Bathroom Phase 4? (Brought to you by TV)

Major kudos to the show "No Reno Demo" for pointing out a problem I was going to run into before I ran into it. Jenn was talking about this bathroom she and her team were doing, and she said, "This tile is not offensive and I could leave it - but I'm changing out the vanity, and generally tile doesn't go under vanities. I would have to fix the tile anyway, so I'm going to change the tile." I said out loud to the dog, "oh shit. The bathroom floors."

I measured the bathroom - its 40 sq ft of floor, and I spent the next hour looking at tile and trying to figure out an inexpensive-ish way to re-tile my bathroom floor. This was not at all in my budget and had not been planned - and I had suggested the following weekend to my uncle to help me with the vanity project. The next morning I texted my mom, "Talk me down off this ledge: it occurred to me last night that when I change out the vanity, it will be an inch shallower at the base with an open kick space that runs like 42 inches. None of that area is tiled. Do I retile the bathroom floor??"

Bless my mom's practical heart. She responded, "Oh no!! I wonder if you can find that tile. . . it was ubiquitous."

This began the great tile search of 2021. Here's the thing: in many ways, it would have been easier to pick a new tile, even if the work itself would not be easier. Finding matching builder grade tile is actually surprisingly difficult. I tried three different tiles. One was just entirely wrong. One was a much better match for the pattern; the other a much better match for color. Both were visibly off from the current tile - but it's not quite 6 sq ft to patch, and almost all of it will be underneath a vanity. I went with the match for the pattern (maybe I should have gone color - but as my friend Megan put it, "This is literally what rugs are for.")

Before I could get to tiling, I had to demo the existing bathroom vanity. Once I got the plumbing unhooked, the countertop came up really easily - it wasn't attached to the cabinet base. Anywhere. Based on how easily the countertop came up, I thought removing the base would also be easy. It was not. Getting the screws out from the wall was (all three of them) super easy. But the cabinet back had holes just big enough for the for the copper pipes, and the water shut off valves had solid escutcheons behind them. I couldn't just pull the cabinet base out. I needed to deconstruct it. Eventually this involved a circular saw and a pry-bar, but I did get the cabinet base out.  

Once the cabinet base was out, either I noticed for the first time OR I created the problem, but the joins between the shut-off valves and the copper pipe were leaking. While I tried to figure out how to solve the problem, I decided to demo the tile. I did this the "old fashioned way", with grout saw, a flat head screwdriver, and a hammer. It went honestly relatively quickly - I probably only had to remove two and a half tiles, when the bits were combined. 

In the photo below, taken mid-tile removal, you can see the wet spots on the floor - the clear drip point and the muddy mess beyond.

I could clearly see that the soldered joins between the valves and the pipe had failed. It wasn't a gush, it was really just a slow drip. But obviously any level of leak is going to eventually be a disaster. 

I turned the water off and then spent a long time trying to figure out how to replace shut-off valves. Thanks to This Old House's YouTube tutorials, I learned that you can get shut off valves that have a brass compression ring, so you don't need to solder! I used a hacksaw to remove the original shut-off valves one at a time.

I replaced the shut-off valves successfully, though the 3/4 turn required to compress the ring was really hard to turn that last 1/4. 

Once the tiles were out and the shut-off valves replaced, I got to setting the tiles. I had to place 6 tiles: 2 full tiles, 3 tiles with about an inch off one side, and 1 tile with an inch off two sides. In case you were wondering, cutting 1 inch off the edge of a 12 inch square tile is really frustrating! I spread the thinset and placed my tiles. I had tile spacers but it wound up being easier to visually set it to the preexisting grout lines, though I did slide the spacers in once I had it set. 

I waited 24 hours for everything to set, and then I added grout. Like the tile, I did not actually manage to pick a match for the grout already there. Unlike the tile, I did not clean the grout (it needs it!) and so my match might not be as off as it seems. I also need to seal the grout, and you can buy stained grout seal, so I'm not super concerned about it. 

Now I have a fully tiled bathroom. The tiles may not match exactly but they'll mostly be under the vanity and I just. don't. care. I'll find a cute rug and call it a day!