More Signs of a Bathroom

This weekend was a particularly productive weekend, at least I think so. We even spent much of the day Saturday outside getting ready for winter and we still made lots of progress on the bathroom.

We started Saturday with Chad doing more shower prep and me doing more wall prep. The wall prep on this project has been ridiculous, but I don't think I've been that efficient about it. We put walls up at different times, removed bad plaster at other times, so the work has been continuous for what seems like months. I am starting to get to the end of it, I think. Chad installed the seat in the shower, a deep metal pan that fits in the corner of the shower. It is filled with floor mortar mix to give it weight and for something to tile to.

Sunday we had a full work day. We even went to Lowe's for what we needed on Saturday night so we wouldn't have to spend work time running errands. First, I continued more wall prep and Chad got the floor ready for tiling. He put in the drain pipe for the toilet and installed Hardiebacker board for the floor.

Then we put Redgard (really, pinkgard would be more appropriate) on the walls of the shower. We've never used this product before, but it was recommended because we used dens-shield for the shower walls. Since its edges are somewhat less waterproof than cement board or Hardiebacker board, the edges, seams, and screw holes have to be waterproofed. Basically, Redgard is like rubber cement. It's runny (kind of like snot), but it hardens to a plastic coating. We used two coats, one in the morning and one in the evening, using a throw-away brush. The directions recommended a roller or trowel, but the brush seemed more manageable for a small job like a shower. Every corner, seam, nail hole, or cut in the dens-shield first gets fiberglass tape and a coat of mortar, then the two coats of Redgard go over that. Even though the major home improvement stores don't sell dens-shield, we were able to find Redgard at the Home Depot with their tiling products.

Between Redgard applications, we installed crown molding in the vanity half of the bathroom (the shower half has too low of ceilings for crown). Originally, we were going to use stock crown from Lowe's or Home Depot - whatever we found that we liked. But what's the fun in that? Our adjoining master bedroom has original plaster crown that looks like this (beaded trim flat on ceiling, then crown to it from the wall, then a trim piece out from beaded trim):

I thought it would be a great idea to re-create this look in our bathroom but on a smaller scale (because it's a smaller room). I looked at Lowe's, Home Depot, and online, and couldn't find crown like it, so we found three separate pieces that would make the look we wanted. We started with reeded molding, about 4 inches wide, and nailed it up on the ceiling about 1 inch from the walls. Since it would lay flat on the ceiling, we cut the butt joints at a 45 degree bevel, kind of like baseboard, and then did a 45 degree miter at the corners.Next, we used some simple crown with about a 1 1/4 inch projection out from the wall to fill the 1 inch gap from the wall to the reeded molding.

To finish, we used a decorative glass bead trim with about a 3/4 inch projection to finish off the outside ceiling edge of the reeded trim. These were the hardest cuts for me (I'm the cutter and Chad is the nailer) - for some reason I just couldn't get the butt joints to match, or the corners to meet up right. I think it had something to do with the trim lying flat on the ceiling, rather than at an angle like crown. Thankfully, with it being a small rectangular room (10 1/2 feet by 5 feet), we didn't have lots of cuts to make.

Now that it's all up, the corners and nail holes need filled with wood filler. The corners gave us fits. Not only are the walls not perfect 90 degree angles, the ceiling slopes down slightly because this room has a flat roof. I figure it's nothing that a little wood filler and caulk can't make look nice. Here is the finished product before filling:
I know it was a lot more work than putting up prefabricated crown, but it's the special touches that make a space. Plus it was like a challenge to find a match to what was already there, and I think we succeeded. What made us laugh, though, was that we put up crown three times in this space rather than the typical once. After the reeded trim was up we thought "wow, if we had taken the easy way out we'd be done." We are so happy with the result.

What's coming up next weekend? Door and baseboard trim (plus more wall prep).