So continuing on our journey to realize how we got to be living in this little house that is now our home, we last left you at the flooring and Ikea Meltdown…

So as soon as we completed our flooring and had all of the heavy duty furniture installed, we were finally getting a feel for what the finished space was going to look like. Except in the bathroom.

The bathroom was a room in the house that I had been sorely neglecting. It was where I needed to do quite a few tasks that I frankly had no idea even where to start. I had completed the plumbing rough in a few days before, but I still needed to install the nitty gritty parts, as well as actually install….THE TILE. I had originally thought that tiling would be fun and easy. Boy was I wrong. Maybe it is easy? Maybe I’m just terrible at tiling, I don’t know. But mortar is messy. And grout is messy. And trying to keep my cool while covered in both these things in a tiny bathroom? Ya it was a recipe for disaster.

After 2 days I had finished up the tiling, and to celebrate my victory, I decided to hook up the water and test it out. Everything was going fine, until I saw some drops of water coming off the shower head. And then it hit me. I never finalized all of the connections with the shower valve. I ran outside to shut off the water only to see water pouring out of the bottom of the wall where the shower was. Whether I was feeling really worn out, or I just let it slip my mind, this was a huge mistake. This was at 8pm, and by 11pm, I had torn out the tile off the main shower wall, removed all of the wet insulation, and finalized all of the connections (plumbers tape and about as much strength as I could muster to tighten all the connections).

I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit satisfying to take out some of my frustration on this wall of tiling. Although the demo work only took me about 15 minutes, a fraction of the time compared to how long it took to build. But keeping with our lemon/lemonade theme, I already knew how to fix the problem in a prompt manner. And the next morning I got up bright and early and Voila:

After a mere hour or two of work, I had installed a piece of corrugated metal to replace the wall of tile. And I was happy to confirm that the plumbing worked sans leaks. We actually both really like the way the metal looks in the shower, and might consider expanding it at a later date…

Next on the list, was running the gas line. You know, that thing that requires quite a bit of attention to detail? You know, that could explode? Yeah that thing. After a false start on pipe size and style, we got some 1/2 inch black pipe and got to work. I installed the propane water heater on the wall so I would know where to run the gas line to with minimal joints. There was a bit of a learning curve but all in all it went pretty smoothly when compared to some of my other projects. I got the hot water heater up and running, and our beautiful range installed (with the easy propane conversion kit and all!).

Finishing up the bathroom, there was just the toilet left. There was actually a method to all this madness. I couldn’t install the toilet until I installed the gas line (since the gas line ran behind the toilet), and I couldn’t install the gas line until the tile was finished. It was nice to have such a linear progression, finish one thing, know exactly what to do next. The toilet was pretty simple. Place where you want it, plug in. Oh yeah and you have to run a ventilation pipe out the wall and up the side of the house, don’t forget that! But we can talk more on composting toilet functionality in a later post.

That was pretty much it, all of the real essentials in the house were finished. Everything after this was gravy on the cake. The last big things we did before moving the house, was building the bathroom door, getting the countertop, and repainting some of the trim. I’ll get the easiest part out of the way first. We repainted some of the trim. Thats about the most interesting I can make that sound. Leo Tolstoy eat your heart out.

The kitchen countertop was a really fun project. Being on such a time crunch, we decided that we were not going to go with the expensive stone countertop, and just get a wood one that we could get rid of later if we really wanted a new one.

At the suggestion of a few fellow builders at Green Anchors, I checked out a reclaimed wood warehouse a few blocks from the build site. I told the guy what I was looking for (I needed wood to build a countertop for an 8×2 space), and then he showed me some pre-made countertops. A whole stack of beautiful countertops that were already the dimensions I needed. I was sold, at this point in the project, finishing before our end of the month deadline was more important

than finely crafting a handmade artesian

counter. Apparently these pieces were not up to manufacturer standards as they were a bit warped (nothing an after

noon of sanding couldn’t cure), and the warehouse was getting rid of them for $100. So I got a quote just for fun for a concrete countertop for $1800 just to put that in perspective. Cash on the spot, and I walked out of there with a countertop and spent the rest of the day sanding and staining it. And the end result looked pretty fantastic.

In between coats, I decided to throw together a bathroom door. The friendly guys that sold us our counter also threw in some old redwood boards that they wanted to get rid of. I didn’t know if I would need them, but I took them just in case. Using those, and some leftover interior siding, I build this bad boy. It was surprisingly easy, I just googled how to build a barn door and got the jist of it down and threw it together. All in all, the Door/countertop day was one of the most rewarding days working on the house. I started and completed 2 projects that turned out great.

Next time on part three of Live Small, Live Good:

The wheels on the house go round and round.