Kitchen Remodel and DIY Large-Format Porcelain Sheet Tile Countertops

After years of small tweaks and updates, our last major house project -- the Kitchen -- finally got a little love.  

For a myriad of reasons, this is something we were determined to handle ourselves.  Notably, we wanted to DIY everything, including the countertops, and had a very unconventional idea for how we could pull it off.

Over the years, we'd done some painting, upgraded some appliances, and updates some lights, but held off on doing more until other projects were done with other tasks.

The biggest pain were the existing tile countertops and backsplash, which were laid on a 1-inch bed of concrete and chicken wire that had to be painstakingly broken up and carried away.

Other than the look, however, we found the tile to be durable and convenient, qualities we wanted to keep in our new counters.

The old cabinets weren't the best quality, howeveer, and had a failing finish that required their replacement.

The layout would largely stay the same, but cabinets would be upgraded to higher quality plywood construction, faceless semi-custom ones with soft closing drawers and better hardware.

For countertops, we weren't happy with typical DIY options like laminate, or butcher block, or even concrete(!).  Instead, we chose to go with large format (2ft x 4ft) porcelain tile sheets.  This wasn't an option I found a lot of info about online, but as tile, it seemed like it should be relatively DIY friendly if kept to a size I thought I could reasonably handle myself.

While we would still have grout lines, we could mostly place them strategically between work areas and use black epoxy grout, making them maintenance free.

For edging, I didn't think I could reasonably miter the tiles myself, and this would make them prone to chipping.

Instead, we wanted metal edging.  Schluter countertop products don't come in black, so we used 1.5" black anodized aluminum angle iron, fastened flush from below in a routed channel.

Unlike the previous countertops, the supporting plywood would all be fastened from below, making them easy to remove without damaging the cabinets, keeping future upgrade possibilities open should our tastes change or if our countertop experiment didn't work out.

On top of the plywood, we laid 1/4" hardibacker, coated with redgard.

To cut the tile, I used a Ryobi portable wet tile saw ($99) mounted onto a Kreg Accu-cut rail saw guide ($60).  Together, they did a fantastic job making clean, straight cuts on a budget.

Cutting out the sink openings was a task I was dreading, but it ended up being fairly simple to do with simple woodworking tools.  After drilling out corner holes with a diamond hole saw and initial plunge cuts with the wet saw, I was able to clean up the opening with a variable speed router ($99) and 1/2" diamond grinding bit.

Pro-tip: run router from below to avoid marring surface.

Once placed, the island started to come together, consisting of four total tile pieces.

A little tile colorant helped darken the edges around the sink opening.

After the island, it was largely a case of rinse and repeat with the rest of the kitchen.

Though of course in other parts there was a backsplash to tear out and replace.

We chose small mosiac tiles with stainless steel pieces.  Word of warning: it took half a day to peel off all the plastic off the metal tiles.

And another, larger sink.  This time, I was able to surround the opening with a single tile.

For a built-in hidden freezer, the cabinetmaker didn't sell custom-made doors, so I was able to use a pocket jig and brackets to make a large door from four smaller ones.

Look for it in the final photos.

The final task was the flooring, which involved breaking up and removing the old tile...

 laying down its replacement (faux wood plank tile),

And  grouting with epoxy grout.  As we learned from our previous remodels, it's worth taping off every grout line befordhand since the grout would get stuck in the tiny wood grain text of this particular tile.  

Taping alone took seven hours to do, but made grouting and cleanup a relative breeze. 

And the final product...

After adding some LED lighting...

and some also some automatic blinds

and crown moulding on the cabinets and ceiling....

and for fun the LED lighting is fully programmable too

A Big Window and the Heartbreak of Low-E Coatings

Home ownership is full of little gotchas that they don't tell your about, but should.  Here's an unpopular opinion: avoid windows with low-e coatings.

Window manufacturers love low-e coatings.  Why? In part, because they give them an extra selling point, some minor energy savings that fill out another bullet point in their sales brochure.  Also, it means they can sell you that same window again within a decade.

Why?  You see, the seals in windows are only airtight for seven years or so.  After that, they can start to leak, and you might ordinarily get a little condensation inside from time-to-time depending on its location, but not much more serious than that.

Unless, of course, you have a low-e coating.  Then, any moisture that gets inside can oxidize the coating, leaving the window permanently damaged, requiring immediate repair or replacement.  And then, good luck finding the former as everyone we contacted only wanted to do the latter.

For a long time, we didn't know what to do, and endured living in a house with a half-dozen failing vinyl windows.  Eventually, however we figured out a bit about how our windows are constructed.  Underneath some removable vinyl trim trim strips, a double-paned sealed-glass unit (two sheets of glass around a border spacer piece also known as an SGu) are simply adhered to the window with special double-sided foam tape (glazing tape).  The whole window didn't need to be replaced, just the SGU.

Fortunately, we found a company online (onedayglass.com) that sells sealed glass units in custom sizes and options and ships nationwide.  We ordered replacements, specifically avoiding any internal coatings.

Using them, it was fairly simple to cut away the old foam tape with a special glazing knife tool, clean the surface, then apply new tape and pull the new window glass in place... at least for most of the windows.

The exception and head-scratcher was this one large picture window at the top of a two-story room.  

How could we remove the old glass and install its replacement when each unit weighed almost 300 pounds?  We thought about renting a scissors lift, but the planting area outside wouldn't have made a stable base for it.

The answer kind of started as a half-hearted joke... "Can't you make some sort of pulley thing to lift it up?"  

The more we thought about it, the more we thought it might be possible.  I rigged up a carrier from the wood of the box the window units came in, and fastened it to two compound pulleys anchored in the eaves.  Fortunately, at some point in the past, either the roofers or solar installers had added a climbing anchor on the roof, so it was possible to rig things up in relative safety.

Then, it was just a matter of lifting the hoist in place, lifting the old glass unit into the carrier (with another pulley anchored in the window opening)....

Then pulling up the replacement glass and pulling it into place with new glazing tape.

It's so nice to have clear windows again.

Master Bath Remodel

The Master Bath Remodel

For years, our master bath suffered from dated design and builder-grade materials.  The built-in tub was functional but uncomfortable. The vanity endured a failing finish, and the 6-ft tall shower enclosure looked strangely out of place below 9-ft ceilings.

The school bus yellow paint I had chosen a decade earlier has not aged well, and we needed to change... well, everything.

Shortly after moving in, I had painted the vanity and built a false-wall to add a pocket door to partition the bathroom from the bedroom, but that was the only upgrade for many years.

After completing the renovation of the two other indoor bathrooms, we finally decided to tackle the master bath.

First to come out was the tub, pulling out the unit itself and breaking down its cultured marble enclosure and supporting structure.

It came out without much difficulty, but the placement of the vent piping meant that we'd need to build a short false wall to house both it and the new plumbing for the tub.  It would provide an extra shelf for bath supplies too, so it would be a win-win.

The original builders had conveniently left a hole in the floor exposing the supply lines, so it only needed to be expanded a bit to give a little extra working room for rerouting the pipes and placing the drain for a new freestanding tub.

To work on the piping, I had been watching the price of knockoff Pro-Press tools steadily come down for awhile, and now was an excuse to get one.  I got one for 120 bucks, a fraction of the price for the real deal.  

Unlike some of the others, the one I got is narrow enough to crimp the sides of a T fitting, so I highly recommend it.  I could now make quick copper connections without the hassle or risk of sweating them in close quarters or resorting to insecure shark-bite slip-on fittings.

Laying the new lines to the new in-wall faucet was easy with the new crimper, routing them through a new wall built from repurposed scraps from the old tub surround.

Also repurposed was drywall cut from the old shower. the color of which was not important since the plan was to cover it later with wainscoting.

A slip-fit drain unit was added for the new freestanding tub, fastened beneath Hardipanel that matched the underlayment of the existing tile floor.

For the shower, the old shower panels were removed, revealing the bare studs, allowing the supply lines to be easily moved for a new tower shower unit.

We chose a premade TileRedi shower pan to simplify the process and guarantee a watertight install.

While the generic instructions suggest a simple mud bed mix, multiple online references suggest using Versabond modified thinset instead to provide a better bond to the floor underneath.

I hung and taped a vapor barrier on the walls, and attached aluminum z-flashing to direct any water droplets it may catch down into the pan.

We decided to put in a lot of shower niches, also from Tile Redi.  Two large ones for shampoos, conditioners and other products, two for soap, and one as a shaving foothold.

Learning from a previous shower, I tiled the interiors of each niche before installation with each niche lying flat.  This made it much easier to place the mosaic tiles just right without having to fight gravity.

Cement backer board was then mounted, taped, and sealed between each board and around each niche.

For extra waterproofing, I applied three coats of Redgard, readying the surface for tile.

We used 12x24 tiles applied in a vertical pattern, working from the center outwards of each wall to maintain a symmetric layout.

Tiling the shower pan was a bit tricky, as the pan is pre-sloped, but really best designed for small tiles.

Again also learning from experience, I supported larger titles by doing a full dry layout, stacking self-adhesive plastic spacers at the corner of every tile, building out supports from the center out so that every tile would have a predetermined slope towards the drain when it came time to adhere them down.  These "support towers" worked really well and took the guesswork out of getting just the right slope in the final product.

For the flooring, I broke out all the old tile with a hammer and chipped the pieces out, replacing them with faux-wood tile planks.

These planks have a fine wood grain texture on them that we previously found difficult to grout because the stuff would get trapped in all the grooves.  As we were using epoxy grout throughout the bathroom -- raising the stakes even higher -- we took the time to mask off every seam with tape before grouting to keep everything clean.

For finishing touches before the tub and shower walls were installed, we installed wainscoting, baseboards, chair rail, window sill and shelving -- all in PVC -- caulking and painting it all afterwards.

We ordered a semi-frameless glass shower enclosure from framelessshowerdoors.com, customized to our exact dimensions.  The glass panes were terrifyingly heavy to carry upstairs and install, but the instructions were clear and they were straightforward to attach once it was in place.

With the slip-on drain unit,  the tub easily dropped down right into place. 

The powder room wasn't left out.  In addition to the new flooring and baseboards, it got a new Toto toilet.

And new vanities, lights, mirrors, and medicine cabinets (with internal hidden outlets) completed the remodel.  Total cost: about $12k in materials and numerous long weekends.