Woo! We did it! Over the weekend we installed a tile floor for the first time! We made a few mistakes and learned a lot, and overall we’re really happy with the job we did. I’m so proud of us!

You may remember that we’re doing half of the work on renovating our upstairs master bath ourselves. Our contractors gutted the room, moved the plumbing and redid all the electrical, and we’re putting down the floor tile and wainscoting the walls, before the contractors return to install the clawfoot tub and other bathroom fixtures. We decided to do it this way to save some money and also for the chance to try some new skills. (These are our plans for the room.)

In part 1, you saw us patch the plywood subfloor and lay the cement board, and then we just waited… and waited… for a weekend that wasn’t snowy and freezing so we could start tiling. A big part of tiling is being outside with the wet saw to cut the tile. No one wants to be outside with the wet saw in this weather! Finally this weekend we decided we just have to get it done, so Andy hung a tarp on the back porch to try to block as much of the snow and wind as possible and was able to get to work. At one point the water in the pump froze and he had to use my hairdryer to thaw it out!

The tile is all installed now, but that doesn’t mean we’re done yet. The next steps are to seal the floor, seal it again, apply grout, seal it, and seal it again. Then we need to paint all the walls and install the wainscoting. Normally I’d expect all of this to take us a month or two, on weekends so Andy can help… But we just found out from our contractors that they have an unexpected opening in their schedule and we have TWO WEEKS to get it all done! And we’ll be out of town next weekend! Eek! But the great news is, if everything goes right, we should have a finished bathroom in less than a month. Yay!

So, um, maybe expect a little less posting from us for the next two weeks while we work like crazy to get everything done!