Reno continue: shower framing

Shower framing -  big work, especially when you do not have framing gun or impact driver, when for every screw you need pre-drill hole. Well.... you do what you need to do:o)  That means that frame is up... almost.

 My best tools last two weeks          Archie as usual inspects quality of work

and after sleeps well after hard work

Actually yesterday I was happy that all framing was done with screws. When trying to fit sink's enforcement details I came to the "Ops" moment.  It's hard to "move" mind from brick and mortar techniques that I so used to, to wood, OSB and dry wall. I realize that framing area where sink should go, was framed not wide enough. So ... unscrew and screw again, that was easy:o)

 Good and strong construction, but wrong place (see below)

B/W sink as you see is covered with mosaic attached with epoxy grout/mortar. Here I did mistake, not exactly mistake, but working with epoxy you should mix and use all quantity of material and I also wanted to use it as thin set and grout in one. I just didn't think that one thing is to use it for the floor (flat surface) and another for 3D object. Vertical walls began to sag because of thickness and freshness of the material (it doesn't set as quick as regular thin set) so I needed to put some support, but anyway got some big white/empty spaces which I decided to decorate with handmade resin/fluorescent/glow tesserae. I ordered fluorescent pigment will see how it goes.

Today  was HEAVY DUTY DAY : plumber worked more on rerouting /adding shower fixtures. I had another "Ops" moment with my sink :o( To my husband's delight (that he's got his way:o) we couldn't install sink above the toilet. I haven't took into consideration sink's draining height (OK I did but not enough) and sink got wayyyy to high, so we moved it  to the "normal" location - between toilet and shower. That made me very unhappy - I didn't want sink (even a small one) to block a small space. Well... you do what you need to do. Also we installed liner and made shower bed. It was HEAVY DUTY job. My men were mixing 3 bags of concrete by hand and I was dry packing "the bed" and checking right slope every step. I feel my every muscle today:o) Now we need to wait 15 to 28 days for concrete to cure, so will be able to apply liquid membrane. I know it's long wait, but definitely worth it. Slowly but surely :o)

Reno in process

So now I'm deeply occupied  into my basement reno process and anything else kind of drifted away. Reading, watching YouTube, reading again, asking question. And again Home depot is a bad place to ask questions - you will get or bad answer or stupid question back to your inquiry. That one was the joke of the day... A few days ago I'd bought reciprocating saw, not the best quality, so the blade waved just after a few uses. I've decided to buy better more expensive blade, but wasn't sure if it would work with my saw. I've picked up a few blades and stopped the customer service guy in front of boxes of "my saw" and asked if these blades will work with this saw, because the originals just waved after a few uses. The guy looked at me, probably thinking that I should be blonde (well... I wasn't) and asked me "Do you know that saw goes back and forth?" ....No comments... right? So I didn't, I just asked "Can you answer just one word - "Yes" or "No" if THIS blade works with THIS saw?" I've got right answer and left HD as soon as I can. I know that I will be returning there (it's the closed to my home), but the best is do research on line, then grab needed product and done with that.

And here we had a few visual illustrations about the work flow:

1. Framing work of the exterior wall, as always supervised by Archie the PITA is that I don't have good driver or framing gun and all screwed holes should be pre-drilled :o( but furring is done and almost the framing...

2. Here you adapt your two hands and smart ideas, when need four hands:o) vacuuming and working with  the saw and no dust.

 

3. For my dream shower we need to move the entrance door, so the demolition days and cleaning after too

4. Plumbing is done by professional (two things that I'll never touch is - electrical and plumbing), but concrete pouring is my part (and Archie must check my every step:o) and from leftovers of concrete - concrete bowl. It was the last minute spur. I remembered from some forum idea about two guys making beautiful bowls here the link

 4. It appears that to find mini sink in reasonable price range is practically impossible, so I decided to make myself custom made concrete mini sink, that will be glass mosaic inside and outside .... I need to think. Will show the result when I done. The process pretty much simple: two plastic containers from the dollar store, pvc pipe that's equal strainer's diameter, modeling clay, oil spray. There are two ways of pouring - in or out.  I decided on "out" - filled the bigger container with the concrete and pushed in the small one.