From The Past: June 10, 2008

We have a small half-bathroom which we refer to as “the little bathroom”. How creative! Anyway, the little bathroom needed a facelift, so we started by painting the ceiling. After that, the walls went from an ugly shade of purple to a pale yellow.

Kevin installed a new faucet, just like in the big bathroom and he also put in a new toilet, towel rack, and toilet paper holder.

The biggest thing he did, and what started this whole project was the floor. It was very dated and original to the house. It had also suffered water damage (not from the hot water heater) which we have now fixed:

Kevin installed slate in our big bathroom years ago. We love it so much we decided to install it in the little bathroom also.

He used an adhesive and spacers to set the slate in place. This had to sit for 24 hours before we could do anything else.

Once 24 hours had passed, he could grout. This is a messy job and one they usually don’t show on those home repair shows. If they showed the grouting process, no one would want to try it!

Grouting slate tiles is different from grouting porcelain tiles. With porcelain, you can simply wipe the excess grout away with a few sweeps of the hand. Porcelain tiles are slick, so there is nothing for the grout to stick to on top of the tile itself. With slate, you have to pick the excess grout up and wipe many, many times. Since slate has a rough texture and tiny crevices, it will hold some of the grout on top if you aren’t careful. You definitely don’t want to cover the beautiful colors of the slate with grout.

Kevin’s last step was sealing the floor so water cannot penetrate the slate.

This is the end result.

I think it’s beautiful!

It makes me happier to be in a place where nothing is coming apart or needs fixing.