Greetings from the Attic! We are about half way through the One Room Challenge and I’ve been unintentionally falling asleep on the couch at the end of the day, so that tells me that I’m getting stuff accomplished. This week has been full of more prep work, which is boring to look at and exhausting to do. I promise next week there will be more exciting visuals for you to look at!
It started off with taping and putting thinset on the seams and the corners of the shower/tub walls. Those tight angles are pretty tricky to get into with material. So I have spent basically the ENTIRE week worrying about how in the heck I’m going to tile this weird space. Tiling is top of the list for next week, so be sure to tune in to see if this project turns into one hot mess!
This was my first time working with mesh tape and thinset over cement board. I approached it like drywall mud and tape, and it seemed to work out pretty well. It’s just much grittier, like myself some days!😜
I also got all of the walls painted. I wanted to keep it very clean and put the emphasis on the blue sky showing through the skylight, so I stayed with the main color of the entire attic master bedroom, which is Sherwin Williams’s Westhighland White. It brightened up the room for sure!
I feel that a lot of color and value shifts will happen with all of the angles, so keeping it minimal in terms of the overall color will add to the “spa-like” vibe I’m going for. Will there be color, you ask? Heck yeah! Here’s a sneak peek at some of the materials I have gathered for the remaining weeks’ projects:
Okay, maybe the bright blue won’t be in there in a big way, but it will be right around the corner from the bathroom as the soon-to-be done kitchenette. I’m hoping to have that part of the attic master suite done before the next Challenge comes around, but if not, I guess I know what will be next! I’m loving the color palette!
Alright, back to the boring prep work part of this journey….
After reading quite a bit, and watching YouTube videos about waterproofing shower walls before tiling, I decided to get a gallon of Aquadefense and follow everyone else’s lead. But this brings me to a broader point that I would like to express for the DIYers like myself who are also perfectionists and hate doing things wrong. I have tiled about a half dozen projects in my few houses that I have lived in and fixed up. Before the internet, I just jumped into projects with reckless abandon! And you know what? The tile never fell off the wall. It never cracked on the floor. Did I know to put cement board on back in 2003? Nope. It was nice to not have to be policed by the internet, or fear that my project would all fall apart due to my naivety. It was actually kinda fun to try a new skill!
I have NOT felt this with this bathroom project. I keep researching to make sure that I am doing things perfectly, because I can thanks to the wealth of information out there on the internet. But it is mentally exhausting, and it is squelching some of the enthusiasm I once had going into a new project. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not justifying doing anything crazy, I’m just saying there is no reason to paralyze yourself with the fear of doing something wrong. Because the sense of accomplishment you get from trying something new, even if it’s not EXACTLY how you thought it would go, is pretty terrific!
And that is my project pep talk! Back to waterproofing. It’s done. Three coats on the seams, corners and edges, and two coats on the walls. Here’s how it looks, ready for some BIG tiles to cover it up!
Green means GO! Which is what I am off to do right now. Let the tiling commence with just a touch of reckless abandon thrown in! Check back next week when you will most likely see me drenched with water and wet ceramic dust from the tile saw. And of course, check in with some other participants and their One Room Challenge journeys!
-Michele aka Kiki
