9 Years Ago Today {and basement/home randomness}

9 Years ago today we found ourselves moving into our home. We had quickly sold our first home (after the first showing!) before we even broke ground on the one we were building.  As a result, we had to move into an apartment while our house was built. We lived there for 5 months and on December 22, 2003, we moved in to our home! You can read more about what our kitchen cabinets looked like at that time here.

We were worried about impacting our family and friends around the holiday season, so we ended up renting a U-haul and moving the majority of our belongings ourselves. We did ask one friend did come and help us for about 3 hours – there were a few things that I was not able to help lift down the stairs from our apartment (TV, TV cabinet, couches, etc.). We were so thankful to have the help that day!
It’s crazy to thing about all of the changes we have made to our home over the last nine years and we have been loving every minute of it!

The basement is currently consuming a lot of our free time (and money!!). After focusing on tiling the shower and the basement entry, we moved on the family room. We hung the mantel over the fireplace and construction on the built-in cabinets has begun.  (Which you know if you follow me on Instagram).
Here are a few random pictures from the basement – the work continues!

This picture is from weeks ago, but here is the shower before grout. All of the tile in the basement has been grouted for weeks and the fixtures have been installed. I just haven’t taken the time to take any updated pictures…





We were “mid-grout” here:



After we were done with the tiling, we put up the fireplace mantel and now the built-in cabinets are being built. Hubby brought in the bases for a quick “size check” so we could get a feel for how they would look. The cabinet on the right side will be angled into the room since that is where the TV will be. They are farther along now – more pics once they are installed!



It has snowed here a few times and we just recently had a blizzard here in Minnesota. Here is our front porch after one of the snowfalls – all set for Christmas!



Happy Holidays to you!

Tiling the Shower

Well, we did it! Mostly anyways. Together we spent hour after hour this past weekend tiling the walls of the shower. Overall, it went pretty smoothly, it just took WAY longer than we thought it would. (Just like our last round of tile...) That seems to be the story of finishing the basement… When is it going to be done?!?

Here is the shower right before we started tiling. We used the wood boards as a level line and began tiling from that point up. You can see the lines drawn on the wall to show where the mosaic stripe will go. That red stuff is called RedGard – it’s a waterproofing sealer to ensure there is no water leakage.

Hubby mixing the thinset. This batch was MUCH better than the last one!

Here’s hubby trying to look tough right before we started – there may have been a little trickery going on (if you can’t tell from the grin)!

Here goes… the first tile is on the wall! Notice he’s wearing his wedding ring – it has been covered in thinset and grout multiples times over the last 10 days or so…

Sconni had to come check things out. Sota wouldn’t come into the basement – the tile saw freaked her out.

Here’s the shower after our first afternoon of tiling. We quickly discovered that we couldn’t continue on tiling above the mosaic because the weight was too much pressure and the mosaic tiles were starting to buckle. Glad we figured that out when we were only two rows in!

Here’s the same view the next morning without the spacers – looks much better!

The mosaic tile is my favorite part!

The bottom tiles are almost all installed (each tile is taped to the tile above to keep them from sliding down). The tile on the front ledge of the shower is also installed.



Here’s hubby making the final cuts. Believe it or not, I did at least half of the tile cuts for the shower! I tried to help as much as I could.

Here’s the bathroom and shower at the end of the night Sunday. (The tape and spacers came down on Monday morning)

All in all, great progress was made on the basement again this past weekend!

Tiling the Shower Floor

Last weekend we tiled the bathroom floor and did some prep work for the shower floor.  Having never done any tiling before, it was a little tricky getting the hang of it.  Had we known the issues we would have with the shower floor, handy hubby would probably say that the bathroom floor was a piece of cake!

Gray tiles (from Lowes) ready for the shower floor -



When we set up to work on the shower floor, we thought it would be quick and easy, especially compared to the entire bathroom floor.  Maybe it would have been quick if the thinset had mixed properly. What a mess. In an attempt to mix half the bag and half the liquid, something went wrong. Too much liquid, not enough mix. This was our first attempt to mix our own thinset, so we didn’t know how bad it really was until after we got started.

Here is the floor ready for tile – you can see where we have been attempting to “dry fit” the tiles after cutting on the wet saw.



As we set the tiles in (each “tile” had 36 little tiles) they started to SINK in the thinset. At this point, we knew we were in trouble. There are no photos, because we were just at a loss. The floor was covered in thinset, that was so “thin” that it wouldn’t hold the grooves from the trowel. We felt we were committed since the floor was already covered though, so we waited and waited to give the thinset some time to set. It gradually started to set, so we went for it. In all honestly, we probably should have just scraped it out and started over. The tiles would probably have layed much easier and smoother.

Here is the floor right after we finished laying the tiles -

That ledge at the edge of the shower will eventually be covered in the gray tiles.  Oh, and the ledge really does not curve. Let’s call that a camera trick…

Here is the bathroom floor (with grout!) and the newly installed shower floor (without grout) -



We learned some tiling tricks through the process. One suggestion, make sure you don’t set the drain too high… Oops.  Another suggestion, buy 2 bags of the little wedges. They were just as handy as the little circle spacers.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know we have been tiling more in the shower this weekend!

More tiling updates to come!

Just a little TILE!

Tile? That’s right, tile! Handy hubby’s motivation to work on the basement has returned! The next projects that really should be completed are the built-ins around the fireplace and the installation of the mantel. Then we could put the stone on the fireplace and have the fireplace guys come back to finish the installation, which would allow us to pay them. They are getting a wee bit anxious about getting the rest of their money – rightfully so – they installed the fireplace last April!

Construction on the built-in cabinets began a couple weeks ago, but was then stalled while we waited for the router bit that is needed to make the panels for the sides of the cabinets. So, while I was out of town last week, hubby installed the cement board in the shower and started prepping the shower floor for tile.



Then the router bit arrived and hubby decided to continue on with the bathroom. I did what every good wife does when motivation strikes her husband – encourage it!

The shower floor now has cement and is ready for tile too!

And then there was tile!

This next picture shows the truest color of the tile, but it’s still not quite right. In all the photos it looks beige, but in real life it looks more like white stone than beige tile.

This was the first time handy hubby had installed tile, so we felt pretty good that he installed the bathroom floor in just four hours. There was a lot of tile cutting to be done. He did great!

It’s nice to see progress in the basement again!