Saturday, April 16, 2011

a work in progress


This following four photos represents two full days of work plus a couple of additional hours. Last Friday Harry began breaking down wall tiles and installing the new ones I had bought. By the second day he had completed about eighty percent of the walls. Before this the tiles only went half way up the walls and then the rest of the wall was just regular plastered and painted walls so when he installed floor to ceiling tiles, the ones that began on the wall needed a bunch more of thinset behind them to make the walls even and he had to put a lot of thinset behind the tiles.



 


The wall tiles are Italian, Sant Agostino Light 8 x 24 Damanti Tiles and are mid priced tiles.
I wish I had bought more of the darker ones now and done more research to find the tiles cheaper too. If you live in the NYC or Yonkers area - here is a link to my tile man/handy man, Harun.
Harun gives excellent prices and I recommend him highly plus he is very funny and engaging.







Yesterday and today was the third and fourth day of work and now I have my toilet working and the sink half mounted but not working. The new showerhead is mounted as well but I'm not certain I will like it as much as the water saver interferes with pressure. 
I still can't find handles that fit tub faucets. This is an older building and we're not allowed to replace the inner part of a faucet because we'd have to be plumbers and break down the wall to get to what we need. The cobalt blue medicine cabinet is mounted too plus a new wood door is mounted.

 Now thank God the throne is back up and more importantly working so I don't have to keep running to some one's apartment or holding it. And the cobalt blue medicince cabinet is installed. This was the last toilet Kohler had in Syklight which is a blue color and lucky me because they won't be making this blue anymore. Also my new solid wood door with the lock installed is up. The light is a problem too because these guys didn't even see the glass covers for the light set and although the bulbs aren't ugly I'd still like them covered like they should be and I can see this is a problem because the light fixture has to be unmounted and they are so high it almost is to the ceiling and how in hell will I add new bulbs uggggrhh.
Missing is the metal storage cabinet from the back of the door which still has to be spray painted to match the cobalt blue of the medicine cabinet. And the door to the front of the medicine cabinet - is now installed too. The shelves are not. The sink below is mounted but not yet usable because one of the pipes below didn't fit and I have to get one that fits.
 The shower pole is installed.They somehow scratched it while installing but since I am buying chrome spray paint for a few pipes and brackets under the sink these scratches on the pole can be refreshed with fresh chrome paint.
 This sink came from ebay with everything included for only $179 and will match the shelving unit of chrome and glass I plan to buy for over the toilet.
 And looky here, half the floor tiles are down in my five by five too. Yippee a new bathroom look is here. What really convinced me was that the wall backing the shower tiled wall was completely rotted out and molded because clean me keeps bleaching away the remnants of sixty year old grout. The floor is already level and the same type of tile is being installed but these are glass tiles. I've seen them in other places for up to thirty dollars apiece but I paid nine bucks at Home Depot. The cobalt blue nutone recessed medicine cabinet is also from home depot. It comes in many colors such as fire red, gold, silver, sunburst orange, and racing green. The toilet is also from Home Depot. The wall tiles can be bought at any specialty tile place