My first job

[macten]

Hi guys.
2 weeks into my first ever job; bathroom refurb for my brother and sister-in-law.
The job has thrown up problem after problem and I worry that this is common place and am doubting my ability to making a living at this due to the time it is taking me - How do you guys get so fast?
I've been keeping a photo record of the job and would welcome comments and tips from the pro's.

DAY 1 : My brother had let the bathroom get into a real state. I knew it was going to be bad when I spotted the landing carpet was blackened and the skirting board crumbling. After the bathroom had been gutted it was obvious what the benefit tanking has to offer:

The damp had turned the chipboard to soil and rotted away the studding:

 

[tiler tom]

Do not think for one moment that every job is going to be straight forward every job involves a new challenge. Quote " how do you tilers get so fast ". Experience.
Looks like from the pictures and the description of the bathroom best thing is to replace rotten studding and plasterboard then re tile on a nice clean service.

 

[macten]

Day 2: I hadn't counted on the removing of the cork/vinyl tiles taking so long.
This task would have been near-on impossible without my fein machine, even with it the job was hard and long. So first question: Could I have just overplyed or was I right to remove?

DAY 3: This is where the job really took a turn for the worse. After I removed the water damaged plasterboard from around the bath it was obvious that the wall (even when reboarded) would not be suitable to take the large tiles that my brother had bought. The main bath wall consisted of 2 large sheets of plasterboard (my little nieces' bedroom) nailed to small wooden studs around the perimeter of the wall with no horizontal noggins:

As you can see this had no support and flexed massively. The only support it did have was 2 larger peices of plasterboard dot n dabbed between the bedroom boards and the bathroom boards. It felt like I only had to lean on it and I'd be through into the bedroom. I decided to remove all the bathroom plaster boards, strengthen and rebuild:

I'm no expert but surely these walls should have been better built in the first place.

 

[macten]

The next couple of days were spent making good the walls:

The wall was finally solid, flat and rot-free. This job also uncovered that my neices plug socket was sodden from the leaking bath plus a nail from the bedroom skirting straight through the live wire

It was now time to figure out how to get the bath (which was too long for the room) in. Fortunately I'd removed all the boards around the bath as they were too far gone so was easy to bury in the wall:

 

[macten]

Getting all the paint off the walls proved as time consuming as the cork tiles. I was tempted to just rough it up, score it and prime it but the paint was glazed and cracked from the high moisture and the tiles were to be 400x200 so thought it best to get it all off. This took ages and found the most effective way was to use a heat gun and thin scraper - wish I'd tried that at the beginning!
I knew I had to cut through the chipboard to alter the pipework - wasn't looking forward to that so spent the rest of that day tanking:

----
Day 8 or 9, not sure - totally knackered now and I've got my plumbers cap on:

Wasted loads of time on this - the towel radiator my brother had bought didn't match the existing pipework. It was 500 width so I altered the pipework only to discover that the pipe centres were 455 not 500 arrgghh. Re-did it only to discover the new basin wouldn't fit and the door wouldn't be able to open much etc.. etc.. soon running out of olives (must get a bag of jb plastic pushfits - they're a god send) Finally sorted the pipework and then my brother buys a totally new radiator :furious3: My fault really as I warned him the one he had bought was too small and wouldn't really heat the room.

 

[macten]

I couldn't put off the worse job any longer. The new toilet was going to be a problem - it's close-coupled and the old soil pipe had been solvent-welded. As my brother said "time to cut through my essence bro" man that was disgusting.

I noticed the window had that ugly irregular beading that window fitters use to fill in gaps 'cos they can't be bothered to make the windows fit properly. Since I had some plasterboard left over I removed this and made good:

Time to make a start on the floor. Screwed down chipboard and glued and screwed ply:

 

[macten]

All this prep work has taken me nearly a fortnight. Nearly 2 weeks of 10-12 hour days. This job is for family and I've had earache off them over how long it's taking me. It got quite demoralizing - I tried explaining how I want to do the best job possible but they must think (like I did admittedly) that it was a simple case of swapping bathware and tiling - what could go wrong, how about everything!!

Anyway 1 week overdue and the room is prepped, plumb ready and primed - just a case of tiling now. Great, the sis-in-law now wants brickbond, oh and she doesn't want any of that 'nasty looking trim'. After reading a thread on here about duck beak mitring or something I thought - no problem, it's all experience. Yeah, right!

Finally I can start tiling:

Typical. Ran out of wall tiles. Got to wait til next week before 2 more boxes arrive from Spain. Am really worried that the colour won't match. Luckily it's the top of one wall and the batten area at the bottom of all walls (which I planned to finish after the floor is done).
It is best to have the wall tiles sitting on top of the floor tiles isn't it?

I know I messed up the brickbond pattern. I decided to start the bathwall late one night after a few too many gins and got preoccupied with keeping the long widths of the tiles framing the bath. I can see I should have put the 2nd row above bath as 1st row and therefore have big tile/little tile instead of big
tile/big tile and little tile/little tile. But hey this is rapid set and I think it still works out ok as I managed to copy it on the opposite wall where the soil stack is boxed in. I keep telling myself that to be honest as really, deep down I'm kicking myself!

 

[macten]

2 1/2 weeks in and I still haven't finished the walls. I wanted to do a rewarding job so grouted what I could. Not sure if that was a mistake, should I have waited till all is complete before grouting or won't it matter?
Was very satisfying though and looks so much better:

And then cleaned down:

Waiting on decision of floor tiles so fitted the spotlights:

^^ my brother has promised to get the ceiling painted this weekend!

 

[IvegotsTILE]

Top job mate,don't worry about big tile/small tile in corners because very often you can't make the pattern wrap around the wall because of other objects(i.e. window)and how the cuts fall.Your being way too hard on yourself.
I think you'll find problems like this on many jobs,you have to tell the customer before you remove tiles you NEVER know what state the walls will be in.
I have no work now for a few days because the customer removed the tiles and most of the plaster came off with it(old horse hair plaster)so 3 walls need to be completely stripped and boarded which they don't have enough for so the job has been postponed.

As long as you don't take short cuts and do the job properly you'll be fine.

Congrats on doing a good job,give yourself a pat on the back

I wouldn't worry about the grouting as long as you do the same mix all the time.

 

[macten]

Wish I'd fitted the lights before I grouted. In daylight and old bathroom light my grout finish looked fine. With the downlighting it's far from perfect! I know I'm being super critical and my brother can't see the problem, but if I were to re-grout, could I just go over it again or would I have to rake it out and start over?

 

[IvegotsTILE]

Ha I did exactly the same style of bathroom as that a month ago using a single spotlight,looked brilliant.
Electrician fitted spotlights in the ceiling and my grout job wasn't brilliant and there were a few steps in the tiles,customer thought it looked brilliant.we are way to critical,which is a good thing.
Don't worry about it,you would have to take it all out with your fein and believe me it will take 10-13 hours even using that,don't bother.

 

[macten]

Sod that then - I'm knackered. Still, you live and learn. It's not that the grout job was bad, it looked perfect before I put in the spotlights. I suppose if I had grouted at night with the spots and got it looking perfect it wouldn't have looked as good in daylight.
----
Just want to end this as to where I am right now with this job.
Can't finish the walls till middle of next week when the tiles arrive so I've got the the towel radiator up and the floor tiles laid:

So that's where I am right now. I'm gonna have a couple of days off and start again when the wall tiles arrive.
Still left to do:
*Finish walls (going to include a 75mm strip of the floor tile as a kind of skirting up the wall)
*Grout floor and fit basin, toilet and rad.
*Need to make a bath panel out of ply and tile (I want to include the floor tile skirting and wrap the brickbond around from the window wall) - this is what I see as my next problem. Access panel wise I may go the Schluter route or a cheaper improvisation of the system. Does anyone have any suggestions?
The other problem is that the bath legs come very close to the edge of the bath. I'm going to use 6mm ply but the tiles are 10mm thick + addy so I plan to bridge the 2 bath legs with tile (no ply). Do you think this will work?
I want the panel to be flush with the edge of the bath so I can't see a simpler alternative.

 

[grumpygrouter]

Hi Macten, I think you have had a real baptism of fire there mate and, although I haven't had time to read all your posts, I think you have done outstandingly well. Finished walls are certainly looking good.

What you have had to do there is, in my opinion/short experience, not typical of what the job normally entails (as a tiler). Are you a plumber/bathroom fitter as well?

Grumpy

 

[Fekin]

Looks a cracking job to get stuck into.

Well done

 

[Turkish]

Jesus you have worked your nuts off there mate!! Total respect to you mate for your determination especially when it was for family (who i have to say don`t sound too grateful!!!). They could just have easily got someone else in to do it who didn`t bother to sort out all the problems with the substrate etc. then they would have really regretted that!!

Top job by the looks of things, I`d be chuffed with that.

Turkish