Bathroom Reno Day 12

Last night I predicted that hanging the beadboard today would take double the amount of time I expected it to. Yup, just about. I expected to be done by noon and I was done at 4pm. I think a lot of it had to do with the prep work needed to get things actually going. First, I needed to make sure the medicine cabinet would fit. It isn't anything fancy because we were somewhat limited by the 14-inch opening (we have plaster walls in the rest of the house). I also didn't want anything too ornate since we're trying to keep simple, clean lines in the room. So, this is what I picked (Kohler $98 @ Lowe's). The coolest thing about it is that the inside is also mirrored so it seems lit when you open it:
As you can see, I had installed some furring strips a while back to prepare for the beadboard. I wanted it to be slightly recessed from the drywall up above. I plan on installing some chair rail to finish it off. After the medicine cabinet, I then needed to move the shut-off valve for the sink as it was a bit wonky (Ken laughed at it the other day when he was here). After that, I prepared to cut the stuff. Here's my deep, dark, embarrassing secret: Until this morning, I was a bit terrified of our circular saw. You're probably laughing and I probably deserve it. It's strange because I have no problems with our jigsaw, our miter saw, or a reciprocating saw. I think for me it's just like a lot of things - until I do it the first time I'm a bit intimidated. So, I made my daily homage to the box store and got myself a plywood blade for our circular saw, which was awesome. The stuff cut like buttah. I'm now officially over my circular-saw-aphobia. I then had to prime the edges and then I started trying to nail the board to the furring strips. It took me a while of bending nails and getting pretty frustrated to realize that I needed to drill some pilot holes in this stuff first. Then I was rocking and rolling.

The other revelation of the day was how awesome my Dremel was for making the cut-outs around the outlet and the medicine cabinet. This was a great birthday present from Thom (thanks, sweetie!) and I highly recommend getting yourself one - and, besides, who can't use another power tool? Anyway, you'll notice under the window on the back wall there's a pretty significant gap between the beadboard and the bottom of the sill. What am I going to do with it, you ask? Well, my friend, I have absolutely no idea. I was hasty and silly and began tiling that back wall around the tub without really thinking it through. Now I am going to have to get creative at some point. I was really hoping to trim out the window a bit more in line with the rest of the windows in the house, so maybe I can do something interesting there. Maybe not.

So, on to the final project of the day - laying down the Ditra. First of all, let me say this stuff also gets the awesome award for the day. It's 1/8 inch thick and you can just cut it with a utility knife. Simple. The bummer of the day is that I don't quite have exactly enough. I had measured pretty carefully and came up with needing 60 square feet. Ditra is sold in a roll of 54 square feet. Given my lack of prowess in the measuring area, however, I figured I'd be close. Yeah, close but no cigar. I would usually just go get more but this stuff is pricey ($80/roll). So I am reluctant, to the say the least, to buy a whole other roll for about 6 square feet more of it. Sheesh.

I'm going to go back and stare at it a while longer - maybe it will magically expand. If it does, I can then mix up the thinset and lay it down. I'd like to try to start tiling a bit tomorrow but it's probably not going to happen as I have several meetings during the day. It looks like Friday will most likely be the day for tiling the floor and maybe grouting the tub surround tile. I still don't know what to do about the tub ceiling. Ideas?