Next Project: The Bathroom Floor

I've begun prepping for my next home improvement project! Out with the old, worn vinyl bathroom floor and in with a tile floor. Official installation starts this Saturday. Nothing like a little tile work to celebrate Halloween.

Originally I thought I would do 2x2 hex tile, which I LOVE. It's common in older homes from the 1920s and before and I had 1x1 with a flower design in my bathroom at my last apartment.

2x2 white hex tile and a picture of it installed from Subway Tile

But after much number crunching, I just couldn't bring myself to spend the money. I need 36 square feet. The cheapest I could find hex tile is $8 a square foot = $288 plus tax, so let's say $300. Which doesn't seem like much for a new floor. But I also have to buy all the supplies, rent a tile cutter and pay to have it installed because I'm boyfriendless and can't have my man do the job for me in exchange for sexual favors.

So I decided DalTile Octagon and Dot tile was a good alternative. You can buy it from Home Depot for about $2.50 a square foot. That's only $90 for a new floor! I'm going to use a light silver grout.


What You Need to Install a 36 Sqr Foot Tile Bathroom Floor:

• Someone who knows what they're doing - $20-25/hr. if you get a deal. Probably less if you get someone from the Home Depot parking lot.
• Tile - 36 square ft.
• Hardy Board - 3 sheets, about $10/ech (this is cement board that screws to your subfloor and is the sturdy base to support the tile)
• Thin Set - 1 tub, about $20 (this is the mortar you put on top of the hardy board and attach the tile to)
• Grout - 25 lbs bag, $10-15 (goes in between the tiles)
• Tile/Grout sealer - 1 bottle (seals the grout to prevent staining)
• Thin set rake - $3 for a cheap one (to apply the thin set and rake half circle patterns into it)
• 2" deck screws - $5/box (to attach hardy board to subfloor)
• Grout sponge - $2 (not sure what it's for yet)
• Bucket to mix the grout in
  
• Baseboard - you might not need it. I do b/c my vinyl floor runs about 2 inches up on to the wall instead of there being existing trim baseboard around the edge of the floor.
• Floor transition piece
• Shower grout - to seal it by the tub. $4/tube for cheap stuff.
  

My friend Max is doing the installation for me. We went to Home Depot this past Monday and picked up everything on the list above except the grout. I'm looking for a very specific, super light shade of gray that looks more silver to add a little contrast between the tiles (instead of using white). Here's an example of how someone used white tile with silver grout no their walls. Home Depot didn't have what I wanted. Lowe's carries a "pale gray", but they only had it in sanded grout and I think I want non-sanded (they could order that but it'll take two weeks to get here and we start the floor this weekend). So my last stop will be at Arizona Tile on Morena Blvd. I called and they have two light shades in non-sanded for me to check out. And it's actually only $9 for a bag of grout there which is cheaper than the big stores. And here I always assumed specialty shops would be more expensive.

I'm pretty stoked because I think materials and the tile saw should all come under $300, especially since I ended up borrowing some of the supplies from a friend, so I'm going to return a few things this weekend and get $20-30 back. Woo-hoo! Depending on how fast Max works (and how much help I can be), I'm hoping my labor will probably be around $300-350. But less is always better!

The How-To and Before & After portions of this post to follow next week.

And an even more important post next week: the Meet My New Kitties post! As soon as this floor is done, I'm going to the Humane Society and adopting Jackson and Boo, who I wrote a little about last week. I visited them yesterday after work and it was all I could do not to bring them home right then. Jackson crawled into my lap as soon as I sat down, started purring, then fell asleep. After a few minutes, Boo came out of her hiding spot after seeing I wasn't harming her buddy and she laid next to me so I could pet her too. And I finally heard her voice (I've gone to see them every weekend for a month; the workers there are joking they'll have to name a wing after me) and she made a cute little "merp" meow thing. Hopefully I'll get her to purr once she gets more used to me.

So I'm looking forward to having a nice floor in the bathroom, but mostly I'm looking forward to the reward of finally have pets!