How to Prepare Walls for Painting

As much as I would love to jump into my bathroom and start slapping new paint on the walls, the new paint would look awful. I’d make the job ten times harder if I don’t prepare the walls for paint first. I lot of folks  don’t bother filling nail holes and such thinking they’ll hang the same stuff in the same place on the walls of the newly painted room. Sometimes that’s the case. More often than not, plans change and the little hole you have to fill and repaint is going to look worse than if you filled it before you started the project.

Trust me. I get it. I’ve had this conversation with myself every time I’m tempted to take a shortcut when my master bathroom renovation throws me another unexpected curve ball.

“Do you want to do it fast or do you want to do right?” is always the last question I ask myself before I make a decision about a task. Then I sigh and say,”I want to do it right.” Sure it may be more of a pain or take longer (hence the internal sigh) but doing it right the first time is better than cheating and having to do it over again.

 

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How much preparation your room will need for paint will depend upon:

Ten Things You Need to Know to Level and Repair an Uneven Floor

After  I replaced the moldy wood subfloor in my master bathroom, I checked it with a torpedo level (a torpedo level looks like this,) declared it level, and promptly passed out in bed from exhaustion. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.) The next day, I double checked the new subfloor with the correct tool for the job, a large I-beam level (an I-beam level looks like this.)

The new wood subfloor is not level.

There are a few random areas where the floor isn’t flat, mainly where some of the seams of plywood sheets meet - a pretty common thing when you are replacing a subfloor (especially if it is the first time you’ve removed and replaced a subfloor.)

You can’t lay tile on an uneven floor. Well, you could, but the grout and tile will eventually crack and break in those areas and you’ll curse the day you were born when you have to rip everything out (probably) and do what you should have done in the first place. Fix the uneven wood subfloor with a self leveling underlayment coating for floors.

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Master Bathroom Remodel One Step Forward One Step Back

I've said it before and I'll say it again: home improvement isn't always as easy as they show it on TV. Anyone who tells you that you can do a quality renovation in a couple of days just like on TV is a big, fat lair who hasn't spent a week in an editing bay cutting weeks of construction footage into something that looks like it only took hours without taking basic things into consideration things like drying or delivery times.

In other words, after demolishing and installing a new subfloor I hit a snag. Drat!

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Master Bathroom Renovation: I Replaced the Subfloor!

Removing and replacing the entire master bathroom subfloor is a job that I haven’t been looking forward to and is the reason why we put the renovation off for so long. Everything hinges on the subflooring is cut perfectly to size and level.  Once I removed the old moldy subfloor, I realized that there wasn’t anything to screw the new flooring to around the edges of the room. I can’t leave it this way or the new floor could slope over time and we’d have to start the process all over again. Trust me, once is more than enough! 

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 I  nicked a couple of joists when I was cut the floor to remove it  with my circular saw by accident. This might create a weak spot where the flooring could squeak, crack, or sag or it might not because the cuts are not too deep. 

How to Remove a Damaged or Moldy Subfloor

On Master Bathroom Demo Day I found black mold on a chunk of the wall and on several areas of the subfloor.

 

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After removing the damaged drywall, the next step in the process is to remove the bathroom subflooring, check for  mold or water damage, have it treated if necessary (and crossing my fingers I don’t,) and replace the subflooring. 

DIY Cotton Bath Puff and Friday Favorites Linky Party 554

While everyone else was baking sourdough bread during quarantine, I was making hot process soap. I took notes on what I did right and wrong and while I can't quite get it as thick as commercial liquid soap like I want, it cleans and lathers beautifully especially when I use a plastic bath puff. While a loofah is zero waste because I can compost it, it doesn't perform as well as a mesh bath poof that has to be tossed after awhile due to bacteria buildup. I tried washing one once and it fell apart.

I hadn't crocheted since I was a kid and recently picked up a hook to make a dishcloth. I looked for more quick beginner crocket projects on Pinterest (follow me @condoblues on Pinterest pretty please?) and found the answer to my zero waste bath puff problem - crochet a bath puff from cotton yarn!

I followed this crochet shower puff pattern from Hooked on Patterns and it was pretty easy once I got the hang of it. My shower puff isn't perfect but still not too shabby for the third thing I crocheted as an adult. Best of all, I can wash it in a mesh lingerie bag in the washing machine when I need to - no more bath puffs in my trash can ever again!

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Marble Look Porcelain Bathroom Tile and Friday Favorites Linky Party 549

After waiting, waiting, and waiting some more I can finally start working on my next big DIY project - remodeling the Owner's Bathroom in my house because the tile finally came in! Isn't it lovely?

I fell in love with this tile pattern in marble but didn't want such a soft and slippery tile in a bathroom. After much hunting, I found this porcelain version with a slight texture to hopefully prevent slipping at a local tile shop.

The Condo Blues World Headquarters and Thunderdome has turned into an Obstacle Course with cabinetry and fixtures stored all around the house for the last two months waiting for the tile to clear customs and Covid quarantine.  Odd because I thought the thing that would hold up this rennovation would be the cabinetry and not the flooring.

I showed you my project! Let's see your fantastic DIY projects, crafting, recipes, and tutorials!

Blah Builder Condo Bathroom Remodeling Plan

After putting it off for too long, I am planning the end of the Bathroom Remodel Trilogy with Master Bathroom: Revenge of the Leak.

This time around I am not even going to even try to consider reusing the bathroom vanity. We learned from Bathroom Remodel 2: Mold Sneak Attack the micro leak around the toilet flange may have caused the vanity to mold like it did on the subfloor.

This isn’t a great loss because when we removed the guest bathroom vanity we found just how cheaply it was made. We realized that all of the cabinets in our condo would eventually need replacing. Then we sang the Condo Blues because part of the reason of we bought a new build is the expectation of quality cabinetry – ha!

On the upside, since we knew ahead of time that everything needs to be replaced in the main bathroom, I was able to do a little scouting while I was sourcing a new vanity for the guest bathroom last year.

 

Good bye builder bathroom!

How to Hang a Hook on a Hollow Core Door

I want to add a robe hook to my guest bathroom.  The logical place to hang it is on the bathroom door.

Unfortunately it, like all of the doors in my condo is a hollow core door. Can you hang towel bars and hooks on a hollow core door?

Yes you can!

The secret to hanging towel bars and hooks on hollow door without them crashing to the ground is all in the type of wall anchor you use – in this case Molly Bolts!

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How to Build Recessed Bathroom Storage Shelves

I never liked the cheap plastic medicine cabinets that came with my condo. I was even more perturbed when I removed the medicine cabinet to paint the walls and found the hole and framing for the cabinet less than square - to put it mildly.

 I figure I better replace it and poked around window shopping while I was searching and pricing every thing else I needed for the guest bathroom remodel.

Have you ever priced medicine cabinets?

Be prepared for some sticker shock. Even the cheaply made medicine cabinets like the one I have are a couple of hundred bucks. The medicine cabinets  made from actual wood are even more expensive while still lacking style. That’s more that I wanted to pay for a medicine cabinet in a second bathroom we don’t use often.

I really don’t need a medicine cabinet with a mirror door because there is a mirror hanging over the sink.  Actually I really don’t need a door either because the way it was installed, the current medicine cabinet door smacks into the bathroom vanity light if we’re not careful. Open bathroom storage shelves are the only answer.

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I stood in the guest bathroom staring at the wall and trying to visualize how to turn the medicine cabinet hole into an open storage niche as pretty yet affordable as possible when I realized I was standing on my answer – use leftover tile from the bathroom floor!

How to Caulk Around a Toilet

After tiling the guest bathroom and replacing the boring builder molding with something a little more interesting, It is time to make this bathroom look and function like a bathroom by installing a working toilet – a luxury we haven’t had in quite a while since the builder toilet went on strike.


I went with a Watersense rated Delta Faucet Company toilet (you can find similar toilets here.)  (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.) I had such a good experience installing one in my powder room because every single thing you need to install the toilet comes in the box down to a screwdriver and the Watersense rating means it is water efficient (I think of it as the Energy Star rating for plumbing) without the hit or miss of not quite flushing everything that needs to be flushed like a duel flush toilet. 

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But before I can completely cross Install New Toilet off my punch list, I need to caulk around it (and also along the new tile next to the bathtub. Fortunately, you caulk around a bathtub the same way you caulk a toilet. Let’s do this!

Why Should I Caulk Around the Toilet?

How to Install a Bidet Attachment

Disclosure: Tushy supplied product to facilitate this tutorial and review. It had no influence on my opinion because all opinions are my own. This post contains an affiliate links for your convenience.

I’m working on the details of the guest bathroom renovation while looking forward to the master bathroom renovation. Well planning actually. I’m not looking forward to this even more involved project where are water leak began.

Anyway.

I would have liked to add a bidet in the bathroom to save on toilet paper because according to Tushy it takes 37 gallons of water to make a roll of toilet paper and most people use 1.5 toilet rolls a week! That is a lot of water to flush down the drain, which doesn't include the amount of water it takes to flush it all down the drain.

But more importantly, with a bidet, even if you run out of toilet paper at the time you need it most, you have an option.

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Unfortunately all of our condo bathrooms are too small to add a free standing bidet. I didn’t think much more of it until friends raved about just installing a bidet toilet seat. I was  intrigued. A bidet toilet seat attachment I can do. Then I promptly forgot about it because I'm awesome like that.

DIY Poo Pourri Air Freshener Spray

I’m sure you are aware of those times when the air in a bathroom needs a little immediate help to clear the room of…uh…um…odor.

Even though I wasn’t thrilled with the synthetic ingredients (although now Scent Fill  makes natural essential oil refills for Glade and other brand plug ins, ) I had scented oil plug thingies in each bathroom for that purpose. Once they became available, I upgraded to pluggable wax melt warmers similar to these and use a locally made vegetable wax and essential oil wax melts for my bathrooms. They work just as well, and I like that I easily scrap the last bit of wax from a dead candle into the smaller wax warmers to keep enjoying the scent. I am the only one who buys a candle and can never seem to find the same scent when I need to replace it? (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.)

Unfortunately, there are still times when your bathroom needs a little more immediate or preventative air quality attention.  Does a room freshener exist without the synthetic ingredients? 

Yep, it sure does and it is the perfect thing for zero waste, natural living, and budget minded folks.

Or you just want something prettier than a can in your bathroom, that’s cool too. *raises hand* 

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DIY Natural  Air Freshener

11 Floor Tiling Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Tiling a floor is a pretty easy DIY job.

It is also a DIY job that is easy to mess up if you don’t follow a few precautions first. You really don’t want to put in all of the work of tiling a floor only for the tiles to eventually come loose or crack after the job is done.

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1. Not adding an extra 10% of tile to your tile order – Depending upon the design, you may need extra to match up the pattern in the room. It is also good to have extra tile on hand just in case you cut one incorrectly or worse drop one and break it.

How to Prep a Wood Subfloor for New Tile

Just like painting a wall, the success or failure of your floor tiling project depends upon how well you prepare the surface for the tile itself. The more care and consideration you take when installing the tile underlayment, the better.

Flooring underlayment is the layer of material that sits in between the subfloor and the flooring material. As tempting as it may be to skip the underlayment – don’t. The underlayment layer is what keeps your floor tile from shifting and cracking over time.

And trust me, after the killer backache preparing and tiling this floor gave me, it is NOT something I want to completely redo if I don’t have to!

Fortunately, preparing a floor for tile by installing underlayment isn’t difficult to do and once you finish the job you can immediately go into tiling the floor.

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How to Lay Bathroom Tile Underlayment the Easy Way!

13 Things You Didn't Know You Can Store on the Back of Bathroom Doors!

Everyone who has too much storage in their bathroom raise your hand!.

Anyone?

Me. Neither.

It seems that no matter what size your bathroom is, you can always use more storage space.

Which you can easily find more of if you store things on the back of your bathroom cupboard and closet doors!

13 Bathroom Cupboard, Closet, and Door Organizations You Didn't Know You Needed Until Now

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Spa Bathroom Remodeling Plan

Before you start any type of home improvement update or remodel you should come up with a design plan first. This way, you can decide on what to keep, skimp, or splurge to keep your project on time and on budget.

Do you know the absolute worst time to toss out your original plan and make a new one from scratch?

When your room looks like this.

Demo day!

My original guest bathroom design plan had us giving the bathroom sink and vanity a makeover.

On demo day I found black mold growing on the back of the bathroom vanity which made it completely unusable.

And just like that, my beachy remodeling plan got tossed just like the mold ridden vanity.

What to Do If You Find Black Mold in Your Bathroom Remodel

It’s time to get started on my guest bathroom renovation.

With demolition!

Because Demo Day is the best day.

It can also be the worst.

My demolition plans included removing the rest of the flooring, the toilet, and vanity. I planned to makeover the bathroom vanity if I could get it out in one piece. The builder installed all of the sink cabinets in the house first and installed the plumbing in around them. When I removed the vanity in the powder room remodel I had to destroy the cabinet which wasn’t the plan.

Joy.

I cut holes for the plumbing in the cabinet with this exact Rockwell oscillating tool (after reading a lot of specs and reviews I chose the Rockwell because it is the only oscillating tool that can use bits and blades from any brand not just its own.) I was pretty stoked this DIY idea actually worked until my husband and I lifted the vanity up and over the plumbing to discover black mold on the wall and wood vanity. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)

Oh yes, my friends. We sang the Condo Blues.

How to Get Rid of Black Mold

How to Clean Rusty Chrome the Non Toxic Way!

Taking my bathroom décor que from hotels I stayed in I hung a chrome towel rack shelf in the Master Bathroom shower. It is handy as a towel rack and even better when I need a place to hang some hand washing up to dry. I popped a little plastic tray on top so I can use it as a storage shelf for shampoo and such.

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Unfortunately, the chrome is developing tiny rust spots.

Fortunately there is a quick, easy, cheap and non toxic way to remove rust from metal chrome.

Industrial Beach Bathroom Remodel and Design Mood Board

After hemming and hawing for too many years after a plumbing accident, I’m finally replacing the flooring and remodeling my guest bathroom. Part of the reason I was stuck in the bathroom makeover department is that I still like most of the things I did to that bathroom when I painted and decorated it the first time, like the wall color.

Well that and knowing that while I love searching every tile shop in the city for my heart’s desire, my husband would rather I cut off his arm with a rusty table saw than shop even though this is his house too and he wants and absolutely should have a say in the decision.  Interestingly enough, when it came to selecting floor tile, we bought the exact opposite of the black and white mosaic tiles I thought we might choose and went with his suggestion of slate tile because he wanted something more interesting. Which made me love him even more because I’ve always wanted a slat floor somewhere in this house. Besides we have another bathroom we need to do. So chances are, I’ll get my choice in that room. That way we both win!

My new bathroom floor tile!

We were in agreement with a lot of the design and décor desires of this second bathroom. First off, it’s not the Master, so we can go with something a little more fun and different in this room. As much as I make fun of almost every residential bathroom in my lakeside home town being nautical, I lean toward ocean beachy influenced by one of our first vacations to the Dominican Republic.

After the flooring was decided, I turned to the vanity and other bathroom accessories and décor. I was concerned the ideas in my head might being going with too much white on white. I was also concerned that the things I want to keep may look out of place with the things I want to change in the remodel and vice versa. I figured the best way to see if I am going in the right décor direction is to create a bathroom remodeling mood board.

Let’s take a look!