Tag: renovation

Tiling with Cement Board Instead of Ditra

This bathroom renovation is sponsored by Lowe’s. Thank you for making this project possible!

I want my bathroom tile to have longevity. I’m using porcelain (wonderfully durable), and have been taking care to do the job right from the prep work through to completion. I’ll share more in an upcoming post about the tile installation, but first I want to point out a big mistake that I almost made (and how I fixed it).

I had been planning all along to lay my tile on top of Ditra. It’s an uncoupling membrane that isolates movement between the subfloor and finished tile, preventing cracks over time. It’s also a waterproofing layer. All good things!

Our bathroom had hardwood flooring, and you can’t lay Ditra directly on top because solid wood shrinks and swells with temperature and humidity changes. I could have added a more dimensionally stable subfloor (OSB, plywood, or cement board) on top of the hardwood. It would have added more weight to the floor, but more concerning was the additional height. When I had the cast iron radiator removed temporarily, I was advised to keep the connections at the same place. There is some give in the pipes, but not a lot. Same with the tub drain and toilet stack. I started to worry that in hopes of saving myself a little time by not ripping out the wood floor, I would be creating costly plumbing fixes in my near future when it came time to reattach everything.

I decided to demo the floor. It added more time to my project, but it was the right thing to do. I had to use my Dremel Multi-Max Saw in a couple of places, but most of the wood came up easily with the combination of a pry bar, wrecking bar, and claw hammer. Safety glasses and gloves are a good idea too.

Next I set about getting the floor ready from there. The plywood subfloor beneath the wood was mostly in good shape. There was some water damage beneath the toilet, but that was easily cut out and replaced.

At this point, I was still planning to use Ditra with my tile, but the finished floor would have now been too low, so I opted to lay OSB on top of my plywood to add thickness. Two 4’x8′ sheets cost less than $20. They’re big and heavy and hard to maneuver, but I got them cut to size, carried them up to the second floor, cut my openings for pipes, fine tuned the fit, and screwed the OSB into place (6″ spacing around the perimeter, 12″ grid spacing within). Hooray! I finished just before midnight, tired and sweaty, but feeling good about my progress.

There are different instructions for Ditra installation based on the type of subfloor you have, so I looked up that information the next morning. The OSB wasn’t the issue I ran into, it was the tile size. “The tile format should always be greater than 2” x 2” (5cm x 5cm).” Hi, I would be using 1” square mosaics! Oh no.

I was basically back to where I was when the hardwood flooring had still been in place. Cement board over top, or rip out what I had just finished and put cement board directly over the plywood subfloor? Out with the OSB. I went back to Lowe’s and picked up DUROCK cement backer board instead, plus thinset, the proper screws, and alkali-resistant fiberglass mesh tape.

Cement board can be scored with a razor blade and then snapped for a clean edge. A saw will cut it too, but produces silica dust particles — a razor blade is the better choice. Screws (8″ apart) hold the cement board in place, but thinset between it and the subfloor ensure there are no springy weak spots and make the floor behave as if it were one solid slab. Taping the joints and filling the gaps with thinset (be sure to smooth the top) also adds to the stability.

I added two coats of Mapai Aquadefense for waterproofing as well. I don’t think this was strictly necessary (this is a bathroom floor, not a shower or wet room), but I’m looking at it as a bit of added insurance. Porcelain tile doesn’t absorb much water and cement backer board is water-resistant, but neither is waterproof.

My mistake put me behind schedule, but lessons have been learned. May they spare you from a similar mistake!

I shared all of this on Instagram Stories as I realized what I had done, and very quickly, the worried messages started coming in. People had either installed Schluter Systems Ditra themselves beneath small tile, or had hired a professional that did. What now!?

You will probably be fine. Probably! The problem though is that Ditra has a waffle texture and where the small tiles overlap in a way that they’re not fully supported, there is a possibility that they’ll pop up or break, or the grout will crack over time (the very thing an uncoupling membrane is supposed to prevent). I’ve seen recommendations for filling the waffle voids completely, letting that dry, and then proceeding to tile. The job would not be covered by the Schluter’s warranty, but if the openings were all filled to the top it should stand up to normal traffic.

TL;DR A high heel putting pressure on a tile is one thing — I had been planning on putting our claw foot tub back in. That much weight focused on four points made me nervous, and since I realized my oversight before it would have been terribly difficult to reverse course, I opted to change my installation method.

August 29, 2019
The Bathroom Design Plan
This bathroom renovation is sponsored by Lowe’s. Thank you for making this project possible!

I’ve been working away on our second floor bathroom, clearing everything out and prepping for what’s to come. Let me show you what that is, exactly!
1. Pendant Light (Similar)
2. Birds!
3. Hallway Wallpaper
4. Existing Vintage Sconces
5. Wall Color TBD
6. Kohler Bancroft Pedestal Sink
7. Rohl Country Bath Brass Sink Faucet
8. Beadboard Color TBD
9. Kohler Elongated Comfort Height Toilet with Black Toilet Seat
10. Existing Hooks (About Those…)
11. Cast Iron Radiator and Existing Brass Hardware
12. Existing Clawfoot Tub, Painted (Color TBD)
13. Barclay Brass Bath Faucet with Hand Shower
14. Framed Kid’s Drawing
15. Existing Trash Can
16. 1″ Square Tile (Black, Lemon Chiffon, Cappuccino, and Biscuit) and Hexagon Tile (Biscuit)
The tub and many existing elements will stay, and all supplies (we’ll get into that in a separate post) and new pieces are from Lowe’s. There are a few variables to finalize, namely paint and the tile border design, but the overall plan is solid.

Work on the floor and prepping for paint has kept me busy, and I’ll choose the paint color towards the end. If I had to pick right now, it would be a match to the color of this dress. I’ve already painted the door (and every door on the second and third floor) black, the hallway right outside the bathroom has pink wallpaper. The plumbing fixtures are white, hardware is brass, and the floor tile will have a bit of ochre and tan. There’s a lot of room to play with colors from there!
June 26, 2019
Tiling the Basement Laundry Room

Today, I grout! But first, let’s take a look at the tiling progress I’ve made.

I started by finding the center of the room, then going out from there to see how square (or not) the room was. The laundry room is 10’x14’ and surprisingly not too wonky, at least as far as right angles go! Next, I dry laid sheets of tile to see how they lined up with the edges of the room. I don’t think this step is as important with small mosaic tiles as it would be with a larger format, but I felt better seeing some of the flooring in place before continuing.

I mixed my mortar to the consistency of peanut butter and was ready to affix the tile. (Tip: add powder to water when you start, not the other way around. It’s easier to mix without forming a dry clump at the bottom that way.) You can prefill the little waffle squares in a Ditra underlay (more about why I used Schluter Ditra right here) so that’s why you see some patches already filled in and dry — I was using up whatever mortar was in the bucket after adding the KerdiBand strips to waterproof the floor.

I started in the center and worked my way toward the wall where the water heater goes. I want to get that thing back in place! (Hot water, I miss you. So much.) By the end of day 1, I had made it to the wall and close to two corners.

Day 2, I started back at the center and worked my way toward the opposite wall. Then, leaving a path around the perimeter, I went back and got the two corners I had almost made it to the previous day. I didn’t want to start in one corner and work all the way from there because the tile sheets give a little, and you can get really out of square really quickly over longer distances. If I would radiate out from the center, I figured I had a fighting chance at doing this well.

I ended the day with staggered seams. I’ve seen mosaic tile installations where the seams between tile sheets is super noticeable, and I would be pretty mad at myself if I did that. There are a handful of spots where I feel like the spacing is slightly off, but I don’t think they’ll be very visible once everything is in place. I’m also looking at it far more critically than most would. Such is my way! My next tiling job is going to be the bathroom, also with a small mosaic tile, so I’m glad to have this space as my learning experience. Obviously I want this room to look good, but the stakes are ever so slightly lower.

Day 3! I had left all of the hardest cuts for the end, so I got all of my little tile pieces in place before mixing up my mortar again.

I experimented with a few different techniques for cutting tile. A snap cutter is difficult because the scoring wheel stops at every individual tile. It works, but you have to scoot it along, piece by piece. I found it easier to use a scoring knife and tile nippers. Best of all though was the wet saw! Mine has a laser line that I found very helpful (I didn’t use the optional guide rail), and the guard kept most of the water from splashing me. I wore leather gloves and safety goggles to protect my hands and eyes from the little shards of tile that would fling off occasionally, but I found the wet saw easy to use and great for precise cuts.

I added blue tape to mark the perimeter of previously laid tile that were safe to walk/stand/sit on. You don’t want to put pressure on the freshly laid tiles because they’ll shift around or mortar will squeeze up through the gaps. If you look for the patch of flooring that looks whiter than the rest, you’ll see where I was using too much mortar in the beginning. It oozed up through the gaps and I had to scrape it out of there after it dried with a grout saw, razor blades, and a stiff-bristled brush. It will be fine once I grout the floor, but it was a mistake I wish I hadn’t made.

There’s still a lot to do before I can call the room finished, but this tiling job was the most time-consuming part of it. I’ll grout today and let that dry overnight. Tomorrow, I’ll clean the floor with haze remover and then I’ll need to use a grout sealer before I can call the floor done. But the finish line is in sight! Hot water, ahoy!

July 11, 2018
It’s Electric!

Our Victorian had been converted to multiple apartments decades ago (during the Depression, I believe), and was only converted back to a single-family home shortly before we bought it. There have been some quirks associated with that, one of which being that the house still had four electric meters.

Then something really fun happened one day, several months ago, which is that we lost power in half of the second floor. This was independent of having any work done in the house — one day the lights worked, and then they didn’t, and we hadn’t changed anything at that point. The electric company came out and tagged one of our meters with this delightful sign.

Abnormal Condition Exists. Nobody wants to touch that, by the way, because of the liability involved if something happens. The electric company doesn’t want that on their hands, and neither do electricians. See? Fun stuff!

We had a backfeed issue. I could have my numbers wrong, so forgive me if that’s the case (I’m going off of memory from what ComEd told me and I’m not an electrical expert by any means), but essentially there should have been two prongs in the meter reading at 120 volts for a combination of 240. We were reading at over 400 volts combined when touching the meter to the top right and bottom left prongs because the bottom left prong was live when it should have been completely dead. There was a jumper placed from the top right to the bottom right prongs to power the house until the problem could be identified and remedied, and that’s when we got our lovely tag.

The live feed meant that somewhere in the house, power was spliced from one meter system into another. We don’t know why it suddenly decided to go on the fritz one day after seemingly working without problem, but the upside is that it pushed along the process of moving from four meters to one. Thankfully, it was much smoother than when we did the same for our commercial and residential natural gas accounts. The village issued a permit immediately (there had been a couple of bad electrical fires in town recently, so they look at these situations with a sense of urgency), and the electricians were able start on the work quickly.

So we went from this:

To this:

Isn’t that just the most thrilling way to spend a few thousand dollars? This is much nicer though:

We’ll have to paint the patched siding, but no more Abnormal Condition. Hooray!

Ah, but then we discovered some knob and tube wiring still in use, so we’re not exactly celebrating over here. In fact, we’ve been having the house rewired over the last couple of weeks. The third floor is nearly done, and then we’ll be taking a break from home renovation work to enjoy our soon-to-arrive baby before moving on to the second and first floors, and the basement too. Our home inspection revealed old, inactive knob and tube, so it was a bit of a surprise to find more that was still in use, but sometimes that just the way things go with these old houses. Until you open up a few walls or run into unexpected problems, you don’t know what hidden issues may need to be addressed.

October 1, 2014
The Second Floor is Taking Shape

Hey, no more visible lathe! We have walls!

That’s the door we’re going to reuse for the new nursery, casually hanging out all akimbo at the end of the hall there. You know, where the 125-year-old subfloor is exposed? Living with the floor ripped up like that for a few weeks hasn’t been as bad as we initially thought it would be, but one of the kids’ bedrooms is over there so we will be glad to have an actual floor down sooner than later.

The wood on the second floor wasn’t in great shape when we bought the house, and when we started pulling it up for this project, we saw why. It’s a very thin material — not nearly as nice as the solid wood downstairs. It’s old for sure, and it has reached the end of its useful life, so we’re going to go ahead and redo the whole hallway rather than just patch the portion that we’re working on now. It’s something that we knew would need to be addressed eventually, but doing it now will mean holding off on some of the more fun stuff we’d rather spend our money on. (Sorry, potential front porch swing. Maybe another time.)

There was a strip of wood molding along the walls in the former kitchen (soon to be nursery!) at chest height, matching up with where the beadboard backsplash behind the kitchen sink ended. After the wood was removed, the wallpaper had to be partially stripped so that any patching to be done could adhere directly to the wall. It looked like the paper was just applied over bare drywall in some sections and we were worried about potential damage, but it’s peeling off fairly cleanly and easily with just water. After our contractor is done working in there, Brandon will finish stripping the remaining wallpaper.

I’m about seven weeks from the baby’s due date now, so I’m not sure how the timing’s going to shake out, but the baby will sleep in our bedroom at first anyway. Really, we’re just aiming to get the loudest, most disruptive work completed in time, and thankfully that looks like it will be on schedule.

August 4, 2014
Moving the Door Over

We’re still a ways off from finishing the conversion of the kitchen on the second floor into a bedroom and finishing the hall, but it’s moving along.

We were going to keep the original doorway to the room and reuse one of the other doors to fit. The cabinetry is staying though, and it would have been difficult to find a good spot for a bed without making the room awkward or blocking access to drawers. So I talked to Brandon and the contractor about it and we decided to move the door across from the other bedroom door on that side of the house.

(You can see the original plan here.)

The hallway bumps out into the room a little on that side (where the door will now be placed) because we didn’t want the hall to feel cramped, and it also makes it easier to bring furniture in and out of both rooms. Since the radiator is behind the door (and thus unusable floor space anyway), it doesn’t make much of a difference on the new room itself, and the little nook that will now be next to the door will be a great spot for a comfy reading chair or a desk.

My sister came by over the weekend, and I was explaining the dangers of scope creep to her. We’re moving the door, which means we’ll also need to move the room’s light switch over. We need to put down new flooring from where the hallway built-ins started all the way to the bedroom doors, and now we’re wondering if we should redo the flooring in the entire hallway at once. I’m not looking to change the look of the wood — it’s appropriate to the house — but there are a couple of soft spots that do need to be addressed eventually.

And then there’s the whole issue of finding a replacement for the bathroom storage that we lost. There is a huge bedroom closet that could be split into two, with half of it accessed from the hallway near the bathroom. We could probably even reuse some of the wood that we saved from the built-in that was removed, but that isn’t a project that we’re going to do right now. Instead, I’ll reorganize the small linen closet down the hall and be on the lookout for a shallow dresser, cabinet, or armoire to place near the bathroom.

Moving along, moving along…

July 21, 2014