And in the beginning.............

These are pictures of our bathroom before my wife and her son, who is becoming an architect, came up with a Tuscan Retreat bathroom brainstorm. We had a small shower with one of those giant garden tubs no one ever uses. My wife has 2 knee replacements so getting in the monster was out of the question. I was the worker bee who did all the labor. We are going for a look of walking outdoors to shower. The shower will be 4' x 8' with a rain head at each end and a set of 3 body jets on each side. It is an open plan with a garden wall that is 30" tall and covered in stacked stone with a flagstone floor.

There will eventually be totally completed pictures above this post, but we are approaching the end of the project and wanted to give everyone the beginning to almost end look and then we will have final pictures on here when all the interior design work by my garage sale wife is finished.

Preparing for kerdi

Here is some prep to get ready to put up the Kerdi from Schluter. You just put it over sheetrock, so it was just basic construction.

Kerdi goes in

We did the walls and shower floor in kerdi waterproof membrane. We used a kerdi showerpan, as well. The wonderful people at Specialty Tile Products http://www.specialtytile.com/ were very helpful, as was the John Bridge Forum at www.johnbridge.com and the Kerdi Shower Book. Without them this project would have never been more than drawings on a paper.

Pergola, vanities and sinks

We built the pergola with engineed plastic wood from Engineered Plastic System in Elgin, IL http://www.epsplasticlumber.com/ . This product looks like the gray weathered wood look we were trying to achieve and it's made from milk jugs. This is a great product. It cuts like wood, looks like wood, the color goes all the way through, it is maintenance free and will take the watery conditions of a bathroom. I am sure we are the only people using it like this, but I bet we won't be the last if people visit this blog :) We also used this wonderful product to make our countertop. This product was delivered to Georgia from IL in a timely manner by motor freight.The vanities are made from contemporary quartzite panels in honey gold from East West Stone http://www.eastweststone.com/ The stone is mounted on a wood frame with sheet rock. This was a very easy install with the panels. We used copper sink vessels and faucets that look like pumps. You can double click on a photo to enlarge it.

The pictures with some of the decor is just to give you more of an idea of what it will eventually look like.

Stone wall goes in

Here is the stacked stone wall going in. We used a natural ledge slate panel in autumn rose from East West Stone (http://www.eastweststone.com/). Since this is not the typical install, it took a little doing to get it all fitted with all the corners, but was basically a fairly easy project. It is really creating the look we were after.

Flagstone goes onto floor

We used matted flagstone from East West Stone (http://www.eastweststone.com/ ) in Arctic Ice. This was a monumental project for a bathroom. I am sure working outside with this product (as it was intended) would be a breeze, but in tight quarters when you have to lay 1/2" bed of mortar and lay like 7 flagstones connected to each other, it was a bear to install. There was little room to work around and get the stone set. We ended up having to cut them apart and lay them almost like tile. There was a lot of cutting and fitting, too. It turned out great, as you will see below, but it took several beers and many, many weekends to get this part right. Thank goodness the look we were going for was to appear as though you were going outdoors to shower, the imperfections give it character.

Flagstone gets grouted in shower

We used epoxy grout for this project and boy did those big grout lines eat up the product!

Wall in shower completed

Here is the completed wall in the shower. We used Flex-C-Ment (http://www.flex-c-ment.com/ ) over kurdi. This was a fairly easy install. They grossly overestimated the amount I would need to do this venetian plaster look so we are now going to do all the walls with this treatment. We did not spray on the color, as directed, we took sea sponges dipped in the color we decided on and almost totally wrung them out and then wiped the color on the wall. You have to be careful, as it drips very easily and the drip will stay there.