We finished putting the floor tile in the bathroom on Sunday, which needed at least 24 hours to cure. So we went to work like normal on Monday. I didn’t think I would have enough time to grout Monday night, so instead I put up the sanitary base on the wall between the tub and the vanity. On Tuesday I worked from home, so I started off doing the grout. I woke up around 7, had a quick breakfast, then mixed up the grout. We chose the same color grout for the floor tile as we used for the tub and vanity countertop — parchment. While I was letting the grout slake I got out the utility knife and razor blade and removed any mortar in the grout joints that I had missed with the pencil while laying the tile. I probably started grouting right around 8:00 a.m., and finished around 10:00 a.m.
One detail that the Home Time tile video mentioned about grouting was that there would be a “grout haze” when done, which I would need to wipe off. I had not noticed any haze when grouting the tub or the countertop, but I definitely noticed a haze on the floor tile. I think I might have been a little more paranoid about wiping off the grout with the sponge for the previous tile projects, or maybe the difference lay in the fact that the floor tile is slightly textured, so it is more difficult to get all the grout out of the small dips in the tile surface, or maybe a combination of both. I had remembered that the video said to wipe off the grout haze with a clean towel, but I couldn’t remember when, so I went and watched part of the video again, and realized that they recommended doing it as soon as possible, and to simply step on the tiles, being careful not to step on the grout joints. So I spent 20 minutes or so doing that, and got off most of the haze, though I will probably have to go over it one more time.
After dinner on Tuesday I decided to put the toilet back in, figuring that the grout would have had sufficient time to dry. It wasn’t completely dry, so I was careful to not step on the grout joints. I took the rags out of the toilet drain which were preventing the sewer gases from coming up, and removed the rest of the old wax ring with a chisel (I didn’t need a chisel, but the wax is really sticky, and I didn’t want to scoop it up with my hands, so it worked pretty well). Then I spent a good 20 minutes cleaning the toilet, and then finally started to put it in. We weren’t sure exactly what sort of wax ring to get, so we got several — one deluxe wax ring, one deluxe wax ring kit (with new nuts, bolts and washers), and one non-wax ring kit. I decided to dry the simple deluxe wax ring first. Although the tile video showed putting the was ring on the drain hole, and then setting the toilet on it, the instructions on the wax ring said to put it on the toilet first, and then set it on the hole, so I followed the instructions that came with the ring. The tile video mentioned I might need some plastic shims to keep the toilet from rocking, but it didn’t seem like the toilet was rocking at all to me, so I didn’t worry about it (especially since I only had wood shims).
I did make 2 mistakes. When I got ready to put the nuts on the bolts, I noticed they were pretty rusty, so I decided to open up the package of nuts and bolts in the other wax ring kit, and then promptly realized that the new nuts would not fit on the old bolts. So I just stuck with the old washers and nuts, and wasted a dollar or two. The second mistake was trying a new gasket that sits between the toilet base and the tank. The old gasket seemed ok, but I thought a new one would be good. Clare had bought one at Pell’s that looked a bit different from the old one, but it did say that it was for a Gerber toilet, which is what we have. (Sidenote – Kathleen Harriman said she has toilet envy of our cool pressurized Gerber toilet, which Steve Harriman installed for us). I had quite a time getting the tank to sit right using the new gasket, and several test flushes, I realized that it was leaking just a bit from that seal, so I went back to the old gasket. Unfortunately, I had already put on the new $30 toilet seat at this point, and scratched it up a bit removing the tank. Oh well. Nothing I can do about that. After putting the old gasket back on it seemed to be leak-free. I then went around and caulked around the toilet, between the tub and the tile, and between the floor tile and the sanitary base. I am still not very good at caulking.
We still have lots of work to do in the bathroom, but the 3 major projects are complete — (1) the tub surround, (2) the vanity, and (3) the floor tile.
One Reply to “Phase 3 is complete
OR
Grout is down. Toilet is back in”
Comments are closed.