What Ana Does

 One of the DIY merit badges I've been excited to earn was as a tiler. Every show and contractor/construction guy I've talked to has been insistent it's an "EASY" DIY. "You can totally do it," they say. But I never had the opportunity to give it a go. A nice easy low-risk project.  Until the powder room!  I gathered up my courage, watched all the how-to videos, picked up all the supplies needed (about $250 with the tile) and took a deep breath ... and just GOT WENT FOR IT.  Everything is figuroutable, right!?  It was easy, though there were definitely lessons learned. And quick solutions I had to come up with. But I would very confidently tile another small wall.  First, here's a photo of the IN REAL LIFE mess of a room mid-project. It's important to be OK with creating a mess. Tiling is messy.  Here's the room after the tile is up (took about four hours) and the clean up. Hauling clean water in and out of the room was the worst part. I'l...

The downstairs powder room is really coming together much faster than we thought. After an initial text with our contractor, once we had all our materials picked out and our vanity delivered, he was able to fit us in THE SAME WEEK due to a two-day hole in the schedule.  So BAM! In two days they removed the old vanity and floor tile and had to new floor down and vanity nearly installed. Ugh, there was a minor plumbing issue that got resolved on day 3, so on day 4 they officially installed the vanity and were done.  Here's where we started, to where we finished off with the contractors ...    Also! I was able to sell the old vanity on Facebook Marketplace for $350!! That was a solid piece of granite, people! And got it out of our garage in less than 24 hours. A new record!  Next up ... TILE!