I never thought I would choose granite but it looked great with my paint colors and it had some white in it too. It even had some veining in it that was actually really pretty!

But when we asked the guy about it, he said that this piece was actually already spoken for. But another guy spoke up and said they had more slabs of this so we can have this piece!!! He must seen how much I loved it. 

Here was the other slabs they had of this granite. It is called Silver Cloud. (our piece is not this busy thank goodness – it looks more like the bottom part of this slab)

Here are some other examples of people using Silver Cloud granite (all came from Houzz):

And here is our vanity top as of now:

I couldn’t be happier!!! Even though it isn’t the nice clean look that I originally had planned for this bathroom, this countertop is a showstopper!! I plan on making everything else simple and white to complement it.

Let me know what you guys think!! I hope you like it as much as I do!

-Ashley

The Bad, the Ugly, and the Good – Our Bathroom Upgrade

Hey Guys! This is all about our bathroom upgrade. I call it an upgrade instead of a remodel because we aren’t changing anything about the layout of the space to save a lot of money.

In a perfect world with an unlimited budget, I would definitely change the footprint of this bathroom to be smaller (because it is an unusually large bathroom for just a guest bathroom) and add space to our master bathroom (which is much smaller – gotta love the 1960’s when the idea of a “master suite” didn’t exist), but that’s just not gonna happen unless we sell a kidney. There is no telling how much it would cost to rip out walls, rearrange plumbing, change out layouts, and get new everything.

Other ways we are saving money:

  1. We are keeping the existing vanity.

It would be so easy to just buy a brand new vanity to go in our bathroom. The problem is our vanity is not a standard size (of course right?!)  So everything out there would just be too big or would be weirdly small and we would have to figure out the flooring underneath (which would be more $$) and how to fill in the gaps around it. So our solution is to resurface the cabinet doors and paint it a pretty blue gray.

2. Keeping the existing flooring.

Is the “wood” laminate in the vanity area my first choice of flooring? No. But it’s in good shape and fine for now so we are definitely saving money by keeping it.

3. Using tile we already have for the floor in the toilet area (matches the tile in the shower).

Again, not my first choice of tile. This tile was chosen WAY before I really knew my style. (It was actually just sitting in the carport all this time) I would have loved to change this to a subway tile and maybe a hexagon or penny tile floor, but nevertheless, it is an upgrade from where it was (and it looks sooo much better than the weird greenish hexagon tiles that were in there), so we will use it. And it’s free! Not really sure why we waited this long.

This is what our bathroom (vanity area only) looks like as of right now.

Not pretty. Well I see it as a blank canvas and can’t wait to start seeing some real change!

Here are my plans for this area:

  1. Change the countertop and sink.

This was a must for me. Right now we have the 1960’s special “white” laminate that is pretty much yellowish cream at this point. Gotta love the connected backsplash and “side splashes” (is that what you call it??). Because we are saving so much money in other areas, I really wanted to splurge and get something special for the countertop. Look for upcoming posts to see what we picked!

2.   Change the lighting.

Nothing like fluorescent lighting to make you feel like you’re in an institution. Also the buzzing sound just makes you feel all warm inside. So basically, this goes without saying. Not sure what we’re going to go with yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

3.   Add board and batten molding.

Because this area is weirdly big, I thought board and batten would look so nice in here to jazz up the walls and to give it visual interest. Its also an inexpensive way to really make a space look new.

4.   Change the linen closet door.

5.   Get new hardware.

6.   Paint and add accessories.

Here is what the toilet area looked like before:

Okay so the tile in the shower is about 10 years old and probably not something I would pick now but it still looks nice so it is staying. I would love to resurface the tub at some point to cover up old rust stains that I have no idea how to fix. If anyone knows how to get rid of rust stains on old bathtubs, let me know!!

So far we have sanded and patched the walls and added primer so that it will be a nice canvas for our paint. We also plan on painting the trim white, but the trim needs some TLC before we can do that.

And again, the floor will be the same tile that is in the shower because we already have it. Anything is really an improvement, am I right?!

In conclusion:

I hope this gives you guys a great look into what we are planning for this bathroom. I can’t wait to see it all come together! I will give you updates as they happen so STAY TUNED!

-Ashley