Some major setbacks today. I was pretty depressed by dinner time. There were a few successes, but I’ve got some extra work to do.
I started putting up more drywall this morning, and when I stood back and looked, I realized that it just wasn’t very good. I talked to Jennifer (who is going to be doing all the mudding) and she was of the same opinion. There were too many gaps near the corners, a couple of ugly butt joints and it simply wasn’t up to scratch.
We then sat back and planned drywall together. We’d never really worked out exactly what the plan was for tiles and where the cement board should end and normal drywall begin. I got out the tiles and a handful of spacers and laid out a few rows on the dining room table. This gave us specific measurements to use. We also learned that we should overlap a half a tile from the concrete board onto the regular drywall, which means that the transition between the two needs to be placed properly. Apparently the concrete board is difficult to get smooth enough to paint. We’re also going to have a small gap at the top of the wall between the tile and the ceiling, so I’ll have to have a strip of regular drywall at the top of the wall above the concrete board.
Lesson: Lay out a row of tile with your spacers and get real measurements for your tile install, and plan around that rather than trusting that your 8 inch tile is 8 inches exactly and your 1/4 inch spacers are exactly 1/4 inch. Small differences add up to measurable amounts over a number of tiles.
Lesson: Read up on drywall installation to make mudding easier. This book is brilliant and I read most of it just before dinner and it will help immensely.
So I pulled out all of the drywall I’ve installed so far, with the exception of the ceiling. I’ll have to head out and buy some more, but hopefully I’ll feel better about the end result. Drywall makes me feel useless. I regularly miss studs and have multiple empty holes all around some screws, no matter how well I try to measure. Sigh. Ah well, at least the plumbing is going fine.
I wanted to put the concrete board up first, so I can fit the drywall around it. The first board went up just fine. It’s nice that Durock comes in sheets that are exactly the length of a standard bathtub so there’s no cutting for the back wall. The second sheet was a bit more difficult, because there ended up being a lump of concrete on the back of the board that I didn’t notice until I was on the very last screw and it wouldn’t lay flat. I had to back the whole board off again and scrape the back smooth.

Small, but enough to ruin a smooth seam
Lesson: Check the concrete board for smoothness on the back before putting each sheet up.
I got the long wall of the tub done, the back wall, and then prepared to put up the front wall (where the controls are).
I measured and drilled a hole for the tub spout, and then placed it up in order to measure the location of the faucet. It was then that I noticed that the tub spout pipe was only sticking out a very small amount. Of course! I’d looked up the needed length and measured a pipe and soldered it on, but I’d forgotten that the measurement was from the FRONT of the FINISHED SURFACE. I just made the pipe that long, but it starts a good two inches behind the wall, so it was far too short. Luckily it only took a few minutes to sweat the short one off, cut a new longer pipe and put it on instead.

A smidge too short
Okay, problem solved. Back to the concrete board. I marked the location of the handle, took it outside and cut out the circle with a jigsaw. It fit perfectly. I decided to see what it looked like with the chrome face plate on. There is a plastic piece of trim that goes on under the chrome, and it says on it in big letters “IMPORTANT! THIS PIECE MUST BE FLUSH WITH FINISHED SURFACE”. And as I watched in slow motion, it pushed deep into the hole, past the concrete board. So, add the tile thickness and it means that the faucet fixture is plumbed in about 13/16 of an inch too far back. It will have to be moved. I mentioned earlier being a bit lost in the directions on exactly how far the fitting had to be from the surface. The diagram looked nothing like my faucet. I should have stopped right there and checked. Sigh.

Rats.
I was ready to give up at this point. After pulling out two days worth of drywall and fixing the tub spout, to find out I had to move the faucet that I was so proud of installing was heartbreaking.
I spent some time cleaning up and organizing tools and then had dinner and a glass of wine. Then I went back to the tub and removed all of the pipe straps that kept the faucet in place. With just the pipes supporting it, there is a lot of flex. I am confident that I will be able to simply add some shims behind the existing wood blocking and it will be fine. Disaster averted, but still more work to (re)do.
Tomorrow is Friday and I go back to work on Monday. So it looks like I might get to a “drywall done” point by then, but no further. Tile will have to be done evenings. Jennifer expressed that it was worrying her too, because she was sure that the mudding will take her a week to do and dry completely. The plan now is to get the drywall up and get the seams on the concrete board mudded so perhaps I can start tile while she is still mudding the regular drywall. Then it’s just a matter of painting, flooring and fixtures, all of which we’ve done multiple times before.
So close. SO CLOSE.
Cost for this Post:
– My pride.
– A few days work.
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