Boots with the Fir

...with the fir!

Hello and welcome back to another Wallpaper Acres installment! We have had a very productive weekend but before we get to that, let's jump back to last week.

John's parents were in town for the weekend and we could not let them go without productive time at Wallpaper Acres. On Sunday, we all went over to the house to knock out some projects. Lisa worked with me and Scot with John. Lisa and I tackled the kitchen while Scot and John worked on the upstairs hall bath.

Lisa and I had the important job of measuring, cutting, and laying the contact paper in the cabinet and drawers in the kitchen. This was definitely a two person job so I was very thankful for Lisa's help. We had ordered the contact paper from Amazon (John and I's first Amazon purchase in a hot second) and had guestimated how much we would need. Luckily, we were not too far off of what we needed. This was my first time laying contact paper as in the past I had used foam liners but would always get frustrated when they moved around. We also decided to go with contact paper as the cabinets just needed an extra level of cleanliness and we wanted to know what we were setting our kitchen supplies and utensils on. I am happy to say that we only had 1 miscut by the end of the day and I would call that a success! (Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of our hard work but it looks great!)

Meanwhile, Scot and John were working on the shower/tub plumbing upstairs and installing the tub by screwing it into the wall. They removed the old copper pipes all the way up to the shower head. One thing John and I discussed was raising the shower head as we are both taller individuals and enjoy a rain shower head so the more space, the merrier. They also installed a mixing valve as the previous fixtures had separate handles for hot and cold. John used his plumbing knowledge from the previous week to install Pex piping and Scot provided colorful commentary throughout their project. They were successful in their endeavor and we all headed back to East Nashville to enjoy some pizza!

Fast-forward to this weekend's project...On Friday night, John and I ventured to Floor & Decor to purchase our shower tile. We needed inspiration and we fell in love with an Aloe Matte subway tile that will be the surround in the shower. On Saturday, when I woke up, I started scrolling on Instagram and one of the DIY-ers that I follow was showing what backsplash tile they used and I thought to myself..."I really like that tile"...low and behold, it was the tile we had bought the night before, it was meant to be!

When we got to the house on Saturday, we focused on the upstairs hall bath once again. There was still some remnants of wallpaper behind where the toilet used to be that needed to be removed so I got started on that. John started on drywall patching behind the vanity. The wallpaper was not the easiest to remove as it was from 1991 but I persevered. From there, we had to make our weekend trip to the hardware store. John cut back the jut-out that was on the fixture-side of the shower to make the overall bathroom feel more open so we needed a 2x4 to fix what we cut out. When we returned, John and I put the new stud in and made sure that it was level.

An important step in installing the cement board was firring out the studs to make sure that the cement board came down over the lip of the tub. We had existing pieces of wood that we were able to use to complete this process.

(The white boards are what we used to fir out the studs)

Once the studs were "firred-out", we started our cement board process in the tub/shower surround. That was not the easiest process...each piece needed to be scored and cut. John was a real champ as he took on this task while I helped with measuring. The wall that enclosed the plumbing fixtures had to be cut with hole saws so the fixtures could come through and we were successful in the practice of measure twice, cut once! After all the cement board was hung and an 8-hour work day, we called it a day!

(You can see the holes that were cut for the plumbing lines to come through)

On Sunday, John and I started our day at Home Depot as we needed drywall supplies...since we had to fir out the studs 1/2 an inch, we had a problem...the cement board was sitting a 1/2-inch proud on top of the existing drywall. Our solution - lay 1/2-inch drywall over the existing drywall and replace the trim around the window. This would allow us to have a smooth transition from tile to wall in the future. This would be what John spent most of his morning on.

(This photo shows the 1/2-inch overhang on top of the drywall)

(The newly flush drywall and cement board)

While John was working on the drywall, I spray-painted the frames of mirrors that were free.99 matte black so that we could use them in our bathrooms.

I also worked on painting the mantle in the living room our trim color. What a difference a touchup of paint makes from an aged, yellowed paint from 1991! Take a look!

(Before on the left and after on the right)

Originally, we were going to paint the mantle Peppercorn (the black accent that is throughout the house) but we decided to match the trim as we had that paint on hand and readily available. I am very happy with how this turned out!

I returned upstairs to help John in the bathroom and he taught me how to mix drywall mud and apply it to the areas that still needed attention. Not too hard of a process but you want to make sure that the consistency of the drywall mud is not too watery. This process was therapeutic and I was actually quite good at it. We also were able to use a very similar process to apply mortar to the cement board in the shower over the screws and the seams. The mortar was less forgiving than the drywall mud as it was a lot thicker and dried faster.

Overall, we were able to wrap up the weekend ready to start the tiling process next weekend...exciting times ahead!