Our last post gave a glimpse of our idea for tiling the remaining portion of our upstairs bathroom. We have finished this project and it looks great! Our bathroom upstairs has a small area where the door swings and then a step up to the actual bathroom (toilet, bath, vanity). We originally thought we would complete the lower floor when we redo the entire flooring upstairs. However, this flooring project won't be on our list for a year or two since we will be renting the house. So, it was time to complete the bathroom floor with tile. 

We used a diamond pattern to match the tile on the above floor. 

For the front of the step, we wanted to do something interesting. How about a fun design? Of course! Here is the design in the beginning stage. Aaron used a table saw to rip a few pieces of wood for a border and I cut the 4'' tiles. So far it looks good.

After setting the tile, grout was added.

For the threshold, we used large stone tiles that we originally bought for caps on our deck posts. They looked amazing for this project. We also painted the tops of the tile on the wall so that it matched the color of the tile. Those small details really make a difference. 

And the final product. Wow!

I am really beginning to like all of these tile projects we have done lately. Especially those with fun designs. We are about to start remodeling the downstairs bathroom. I wonder what we will come up with for that project? :) 

Looks like more tile fun! We are working on another fun tile project to finish up our upstairs bathroom remodel, and again decided to do something intricate. I am currently in the process of grouting and should finish up the job today. 

Pictures of the end result will be posted soon :) 

This project really turned out amazing and completely changes the appearance of our downstairs area. We have already talked about prepping, painting, tiling the inside, and starting on tiling the top of the bar in previous posts. So, starting where we left off...

Once we had all the tiles cut (and there were a LOT), we used an adhesive to glue them to the tile that was already on the bar. We tried chipping the tiles out first, but it was not working out well so we decided to simply glue them in place. As always, the tiles are completely set the next day and ready to grout. 

The design really looked good after the grout was added. It definitely helped the different type of tiles blend together well. 

Now that we have the tile set and grouted, the border needed to be addressed. We chose to paint the border of the bar cabinet since the small stone tiles were already about the same color as the cabinet itself. Easy. 

Unfortunately, simply painting the border of the bar wouldn't look good at all because of the raw tile edges. We considered a wood border but then decided on a stone tile border instead. More tile cutting...

After all the tile was cut, we again used an adhesive to glue the tiles in place. Since the glue isn't immediately set, we had to use clamps and wood to give the tile a support until it was set in place. From our boat building, we luckily had lots of clamps and they came in handy here. 

And we are finished! This project looks amazing! It took a bit longer than we planned but this is by far our best tile job. 

Look at those doors! No more dark wood with flowery handles. No more pink tile. No more mildew smelling shelves. No more darkness in the center of the room. We couldn't be happier with how this came together :)

How to tile the top of the bar? We were unsure of how we would want the top to look and went to the store with an open mind. Picking out the color of tile we wanted was easy. But do we want just one tile and a basic pattern? Or do we want to do something a bit more intricate? Since the bar is pretty much the center piece of our home downstairs, we wanted something that would stand out. 

We picked up a bunch of 4 inch white stone tile and a few packages of small precut rectangular white stone tiles along with the light beige tile we chose. Our idea was to use a diamond pattern with a border made up of the precut tiles.  My thoughts on diamond patterns: looks amazing but involves way too many cuts. The primary tile we bought was 12''x24'' so we had to first cut these into 12'' x 12'' squares. Since our tile saw is not a super duper big wet saw, these cuts had to be made with no guard. I was much better at the free handed cuts than Aaron so I cut the majority of the tiles needed for this project. Lucky me :) 

When you cut tile without a guard, you have to watch the blade pretty closely. And of course your fingers :) This means the chips of tile might be thrown in your face and ultimately your eyes. Not cool! Even though I probably looked stupid, the only clear eye protective gear I could find at our house was a pair of goggles. Kind of like the ones we all used in Chemistry class back in high school. 

Lots and lots of free handed cuts....

What a pro! :) The wet saw is quickly becoming one of my favorite tools.

Here is the middle portion of the top so far. We really liked how this was coming together!

For the border, we originally had the beige tile only but that lacked a certain bit of jazz that I was hoping for. So... we added some stone in the border. And wow! I love it!

The bar cabinet followed the same design. 

And to remind everyone of what this looked like to begin with, here are some pictures of the pink square tiled top. Hmmm... Yuck.

Next post: completed project!

We have previously tiled the inside of our kitchen and bathroom cabinets and really like how nice it looks and how easy it is to clean. So of course we wanted to do the same thing with the bar. Especially since before this remodel, the inside of the bar smelled like mildew and just looked dirty. 

When we bought the house, there was a big stack of tile outside that we have ignored so far. If we cleaned this tile up, we would lower the cost needed for tile on this project. Save some money? Of course! So, we got some soapy water, scrub brushes and a scraper and got to work. It only took a few hours to get most of the tile cleaned up and it was a really nice bamboo looking tile. 

I made my cuts with a wet saw and stuck the tiles in place with liquid nails. I never knew how awesome of a product liquid nails was until this home remodel. At this point, my tile cutting skills are becoming very good :) Maybe I can be classified as an expert soon?

The day after I had all the tiles set, a storm blew with a bunch of lightning and thunder. Buddy and Bonnie are really scared of thunder (typical). Bonnie follows me around the entire time and they both try to find a hiding spot. Buddy's hiding spot was inside the bar that day so I put in a nice cushion in the bar for him. He really enjoyed it and I had to snap a picture :)

Back to work after the storm... I mixed up a batch of grout and filled in all the gaps. After this dried and a quick coat of grout sealer added, the inside was complete! As always, we really like the tile on the shelves. I really wonder why this type of work isn't seen very often? 

Now that the inside is done, we get to focus on the fun part. The top!

Before we could lay down tile on the top of the bar and bar cabinet, we had to decide what to do with the border. The original border had about a 1/8 inch lip that sat above the tile. The wood used for the border was really nice, but since we planned on laying the tile on top of the other tile with adhesive, we needed to get rid of the lip so the border and tile were level. 

The idea of sanding the border crossed our mind and then images of the floor grinding, dust everywhere, and pain flashed in our minds. Yuck. Then, Aaron had the wonderful idea of using a planer to cut into the wood. We had a hand planer already from our boat building, so this idea was quickly put to the test. Well, actually Aaron put it to the test while I took pictures :) 

The planer worked great and we were left with a whole bag full of wood shavings. I saved most of these shavings to use as a fire starter. Next step: tile!

Okay so our ceiling downstairs has been coated with polyurethane and is a dark brown color. It looks nice, but it makes the house really dark. For those who have been following our projects, you surely noticed that we are trying to get rid of the dark wood look (Floor, Kitchen, Bathroom). If we had a log cabin in the mountains, the dark wood look would be okay. But, in the Caribbean, we think a house should appear bright and clean. Dark wood look does not equal bright and clean. Our thoughts have been either of the following for the ceiling:

• Painted white decking with chocolate brown rafter beams
• Painted chocolate brown decking with white rafter beams
• Stained decking and painting the beams white

Downstairs, the easiest method would be to simply paint the rafter beams white since the other boards are already coated in polyurethane. The ceiling upstairs is raw and has no paint or stain so we would have to start from scratch there. 

Because of how great the bathroom ceiling turned out, I wanted to paint the celieng white with chocolate brown rafters. However, painting all of the boards white involves caulking the holes and cracks. There are lots of holes and cracks... There is no telling how many tubes of caulk we would need! So.... we are going to try just painting the rafter beams. Why not try the easiest method first??

To get started, we decided to paint the main beam running across the bar on the downstairs ceiling and see if we liked it before painting all beams. So far I have only primed the beam, but it is pretty obvious how different the white color will look. 

One of our neighbors has stained decking and white rafters. It looks really beautiful and I think it will be a good idea for us too. It does involve a LOT of painting, but I think it will be worth it. 

After priming the exterior of the bar and bar cabinet, it was time to paint. We chose the same paint color as we used for our kitchen remodel which was swiss mocha. This is a nice creamy white color. We are hoping that the color scheme will make the downstairs flow together nicely. I painted four coats of the swiss mocha color on the cabinet doors and exterior. I wanted to be sure it was coated well :) It looks fantastic! So much better than dark brown!

After getting the exterior done, I pulled everything out of the shelves. We use the bar for storage of all sorts of things. I don't think the inside has ever been painted and I have to clean out the mold and mildew often. Definitely time to paint it! Here is before and after priming. Tomorrow I will tackle painting the interior with the swiss mocha color. Getting closer :) 

A few days ago, I was touching up the paint on our floor when Bonnie decided she needed to help. At first I figured it was Buddy since he was trying to walk all over the floor, but then I noticed that the bottom of Bonnie's front paws had terra cotta paint o them. Sneaky one...

I considered leaving the paw print :) Isn't it cute? It was only about 2 inches wide, but I ended up covering it up. 

We are actually really happy with how the floor is holding up and I only had to touch up a few small spots where the paint peeled off. I did get a little carried away and painted quite a few areas where there was a little smudge or small scratch since I had the paint out. This is how my helpers got so involved. I think that if we only have to touch up the paint every 6 months, then this project was a win. It definitely gives the house a unique look and we like that :)