I still need to order the new boat. We are coming home tomorrow so I can get back into next week.

I am working on the plumbing this morning, soldering copper for the shower head and tub. Tomorrow I will connect the bathroom to the rest of the plumbing and check for leaks.

Saturday my wife took my son to go shopping with a friend of hers so she would be out of the house while I worked.

My day started off at Lowes to get some map gas as I ran out on Friday. I was able to solder using propane but only simple connections and not ones where I had a lot of heat sink.

After an hour long trip to lowes, we had to look at tractors adn play with snowblowers I came home to finish my last connections. About 20 minutes later I was finished.

Now my wife leaves to go shopping and I make sure all my shut off valves are turned off, I make sure all my open ended lines have caps on them. I head to the basement to turn the water off, go back up stairs to turn a sink faucet on to let all the water drain.

A long long time ago I marked my new hot and cold lines but somehow cut off the end that marked which one was which. I now have a 50-50 chance on getting it right. Since I wasn't sure I used shark bite fittings to connect the hot and cold water lines. I turn on the water and run 2 flights of stairs to check my pex and solder joints. So far so good with no leaks. I then turn the shut off valves one at a time, still looking good. I turn on the tub valves, still good. After running the hot and cold one at a time, I noticed my cold water was beginning to get hot and my hot water was cold. Shucks, my connections in the basement were reversed.

Out of all my joints, the only one that had a slight trickle was my cold water where I had a screw fitting. I turn the water off again, correctly connect my hot and cold in the basement and apply teflon tape to the threads. After a few more minutes of checking my plumbing is leak free.

I then finish putting up the drywall where my plumbing was just completed.

This was my first time doing this kind of plumbing work so it took me a lot longer then normal. I wont win any master plumbing awards with my soldering but they were all leak free so that is what counts.

The rest of the bathroom remodel will be doing what I am comfortable doing so I should be able to pick up some speed in order to meet my March 2010 deadline. The good thing is we are now able to take baths but will have to wait for a shower as I need to install the surround.

Any solder joint that doesn't leak is a good solder joint by me.
I'd dread for a real plumber to look at any of my work!

As a plumber for 35 yrs I agree that a leak free solder joint is a good one.....even if there are gobbers on it!! They are usually in the wall anyway.

Now you need to set a deadline for buying that new boat!!!

Last night I finished skim coating the drywall and started priming the walls. I primed just about as much as I could with the paint I had. Tonight I will sand the skim coat one last time. The reason for this skim coat is the new tub surround is not as high as the original tile. Underneath the tile the plaster walls were only brown coated and thus about 1/8" thinner than the finish coat. I applied drywall compound to make everything smooth. In the construction industry this is called a level 5 finish, I can do a level 4 finish pretty well considering I don't do it everyday.

I'll post updated pictures soon.

This weekend I primed, painted the celing, and one coat of finish paint on the walls. It went pretty fast because I have no trim up so that I didn't have to do any cutting (except at the ceiling). Next comes the tub surround. I also started to layout the ceramic tile and made some marks on the floor. I still need to do some tweaking.

Sounds like you're really moving ahead now.

I will have to post pictures as I am long over due.
Saturday instead of going to a wonderful boat show in Baltimore I spent it on my hands and knees installing ceramic tile. I laid all of the full pieces in a few hours.

First though I laid everyone full piece without any mastic under it so I can make sure my layout was correct. I didn't want a little piece on the ends and I wanted to make sure my baseboard would hide any gap between the wall and the tile. I cheated it a little so the gap at the long wall would be covered up by the baseboard. The gap at the other wall may be close to not being covered but it is only about 18" long before the tile is hidden under the baseboard heater. My thoughts were to have the baseboard along this 18" wall a little thicker to cover the gap. All of my trim in the house is custom trim that I make with my router so that wont be a problem with furring out my base a little more and plus my corner will be coped so I can hide the thickness as well.

Once I had everything laid out the way I wanted it, I started to apply mastic. I used pre-mixed mastic so I didn't have to deal with mixing it. The gallon container said one gallon will cover 40-60 SF, my bathroom is 60 SF including the tub. I bought two one gallon containers just in case. I am thankful that I did because I needed about half of the second gallon. After reading the fine print the coverage is based upon 3/16" v notch trowel and I was using a 1/4"x3/8" notched trowel which uses more material.

I tried to use my tile cutter but I wasn't have much success with it. The tile wasn't breaking correctly. I then used a diamond tip masonry blade in my circular saw and that chipped it out too much. I then remembered that where I purchased the tile from will do cuts so I marked out all my cuts and had them do it over my lunch time.

Now for the grout, we picked out a grout color but neither on of us are too good with colors so I brought it to work where one of my architect's could help pick it out. After about 3 seconds he picked one, I asked him to spend more time as I wasn't paying him for just 3 seconds worth of work. He paused a little longer and still chose the same color. The color he chose is the same color we chose so I guess we are better than we thought on our colors.

Tonight I will install the cut tiles and then later in the week I will start grouting.

My knees were a little sore on Saturday.

Dude, you're rapidly approaching one year on this project.

As much as I'd like to give you a hard time about it, I took 2.5 years to complete a new second floor bath in my house.

The light is getting bigger.....

Were you wearing kneepads? Well worth the investment. I've found that as I get up in age (anything over 40) things that wouldn't faze me now require extra padding LOL.

Don't remind me 2Suns, that is why I have a big push to get this finished by March.

Thankfully the quick stuff is happening now, quick because I know what I am doing and don't have to rely on help from friends.

I was in the basement until 10PM last night working and I am usually in bed way before that because I usually fall asleep with my son at 8. I am tired this morning.

A few over due pictures of the floor:

Regardless of the timeline, I just skimmed the thread & the progress pics looks great