New look!

Sorry for the surprise format change but I wanted to brighten things up. I will likely be changing things up again as I am considering moving my blog to my own webhosting account. I am a little miffed that Google won't allow me to use adsense so why promote for someone else's financial gain when you can drive business to your own business. I am a newbie to web design but learning things very fast. I'm a quick study and a big believer in diving in head first. I know that's a complete shock to my readers.
I have toyed with the idea of using my hosting account to create a whole new world of blogging. It wouldn't be interest specific because I think it's awesome to have lots of diverse contributors. I personally have a huge range of interests. Even if I would never do something I would still read about it and think on it. I definitely will link my current blog to my website and vise versa until I make that decision. It's a big commitment and I'm unsure what direction I am taking. Either way, it's always smarter to diversify your interests and create as many streams of interest as possible. It's just a daunting task to link up all my online affiliations. Not that I have multiple personalities but I used to set up email accounts for specific purposes or just on a whim. I need to sort through and disable some. I have done my best to link up my most used accounts but I'm far from finished. I just keep plugging away.
So FYI if you are linked to RSS and it takes you some place new, don't panic. It's just me in a new spot.

Making a custom backsplash

As with most things in my life, I always seem to need to be unique. I don't do average, normal, popular, common or anything else that everyone else is doing when it comes to making my home appealing for me. I look for ways to use unusual products or ideas and incorporate things that make me happy. I had looked at hundreds of backsplashes to decide what texture and visual I was going for. I had settled on glass for it's personal appeal and color variety. There are too many objects and possibilities to list everything you could use for this most personal of projects. I knew I wanted rich color, brilliant shine and unique shapes for this. I checked out sea glass first but everything available was thin and seriously rough textured. It wasn't what I had in mind. I spend too much time perusing the commercial options online and locally but didn't see anything that caught my eye. I was sitting at my computer multitasking (that's what I call work mixed with facebook and shopping) when I happened to think about the different forms glass comes in. I was thinking about those large, smooth, flat pebbles you can buy at the craft store to use in plantscaping and candle jars. That led me to think about glass stones. I wondered if anyone local carried the larger ones. Sure enough, Michaels does! So off I went to dream in color at my local store. Oh the blues, the greens, the reds, the purples...good thing I knew that I wanted to stay in the ocean theme for the sake of my fish shaped sink. What ever material you choose, here's a sweet way to lay it all out and get it into place painlessly. Home Depot carried fiberglass mesh in a 6" wide roll. It's something like 75' long but only costs a few dollars so it doesn't matter if you never use it all. It's slightly self-adhesive but you will need to use additional spray adhesive or craft glue to get things to stick well enough to be able to lift it up and put it in place on your wall space. This worked out so well for me considering that I had 5 shades of glass in various sizes and I wanted to lay it out perfectly before I made a mess with mastic.

At this point, I got really nervous. It was just so...busy. I got over my panic attack and forged ahead. Sometimes you just gotta shove that pill down your throat to get where you want to be. If nothing else, it would be totally unique. I was super nervous about the chocolate grout but I had to have that continuity in design or the backsplash wouldn't work with the marble tile. I put all that behind me once I started grouting.I did have the foresight to tape off everything else before I started.

I let this grout set up for almost two hours because it was really thick and needed that extra set up time. Striking it was like dipping a toddler in melted chocolate and having to clean her off with only spit and tissues and without the aid of a shower or bath tub (or lake or ocean or rain). I am not kidding at all here. It took me an hour for the first pass. I let it set for another hour and then went back at it for another hour. I finally finished it up by cleaning off each individual glass stone, carving back and smoothing the grout until I was pleased with the look.

This came out so genuinely lovely. I don't know why I am always so surprised that I actually like the finished project but I stood and stared at this for hours. I kept going back to the bathroom and just staring. Just so so beautiful. It's actually better than I had imagined.
My original plan was to box in the tile edge with oak and stain it really dark, same as the vanity. I then considered using an edge tile but was too limited by the small amount of space between the top of the tile and where the drawers needed to fit back in. I also wanted to keep this part low key considering that I'd gone all royal on the backsplash. A final rundown on the whole vanity project,not including the rest of the room: I made a drawer for the center dummy panel because it was so wide and so much wasted space. It ended up being more than big enough for what little makeup and facial crap I keep. I am currently building slide out bins for all the stuff that ends up under the sink. I have the mirror all framed with colonial trim and I'll cover that in my next installment.

The bathroom renovation

Now I'm going to backtrack and show off the renovation to date. I just had to get the sink/plumbing details out of the way first. Here is a quick comparison of what I started with and where I am today.

I have now accepted that the only real fun part of a project is the dreaming. I thoroughly enjoy the dream state where I come up with all these lovely plans and fill in the details with mental and physical trips to the home improvement store. I get a little excited about demo work but I actual despise it because I cannot get through it without at least a couple broken nails and multiple booboos. On this one, I thought I broken my pinky, sliced open my palm and now have a lovely scar up the inside of my right wrist compliments of an unseen screw tip. Removing a Corian counter top is not for the faint of heart. You really must be ruthless and mean because there is no nice way about it. If I had a sledgehammer, I surely would have just used that and gotten it over with. After enormous amounts of pulling and whacking with a hammer, I finally loosened it enough to slide it forward and off the vanity. Who knew that shit was so heavy?!

As you can see, it's quite massive for a single sink vanity. I couldn't be happier to say goodbye to that ugly outcrop above the toilet which was heavily "re-engineered" to make toilet tank access easier by some previous homeowner. Next I removed the doors, drawers and toilet paper holder. I carefully scraped the adhesive from the wall and made sure everything loose was gone before patching the walls. Matching this unique texture on the walls has taken me some time. I had to first figure out how it was done then try to successfully duplicate it. I think I've done acceptably well. When painted over, you can't tell where the pros stopped and I repaired.
The first thing I needed to do was get a new sturdy base on the top to support the marble tile. I went with regular OSB because it's inexpensive and easy to cut. I then added a 1/4 inch thick piece of tile board to give extra support and water resistance. I used the extra strong Liquid Nails to adhere the OSB and screwed the tile board to that. You really want a strong surface to lay tile on so the grout and tile don't crack. Lay your tile for a dry run first and, once you are happy with the look and pattern (yes marble tile needs to find it's visual appeal because the veins run through at various angles), mark where you need to cut for your faucet and sink. Drill or cut your holes in the substrate first.

Using my tile saw and a diamond blade for the smoothest cut, I sliced several lines to my mark and broke them out with tile nips. After my dry run, I spread my mastic and laid the tile in place. It's imperative that you level each tile as you go and make sure your mastic is distributed evenly. If not, your tiles will sink from their own weight and you won't realize this until you are getting ready to grout. You want each tile to meet on the same level and you need to have grout lines that are uniform and straight. I always let my mastic set up a full 24 hours. I decided to go with minimal grout width and used unsanded grout in chocolate.

Make sure you press your grout fully into each gap so there are no voids to collapse afterward. Don't smear more grout on that necessary because you'll just make a bigger mess to clean up with it's time to strike it. I prefer to let my grout set about twice as long as the package recommends and here's why: The grout isn't going to harden completely in an hour and since you didn't slather on grout like basting babyback ribs, it won't be difficult to clean up. I find I have less of a tendency to over-strike my grout if it's had more time to set up. I like my grout lines full and level, not sunken in. You can experiment until you figure out what works for you but I've done enough tile over the years to know what I like and what looks better when it's done. I am severe OCD so any flaws will drive me to drink. I taped off with blue painters tape before installing my custom backsplash which I will follow up with in the next installment.