Simply DIY 2

When I posted about getting new carpet and tiling the bathroom, I mentioned that there were going to be TWO changes to the basement.  The bathroom floor was the first.  The second was being worked on simultaneously as I was working on the bathroom. Our basement has a door that goes out to our back patio.  The old carpet went right up to the door.  We have an area rug in front of the door, but dirt and mud just can't seem to stay away.    To fix this, I wanted to put tile in front of the door.  My parents did this in their house (tile in front of garage door and back door to patio) and it works so well.  They don't have to worry about getting the carpet wet or mud soaking in.  If mud gets on the tile,they just wipe it up.  SO easy ! So before the carpet guys came to give us new carpet, I pulled up the carpet around the door and laid some tile down.  I just found a corner of the carpet and lifted.  It came right ...

Finally, I'm getting to this last part ( Part 1 and Part 2 ) of the bathroom floor.  So sorry to keep you waiting!  So the last thing that I needed to do to finish my  tiling project  was to put new quarter rounds on the bottom of the baseboard.  I measured the perimeter of the bathroom (I can use this as a real-life example in my class this year !) and went to Lowe's and picked up three, white, eight foot long quarter rounds.  I made sure they were already white so that I didn't have to prime them. My neighbor came over with her trusty manual miter saw and we got to work. She helped me to figure out which way to cut each quarter round so that the corners matched.  Each end needed a 45 degree angle cut so it fit in the corner.  She actually did the measuring while I watched and held the wood so it didn't slip.  I'm a bad DIY blogger since I can't quite explain how to cut the quarter rounds for the corners. We did have...

Earlier this week I posted about the first part of our new bathroom floor.   It's been a bit crazy with school starting and all, but I'm trying to get all the posts done before it gets real crazy. Now on with the bathroom floor expedition !  Once all the mortar dried (we let it dry over a weekend) it was time to grout.  My college friend Mal was visiting and helped me out during this process.  I mixed the grout up with water according to the directions, and we started.  We used a putty knife to spread the grout into all the cracks.   Make sure to get the grout into all the cracks.  You might have to keep spreading the grout over the cracks until they are filled, especially if you see little air bubbles. We worked on sections of the floor, as to make sure that the grout didn't dry before we had a chance to wipe it off. Once a section was grouted, we waited about five minutes for it to set a bit and then began to wipe it off.  M...

Kerry and I finally decided to get new carpet downstairs in the basement.  The old carpet had stains from the previous owner...and from Stout, too.  We were going to wait another year or so, but I just couldn't stand the carpet anymore. So, along with the carpet came two changes to the basement as well. The first is the bathroom floor.  80's linoleum. Ew. It had to go.  If we were going to get nice, new carpet, the bathroom needed to get a nice, new floor.  We couldn't leave him out of all the fun.   Our new neighbors tackled the job of tiling their bathroom as well.  They still had the exact same linoleum as us.  How lucky!  As I watched her tile, I figured I could too.  So I went and got the exact tile as they did (still matching floors !) and got to work. First, I got a screw driver to pry off the quarter rounds at the bottom of the baseboard.  Once all those were off, I used a hammer to take out any nails that didn't ...

Ever since we bought the house back in May, I knew that I wanted to touch up the fireplace in our basement.  It had a beautiful white mantel, but also a blank, black space above the hearth: During an innocent trip to Lowe's for some lightbulbs, out of the corner of my eye, I spied some GORGEOUS glass tile : At $4.98 for a 12x12 sheet of tile, I couldn't pass it up. I purchased two of them.  I knew it would be the perfect touch to the fireplace.  I've never tiled before, so I asked a nice Lowe's employee to point me in the direction of the smallest amount of mortar and grout that I could buy.  I knew I only needed a little bit because the area was so small.  He showed me two tubs of both that were perfect.  I picked up a trowel and a grout sponge and I was ready to go. The mortar was a ready-to-use, no mix adhesive and the grout was unsanded white.  I just had to add water to it.  First, I cut the sheet almost in half w...