Tub Walls and Tile

The tile contractor started last Thursday. He got the HardiBacker concrete board up the first day and some tile. I had to move the valve back an inch that evening though because it was too far forward to allow the wall board to lay flat. It was a moderately easy fix, and that allowed the contractor to re-install the board flat the next day and install more tile.

He left his tile saw and tools so that I could install more tile over the weekend, but I only did a little bit as I was pretty tired of all the work I'd done over the previous week. Plus my father-in-law was in town and we spent some time doing family stuff like picking pumpkins.

The contractor finished installing most of the time on Monday and then grouted on Tuesday. The grout needs to set for 72 hours and then we can shower! The faucet spout, valve handle, and shower connection can all be installed after 24 hours, but a couple of holes need to be drilled for the shower adjustment bar and that can't happen until after 72 hours.

The tile was very difficult to work with. It was cheap ceramic tile and if we could do it over we'd pick a higher quality porcelain tile. We had initially wanted to do a dark contrasting grout, but we changed our minds after the tile started getting installed. We feel the white grout hides some of the problems that the tile gave us.

We're thinking that we might try to do the tile on the floor in this bathroom ourselves as well as in the master bathroom. And we might try to do tighter grout joints. We'll have to do a little research first though.