Grout sealing / more tiling

Didn’t have much time to do anything this weekend. We are house/dog-sitting this week, plus I got a phone call on Saturday that my grandfather was in the hospital, so we went to visit him at South Shore hospital.

Here’s what I did do:

-spent $30 at Home Depot on trash bags and grout sealer

-spent another $66 at Lowe’s (used store credit, though) on: a drop cloth, a drywall trowel, a drywall hawk, a spiral mud mixer, and primer

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$7356.42 is the new total.

On Saturday I had time to start laying down hardiebacker in the kitchen for the tile that will go in there, and I also sealed the grout in the bathroom with spray-on grout sealer.

Now the grout is (hopefully) sealed against moisture and stains.

Today, I screwed down Hardie Backer in the kitchen so that I can start tiling this week. Despite how many times Adam has showed me how to use the drill, I managed to break 3 Phillips head high-compression driver bits, which is, apparently, quite a feat. 

Then I did some raking (our lawn has a pine needle infestation), and then went to Ikea because they were having a sale today. I bought a bed frame with built-in drawers for bonus storage, and I also got two large curtains for the front window for $8 in the “As-Is” section. It’s my first time owning a bed with a frame, so, that’s cool I guess. Ikea was packed with screaming children and slow-moving aisle-blocking-people though. Remind me not to go there on a weekend ever again.

Bedroom completion, and bathroom beginnings

Well, hello, my faithful blogfriends! Here are some photos of my beautiful freshly-painted, recently-carpeted, and newly-window-shaded bedrooms to reward you for clicking over to my page:

This past weekend was spent working on the bathroom (click here to see “before” photos).

First we ripped up the linoleum floor.

Then we ripped out the ugly vanity.

I had to scrub all the mold off the wall that had grown behind the old vanity.

Then, when we took off the trim along the floor, we realized the sheetrock was moldy and disintegrating, so we had to cut out 16” of sheetrock from the floor up.

Oh yeah, and we pulled out the toilet:

Ummmm, yeah.

I also painted the bathroom doors. They were heinous. This is the before:

I painted them all white, but don’t have any after pictures. I’m a bad blogger.

This is what happens to bad vanities, by the way, so all you vanities best be behavin’:

My dad and stepmom did some yard work:

And here is the bathroom, swept and eagerly awaiting tiles to call its own:

I also put a second coat of paint on the kitchen walls, and that was pretty much it for the weekend. Le sigh.

Stuff I’ve bought this week:

-a level, kneepads, 5 gallon Lowe’s bucket, cement board, chalk reel marker, speedlite, steel square, chisel set: $83.93

-cement board tape, dovetail saw: $24.94

-dehumidifier $152.98 (had a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon…returned the first dehumidifier we got, but, they gave me store credit so I can’t deduct it from my expenses since it’s not real money back)

-we returned $70 of ThinSet mortar, so durovent, versabond, stainblock, 2- 25 lb bags of grout, mixer, sponge, tile spacers, board knife, and grout saw cost me $36.56

-a sheet of green board, a leaf rake, and a box of drywall screws ($30 of stuff, but won’t add it since we used Lowe’s store credit from returning the dehumidifier)

Soooo, add that to the $50 for carpet tacks and I have myself a merry little $7279.05 to cry myself to sleep over. Oh, homeownership.