Tile Layout for the Shower: 8"x10" white tile w/ 2"x 2" accent tile stripes

We made some final decisions on the tile for our shower over the weekend. We were planning on using white subway tile but because they were slightly off-white I had been a little unsure of how we were going to deal with that mixed with the bright white shower pan. Well on Friday my mom stopped by their local tile place to see what they had. It turns out that they had some bright white tile in 8″x10″ format (an exact match for the leftover tile she had already given to us) that had been returned and they were looking to unload. So I had her pick up enough for the rest of the shower. They were $10 for a box of 20 tiles. That works out to $.90 sf and because we can use her leftover field and trim tile, we will save even more! The tile store was anxious to get rid of the tile so they even threw in a few extra pieces. So basically we are looking at about $80 worth of tile for the entire shower. Not bad! Of course this meant I had to lay out the tile pattern again, to make sure we would have enough! Fortunately we should be fine, although the marble mosaic accent tile is VERY tight (fingers crossed it will cut okay on a wet saw). There is definitely going to be a LOT of cutting of the tile because of the large format of the tile, but it should look nice.

Swanstone Shower Pan: 34"x42" Veritek

We also finally got around to moving the shower pan to the basement (it had been in a box on the front porch for the last week and a half). The texture on the bottom is not quite as nice as I had hoped (you couldn’t make it out in the photos online) but it should provide good slip resistance (and it means I don’t have to clean the grout on the floor).  The front threshold is about 2 1/2″ wide which should allow us to install a shower door (haven’t decided what we are going to do yet) and the side lips go behind the finished wall so it should minimize the chance of a leak in the future. This will be mortared into the floor to help make it rigid, which is ideal for our basement condition (but might be problematic in another condition).

I have also narrowed down the sconce choices for either side of the mirror over the sink. Since the ceiling is quite short, I was looking for something petite but stylish. Here are my choices:

Sconce 1, $69

Sconce #2, $69

Sconce #3, $85

Sconce #4, $139 for 2 ($69)

Sconce #1: Turn of the Century Bath Sconce from Shades of Light
Sconce #2: By Gone Classic Bath Light from Shades of Light
Sconce #3: Trumpet Glass Bath Sconce from Shades of Light
Sconce #4: Mercer Single Sconce from Pottery Barn

Let me know if you have a preference! I am leaning towards one, but am not 100% sold yet. I am also stopping by Home Depot today to pick up the faux slate, so I am going to double check what they have as well.

* To see all of the posts about our basement click here.

Shower & Tile for the Bathroom

It feels a little like Christmas here with all of the boxes! Quite a few things have arrived and bunch of items will be here soon. I will also have to pick up some stuff over at Home Depot in the next few days. My contractors are scheduled to start on Monday so it is actually time to get moving!

We have also decided on most of the tile. We are going to go with the 3×6 ceramic subway tile at the top of the picture for the field tile. It is available by the piece at Home Depot, which is conveniently located right around the corner (including all of the cove and odd size pieces). The good news is that it comes in at $1.86 a sf. The bad news is that the white is definitely not “bright”.  You can tell when you compare the top tiles to the tiles at the bottom of the picture. The bottom ones are larger 8×10 tiles that my parents had leftover from their shower. They graciously offered to let us have the leftovers. Unfortunately it is not such a good match and if I use it, it will probably bother me! I am still trying to come up with a way to use at the bottom of the shower and then introduce the stone stripe and then switch to the home depot tile. hmmm…stay tuned as I finish laying it out! And of course the shower pan is BRIGHT white. It also looks like I have just enough tile for 4 stripes of the stone accent.

Off White Subway Tile at the Top, "Biltmore" Stone Tile in the Middle and Bright White Large Tile at the Bottom

In the meantime I have been making lots of lists: lists for our contractor, including framing, plumbing, electric and finishing and lists for us. I also have a long list of “to discuss” items. So far it is 3 pages long!

Floor Plans showing tile and carpet tile patterns

Reflected Ceiling Plan w/ "beams" and lights

I have also been working on my plans and reflected ceiling plans for the space (click on them to see them larger). Sorry they aren’t prettier, but right now it is all about dimensions and figuring everything out! There are several dimensions that are tight and need to be spot on in order for everything to work. I also laid out the flooring, to make sure I was ordering enough. The ceiling is especially tricky because we have all kinds of stuff going on up there, and most of it needs to be accessible. I am trying to find a nice way to achieve a beadboard and beam ceiling without it looking too chopped up.

We have a bunch of insulation to install this weekend before they get here. Wish us luck!

* To see all of the posts about our basement click here.

Basement Main Room Materials and Colors

For the main space of our basement we decided that we wanted something warmer on our feet. We had carpet in the basement previously everywhere, including the bathroom. I guess that shouldn’t be a total surprise since our upstairs bathroom had carpet in it too! Gross! I think I had blocked that out of my memory. Anyway back to the carpet. I have been searching for inexpensive but durable carpet tile to put install down there. I like the idea of carpet tile, because you can replace individual sections and it has a rubber backing on it that will deal with moisture better than broadloom carpet. What I don’t like is the price! Most good carpet tile runs $5+ a sf (i.e. FLOR), which seems like too much to spend for our basement.  So I searched and searched the internet for a good deal. Then I came upon my answer, Carpet Corporation of America based out of Georgia. I mentioned them before but I wasn’t sold on the pattern so I had been waffling.

Here are the options we looked at:

Odd Lots "Bright"

Odd Lots "Grey"

1. Odd Lots: The least expensive are Odd Lots. These are priced in the $.29-.49 sf range (.29 for Class A Seconds and .49 for First Quality). They come in several color families including Grey Family, Earth Family, Bright Family and Blue Family. They look quite fun and under different circumstances I would have used them in a second. Normally that would be right up my alley! I was having issues though with these paired with all of the beadboard. That is a lot to take in! So back to the drawing board!

This was our second choice

Carpet Tile We Selected

Another Option that was too tan

Another Option that I decided was too light

2. Small Lots (basically leftovers): These are currently on sale for $.69 sf.  They offer small (and sometimes large) amounts of several hundred carpet tile patterns. The images are on the website but I was confused about the quantities. So I called them and they showed me where you could download a pdf  spreadsheet showing the quantities of each (click on the second dog outline down from the top to download from their website). Then you have the long task of sorting out which carpet tiles they have in the quantity you need. We needed 300 sf (for a 250 sf room with extra for cutting and replacement).  It took me a couple of hours to sort through everything, but I managed to narrow it down to a few that I thought would work with our color palette. There are some CRAZY patterns that could be pretty fun if you felt like making a statement.

Shipping: This is often the dealbreaker. Either it is too expensive or too difficult to coordinate. The way that they work is to use freight (which means sitting at your house all day waiting for a truck to pull up and for you to unload it). Fortunately they recommend two options. One is getting it delivered to a business address, so you can unload it from the truck to your car. The second is picking it up at a distribution center. Fortunately we live only a few miles from the distribution center, so I am going with that option. I will still have to load it into my car myself, but I can schedule the time, which is really helpful (especially with 2 kids). The price came in at $99.90 for shipping.

I ordered the carpet yesterday and it is suppose to be at the distribution center by early next week! The total for everything was $306.90 (basically $1 a sf). So stay tuned to see how the quality and installation goes!

What do you think?

* To see all of the posts about our basement click here.

Pink Polystrene Insulation w/ Tyvek Tape

I hope everyone had a good weekend. We were busy in the basement and it is starting to look pink! We started installing the 2″ tongue and groove extruded polystrene insulation against the foundation walls. We had to set them a little bit out from the wall since there is a lip at the ground from the basement waterproofing/drainage system. We also are leveling these so we need about 1/2″ of space anyway to allow for the variation in the old stone rubble foundation and the parging that was troweled on top. We didn’t get quite as much done as we would have liked, but it is relatively east work. Our contractor is due to start next week on actually putting up walls! Yeah! We should be able to get most of the insulation in by the end of this weekend (or at least the areas that he will be starting on).

Mr. S holding the old column

We also took out the old column in the middle of space, which was pretty cool! It is amazing how HEAVY this small column was (I guess that is what happens when you are using virgin pine stock). The smell of pine immediately filled the air! We are going to keep up, not sure what we are going to do with it though. The photo at the top now is also much easier to take since the old column was right in the middle of the space.

Gap between wall and rigid insulation (bottom gray lip is from the drainage system)

Here are a few things we learned installing the rigid polystyrene insulation:

-It is expensive at about $16 for a 2’x8′ sheet. (we estimate that we will need 45 sheets)
-2″ extruded rigid polystyrene insulation comes with a tongue and groove. 1 1/2″ comes shiplapped.
-You want to tape the seams to provide a tight seal. The general recommendation is to use Tvyek tape (which is readily available). Duct tape is not going to cut it here (especially after you shell out all this money for the insulation itself). The point of adding this insulation layer continiously is to maximize the R-value and seal it completely, so this is very important.
-After experimenting with cutting, a long utility blade works best (with a metal guide). We have one made by stanley, but several companies make them. The nice thing about this blade is that it will extend the whole 2″ so you can get a good cut. You do need to change the blades fairly frequently, or it get tougher to cut.
-We had heard several recommendations  for cutting with an electric meat knife. This did  NOT work very well at all, and started to smell pretty quickly.
-We attached the insulation with a screw at each floor joist above. Since the boards are all connected and taped they stay pretty stable with minimal attachments.
-It is important to keep in mind that this stuff is flammable, so the code requires that it does not stay exposed (you must cover it with drywall or other suitable finish material). We will be finishing with a 2×3 stud wall in front and varying finishes for the walls in front to seal it off. We are also going to use mineral wool in our electrical closet area (on the right of the picture at the top) and at the top of the extruded insulation to close it off.
-You want to level each board as you go, since if you are off on one board the issues will compound as you move down the wall.
-We recommend installing them vertically rather than horizontally.
-This is totally doable as a DIY, as long as you have the patience. We estimate that this will save us around $400-500 in labor.

Wall after Parging

Wall after Waterproofing

Wall after Insulation

It is time for me to order the faux slate flooring today! I need to get moving on actually getting materials here! I can’t believe we will actually start to have finish spaces in the near future.

* To see all of the posts about our basement click here.

New Triple Sump Pump System w/ Battery Backup (this will all be boxed in a utility closet)

The drainage system is finished! It took 1 3/4 days. Not bad! It was a little crazy at the end since I was trying to leave for a meeting and they forgot to finish taping up one of the windows. But now I can relax for a few days until we get started on finishing the basement in earnest. The concrete is suppose to cure for a couple of weeks, although I need to see if I can get my contractor out to patch the rest of bathroom floor, so we can be all finished with the concrete work (and then I won’t have dirt in front of my washing machine). Once it cures it is time for the basement to turn pink briefly (with insulation) and then it will be time for studs! Yeah!!

I am also excited to start showing the finishes and details for the basement (some of which I still need to pick out). Here are a few more pictures of the progress…

Bay window area (future workshop)

Main space (middle column is going to come out)

Future Bathroom (still need to be filled in with concrete)

* To see all of the posts about our basement click here.
** I was not paid by BQ Basement Systems in any way, I just think it is a good product.

If I squint real hard I can imagine the space all finished.