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Jenna Kate at Home

A DIY and home improvement blog. Sharing ways to decorate, craft and cook your way to a beautiful home on a modest budget!

One Room Challenge: Week 2

DIY Projects Room Makeovers & Design Plans

Woohoo! It’s Week 2 of the One Room Challenge – where I’ve taken on the challenge of renovating my powder room in 6 short weeks. 

One Room Challenge

Last week I shared my inspiration and plans for this little half bathroom of ours. Over the past week we were busy with demo and installing the cement tile floors. 

Before we could install new floor tile, the entire room need to be demo’d.  First, all that nasty tan wall tile was removed. Luckily, it came off really easy AND without damaging the walls too badly.

 

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Demo & Cement Tile Floors

 

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Demo & Cement Tile Floors
Then the medicine cabinet, vanity, toilet and sink came out. I was so glad to see those go!

Finally, it was time to demo the floor tile…

 

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Demo & Cement Tile Floors

When we did our home inspection, the inspector had warned us that we may possibly never be able to get the bathroom floor tile up because it was clearly set into an inch of concrete.

Luckily for us, the tile only went up against the vanity. So once the vanity was gone, we had an edge to start on. 

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Demo & Cement Tile Floors

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Demo & Cement Tile Floors

Brian was able to smash it out pretty quickly – in about 2 hours or so. The concrete was laid over a bed of wire mesh, which meant the it wasn’t adhered directly to the floor.

Have you ever smashed out tile? The dust gets everywhere! Because this space is so small, we couldn’t seal it off because Brian wouldn’t have been able to move. Needless to say, we will rethink that  plan in the future. I’m STILL finding dust in random places a week later.

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Demo & Cement Tile Floors

 

I was worried that we didn’t have a correct subfloor and that we would need to have plywood installed. However, my contractor assured me that these wide floor boards are in fact our subfloor and are very durable. With cement board over them, we would have a stable surface to install the tile.

Now, Now how about looking at something a little prettier? My tile samples from the Cement Tile Shop arrived late last week and I shared this image on Instagram:

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Cement Tile Floors Installed

Can you guess which tile I ultimately decided on? While, the bottom one (Mahlia) is definitely my favorite, it didn’t work as well with the gray vanity that I just purchased. 

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Cement Tile Floors Installed

In the end, we went with Bouquet II, which the middle tile in the picture above (top left in my Instagram pic).  The whites in the tiles are much whiter than the stock pictures. Oh, and in case the white one is your fave, it’s called Cannes III.

And here it is just after it was installed:

One Room Challenge Week 2 - Cement Tile Floors Installed

Isn’t it beautiful? 

We went with tight spacing, 1/16 inch to be precise which will be filled with unsanded white grout.

There’s still quite the process left. It has to be sealed multiple times before we can grout it. And then it needs to be sealed again. All the details will up be posted next week.

We’re hoping that we can start our wall treatment by Monday and I’ve finally got Brian on board with the horizontal planked wall (i.e. the “shiplap” effect)! Major win for me!

I’ll  be sharing sneak peaks over the next week on Instagram, so make sure you’re following me. If you don’t miss to miss any of my One Room Challenge posts, you should also sign up for email updates below (plus you’ll get a freebie!)





See all the Powder Room Posts! 

Week 1: The Design | Week 2: Demo | Week 3: Floor Tile 

Week 4: Shiplap | Week 5: Vanity, Trim & Paint | Week 6: The Big Reveal

 

Comments

  2. says

    April 20, 2016 at 9:01 am

    Wow, you certainly got a lot of work done. I thought my bathroom needed help but yours seem worse..LOL! So glad that wallpaper came off easily with no damage to your walls and I love the tile you already laid. Looks beautiful!

  4. says

    April 14, 2016 at 9:06 pm

    Jenna I adore the direction that your room is headed towards! You did SO much better than I did in my room this week.

    I would love for you to share this post at Thoughts of Home on Thursday. I think our readers would really enjoy it!

    Good luck in the upcoming week!

    • Jenna says

      April 14, 2016 at 4:57 pm

      Thanks Samantha! I don’t think we’ll get as much accomplished over the next week, but we’ll see!!

  7. says

    April 14, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    Wow, that looks so lovely! Almost like artwork for the floor :) I have a feeling I’m going to love your final look! Luckily my ORC didn’t need as much demo as yours-we just had to rip out some carpeting…

  12. says

    April 14, 2016 at 10:05 am

    Love the tile! I just did that tile with a gray vanity in a client’s master bathroom remodel and it is stunning! We even pushed the remodel back 2 months just to wait for that tile to become available!! You are a brave women tearing out all that tile- it does make such a mess! I can’t wait to see this space come together!

    • Jenna says

      April 14, 2016 at 11:32 am

      I’m glad to hear it looked so great for your client – we got a gray vanity too and as soon as soon as I can walk on the tile I’m going to see how it looks!!

  13. lscibilia says

    April 14, 2016 at 8:10 am

    You must be so thrilled that tile removal is done!! That is not an easy job. The new tile is gorgeous!!

  15. says

    April 14, 2016 at 7:17 am

    The cement tile on the floor looks amazing! You are luck your wall tile came of so easily. We removed green wall tile from the walls of a 1940s house and it was set in cement and wire. It was such a mess.

    • Jenna says

      April 14, 2016 at 7:37 am

      Yeah old tile is such a mess! Luckily only the floor was set in cement and wire…and that was certainly a mess!!

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