Picking up Steam

I had really hoped to get back in the habit of weekly updates. Oh well...

We are getting back in the rhythm of getting a lot accomplished on the house. We were starting to get used to having more time together as a family so it is a little bit of an adjustment to get used to spending so much time on the house. But you will get to benefit from this with lots of progress pictures!

Picking up where we left off - we had a drywall inspection shortly after the last update. We passed the inspection without any issues. We used the opportunity to get some information about what was required for the shower pan inspection. That was the next job.

The first step was adding blocking between the studs at the bottom of the walls in the shower. This supports the shower pan and the bottom of the tile backer board since it can't be attached at the bottom or else it would puncture the shower pan liner.

The next step was building a pre-slope so that water will flow to the drain. This was made by mixing sand and concrete at a ratio of 5:1 and adding only enough water to clump when you squeeze it in your hand. This was then packed onto the shower sub-floor over a layer of felt paper and metal lath. It was packed with a slope of 1/4" per foot from the walls of the shower to the top of the lower half of the drain assembly.

Once that hardened we installed the pan liner. This is the waterproof layer. I used a PVC membrane for the pan liner since it is readily available and easy to install. It comes on a big roll and you buy it by the foot. The liner is placed in the shower over the pre-slope and wraps up the walls. It is folded so that it creates a waterproof pool with no holes or punctures until several inches above the shower curb. The exception is the drain hole which is clamped between the two halves of the drain assembly to ensure a proper seal ad no leaks.

With the pan liner installed we did a 24 hour leak test by filling the whole thing up with water and insuring the level didn't change. Once we were sure we had a leak-proof shower pan we called for our shower pan inspection. This is where they make sure the shower doesn't leak and, when the drain is unplugged, that all the water flows with the appropriate urgency to the drain. We passed this inspection and now the only inspection we have left will be our final inspection!

While all this was going on we also had some decisions that we needed to make. We needed to decide what to do for a vanity and counter top in the master bathroom and what to do for tile in the master shower. After a few days and several hours in Home Depot we ordered a dark burgundy vanity with an engineered top, that should arrive in the next week or so, and picked out the tile for the shower. You will get a better idea of what these will look like in the next few updates.

Back to the real work, it was on to the tile backer board in the shower so the shower pan could be finished. In order to do that we first needed to put up a moisture barrier. This is to protect the framing since backer board is porous and absorbs water. We also made sure that any flat surface in the shower, if exposed to water, would drain over this moisture banner and make its way down into the pan liner and eventually the drain. Then it was time to start the backer board. This went up pretty easily, but it was killing my hands. Cement just sucks any moisture right out of what it comes in contact with, so I started wearing latex gloves to keep my hands from drying and cracking so much.

With the backer board up we taped all the joints with fiberglass tape and thin-set. We also needed to form the shower curb, the window ledge and a shower shelf that we built into the top of the knee wall between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. These are formed over the wood using mortar and lath to keep from putting any holes in the water proofing layer underneath. It also allows the surface to be sloped toward the shower so water doesn't find its way out of the shower.

The tile design we came up with is a little more complicated than just a basic, one tile shower. It has some parts that need to be set before the main wall field tiles are set. We started setting some of these patterns once the joints dried.

Now that the backer-board and curb were finished it was time to finish the shower pan. The backer board needs to be put up first because the final layer of the shower pan captures and supports the bottom of the backer board since it couldn't be screwed to the wall without puncturing the pan liner. The shower pan is finished off with another 1.5" of deck mud (5:1 sand to cement just like before). This sandwiches the pan liner between two layers of hardened deck mud creating a totally waterproof layer without any holes in it.

On another note, last Friday we had a drywall guy that was recommended to us come by to look at the house. He gave us a quote on Monday and showed up with 6 guys on Tuesday to do all the taping. It turned out that our project coincided with a day and a half where they had no work. They got most of it done on Tuesday, with so many guys. Yesterday two guys came and worked all day. Today it only two guys less than half the day to finish up. Wow! Those guys rocked! And it is really nice to not have to do any taping!

This weekend we are heading down to Kingsburg so no work on the house. You can keep us in your prayers, though, as it will be our first time down there since Stacie's dad died. I'm sure it will be a difficult weekend.

Once we get back we will be working on texturing and painting the drywall, prepping to paint the outside of the house, tiling the shower and installing the bathroom vanity. It will really start looking finished over the next few weeks.