The Tub Gets a Tiling Job

Finally back with a bathroom progress post…. (You can check out the previous posts here and here) We've been taking a nice long break this week from anything house related, but I figured getting a post in is the least I can do.
 
Soooooo secret's out- As of this past Sunday (Mother's Day) the bath is done! OK- we still have one or two finishing touches, but I'm considering it complete and it feels so good! That being said, it was still such a monster of a job that I refuse to just show you the finished product without the steps that it took to get there. (And I've been too lazy/tired/preggo to take any of the final pictures yet so a big reveal post is not really possible at the moment….)
 
This post is all about the tub tile. Nathan's dad is pretty good when it comes to this stuff. His parents redid their first floor bath last year and it looks awesome so having him here for the tile component was HUGE. The tile was also one of the last things he helped work on before escaping his 2 week imprisonment with us, so we were lucky that we were able to fit it in.
 
The first tiling job they took on was the tub surround. My goal was to keep the look of the bathroom classic so we went with white subway tile. In my opinion, you can't go wrong with that choice and it can be pretty affordable, so it was a no brainer.
 
Before any tile was placed, we applied a waterproof barrier... that's the dark teal stuff on the wall in the pic below... 
 

 

 

Once dried, it was time to lay the tile.

 

 

 



 
Now, it wouldn't be one of my projects without making it a bit more difficult. Instead of just slapping the tile on in the typical layout, I wanted to add a little bit of interest. We decided to frame out an inset of the long wall and lay a smaller scaled tile within the tiled frame. (By the way- there really isn't a synonym for tile so I'll be using that word a lot here). I originally wanted the center tile to be even smaller scaled than what we chose, but the price of the smaller tile we looked into was just unreasonable and not worth it… so this was going to have to do. 
 
Here's a lovely iPhone picture showing the framed-in area pre tile.
 

 
And here is the tile all set in... but before grout.
 

 

 

 

  

  

Once the tile was in, it was grouting time (which I think happened during Derby weekend- it's all a blur!). I finally was able to get my hands dirty and help Nathan with this portion. We ended up choosing a white grout and mixed in a sealer which Nathan's dad suggested…. it's awesome because you don't have to go back and apply sealer to every grout line. Time saver for sure!
 
Here's the big guy grouting away. He loves when I put pictures of him up on da blog. I made sure to show three of him for extra measure.
 

 

 

What a difference grout makes...

 

 

 

 

 

Once the grout was dry, we wiped it clean and then caulked the corners and edges.... and to top it all off we added the shower head, faucet, and hardware. It definitely finished the look.

 

I think I'm in LOVE....

 



 

 



We actually cheated on Lowes and purchased the tub tile from Home Depot. The reason? The tile we found at Lowes wasn't as white as the floor tile we already had picked out. The Home Depot option ended up being a better color match so we went with that. Blasphemy I know.

 

 

 

 

It ended up turning out great and is definitely the look that I was going for. The detail is subtle, but I think it gives it a nice effect and makes it look like we spent a little more time and thought into how our tub was going to look (which we did- to Nathan's dismay).

 

 

 

 

 

And that's the tub tile for ya- turned out pretty great and I've been happily enjoying my bubble baths in a nice, fresh, clean bathtub. It's a far cry from showering in this thing for the past 2 years....

 

 

 

Next up is floor tile- probably my favorite part of the entire bathroom!

 

I'm going to take a bath now. Later.

 

-Tricia