The last few weekends (and weeknights) have allowed substantial progress towards finishing the bathroom.
We had a vision for "smooth and flat" walls and ceiling in the bathroom, a "Level 5" finish. Having used the Magic Trowel before, in the kitchen, I opted to do the same in the bathroom. Blogger's not cooperating with video uploads, but essentially the steps are to:
- Roll thinned drywall compound on to the surfaces of interest and then;
- Smooth and squeegee off drywall compound.
The finished product looks something like this:
Once the drywall compound dries, then sand, find the areas that need attention (either more sanding or more compound), resolve those, then wait to paint. Last week during the evenings, I sanded and touched up the taping in the corners, as well as resolved a few minor shrinkage cracks in the dried compound. The Magic Trowel leaves behind a pretty thick layer of compound. The shrinkage showed up at some of the joints between pieces of drywall. After sanding back and applying paper tape, those issues were resolved.
Yesterday, I finished the major sanding, cleaned up, and prepared to install the tile backer for the floor. I laid out the GoBoard, mixed up a small batch of thinset mortar, then proceeded to install the boards.
A pretty uneventful process, except for the part where I ran out of mortar after the second board and had to mix up a second batch. Oops. Lesson 1 of thinset: always make more than you think you need.
This morning, I did the final sanding of the patches for the thinset cracks. After, I sealed the screw penetrations and joints of the GoBoard on the walls and floor. I ended up using all 8 tubes of caulking I purchased for this job. I'm lucky or good, but my estimate was right on.
Each of the white spots is a screw head...
This week, after the caulk has dried, I have embed thinset in the seams between the tile backer on the floor and to add waterproofing membrane around the window. Once all of that work is done, I think we are on the cusp of installing tile.
It feels like there's so much more to do, yet the end seems to be in sight. We have a firm deadline now, so it's high time to finish!
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