Well, it seems nothing is easy the first time you build a house. There are tons of little things that are very simple and intuitive while construction a home…but as a first time ‘contractor’ (i use that term loosely), most of these intuitive thoughts are afterthoughts. For example;

When we were framing in the guest bathroom with the help of brian, I never thought about adding an extra 2×8 in the wall behind where the sink was going to go in case we decided to install a pedestal sink. This extra support is needed for both supporting the weight of the sink as well as providing a stud that is easy to find so installing the sink doesn’t require multiple holes in the Travertine while searching for the studs. Well, now we have the tile completed (including grout and sealer), the toilet installed, the shower is done and now it’s time to move on to the pedestal sink that we bought…but we can’t install it because we don’t know where the studs are and I am not willing to drill multiple holes in the travertine to find it. It’s a pain because Summer and I don’t really want a pedestal sink in there but we are limited by space so we figured we will put this one in there for a year or so until we find exactly what we like…but now that option is out the door. We are probably going to have a custom vanity built to fit the small space and get one of those new sinks that will sit on top of the vanity. Now, the only problem is tracking down a quality product in Puerto Rico.



Old Kohler Sink that we are returning to Home Depot


Not our new sink, but a sink that rests on top of the vanity like we want

The other thing I would do differently in the bathroom is a pretty major headache, but would have save tons of time and money. I would have pulled out the level and made sure all of the walls were level so when we laid tile it would come out perfectly straight without a bunch of bumps and slopes. It causes the tiles to lift up a bit and once all is said and done, the bathroom doesn’t have the same high quality look it would have had if all the tiles were lined up. Don’t get me wrong though, we didn’t put in tile on uneven walls. We filled in the walls with grout/cement to make them all perfectly level and then installed the tiles…so it does have a high quality look to it….but that was expensive.

Here are two teaser pictures of the guest bathroom as it stands right now just to give you an idea of how the tile, the one piece kohler toilet and the cast iron kohler tub look.


Travertine tile with Cast Iron Kohler Tub


Travertine with One Piece Kohler Toilet

Popularity: 8% [?]