One Room Challenge Week 2: Renovating Better Together

First time here? Check-out, One Room Challenge Week 1: Retro-tropical Guest Bathroom Preview

Before you get married, everyone tells you that married life is hard. It’s difficult to understand what they actually mean until you start actually collecting those experiences. My husband and I dated for almost 10 years before we got married, how much harder could it be? We had been building a strong foundation to handle the big hard stuff coming our way.

But I have a sneaking suspicion after the first few years of marriage, it’s the weight of the little stuff, constantly morphing versions of the same needling fights - that makes up a lot of the “hard” that is meant in that warning tone of loved ones.

During the first One Room Challenge, renovation projects were an unexpected minefield of examples in our contrasting working and communication styles. At that time, we thought working on separate rooms was the best way forward.

But, just like our house when we bought it, full of opportunities for home improvement, with a little work I am hopeful marriage will continuously take on a slightly more intentional and improved shape.

Keys to renovating better together

Two-years post our first One Room Challenge, we found ourselves in a slightly different dynamic smashing tile this time around. What did we do differently in this first week?

Setting expectations upfront
Learning new skills together
Providing critical feedback with compassion
Paying attention to each other’s capacity and burn-out
Knowing when to tap out for the day

Week 2 Progress update

The first week we focused on demo and prepping for tile. To remove the existing tile:

Keeping the existing tub, protect it with a tarp and taping all the edges of the tub with painters tape before removing tile
Cut the caulk around all the edges of the tile with a utility knife
Using a crowbar and a mallet, we started on one edge of the shower and knocked out tile rows vertically
Now that we are to the panel with the fixtures, we are going to cap the fixtures, remove the last of the tile and replace our backer board with new hardie board and prime for shower tiling

Hindsight Tip from a first-timer: do the required capping/plumbing prep before you demo any shower tile, so you don’t have to do an additional round of clean-up/re-taping when you eventually have to drain the pipes before this step.

It was also my goal to lock-in the remaining project materials this week. After receiving my second broken sink from Morocco (no, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time) and a mysteriously undelivered lighting fixture, I have given up on having all my materials accounted for.