Oi, what a weekend. We spent all weekend working on the bathroom and STILL haven't finished!

On Friday night, I came home and finished putting the backer board around the tub in the main bathroom. The jury was still out on whether to get a tub surround, or to tile. In the meantime, Kirsten had rented a wallpaper steamer, and rid the house of most of the ugly, 1989 wallpaper (we still have to remove it from the kitchen and the stairwell).

On Saturday, at the hardware store, we decided to put in a tub surround; Kirsten was a little wary of doing tile because the walls weren't perfectly square, and we wanted it to be done sooner rather than later. The sales guy also nudged us in the direction of the tub surround, saying it would be easier and cheaper over all. So we picked up an 80" tub surround to meet the ceiling and cover the sins of homeowners past.

We also took a trip to End of the Roll to see what we could find in the way of floor covering for the room. Throughout the house, we have "renter's special" lino - cheap stuff that tracks dirt and just looks crappy. We decided that if we could find something inexpensive to replace it, we would. And we did find something that we liked there... and we got it for a steal. It's a "natural stone" pattern in earth-tones. It's mixed browns, coppers, greens and terracottas - it looks much, much better than what was there.

The End of the Roll had just received a big shipment of remainders, but they weren't priced. So, they decided that for Saturday, at least, anything that wasn't marked was 99c per square foot. And the stuff we liked wasn't marked.

When we got to the counter, one of the other salespeople told us that he'd just ordered that pattern in, and it was $3.86 per square foot. Score our team!

We got home and started putting the tub surround in. It was not, in fact, easier to install the tub surround. Our problem is that we have a window in our shower. You'll remember it from the window install pictures a few days ago. This means we had to cut a hole out of the tub surround for the window, so we wouldn't cover the damned thing up. :)

I must have dry-fitted that piece 20 times before it was all good to go. We struggled with the tub surround for the better part of the afternoon and into the night, before we had the back, right-hand side and right-hand corner piece in place.

On Sunday, we woke up early, finished up the tub surround, and pulled the toilet and pedestal sink out of the bathroom to prepare for the new lino.

Then, we put down the lino without any incident, and trimmed it in place to the right size for the bathroom. Before gluing it down, however, we had to run to the hardware store yet again to rent a floor roller, some trim for the window in the shower, and a new vent cover for the bathroom. And that's when the last and final piece of our bathroom renovation appeared.

Kirsten hates the sink in the bathroom - and I can't say I blame her. It's this big, grey, oval, shallow pedestal sink that's pretty much useless and space-consuming. It's a total pain in the ass to keep clean and really imposes itself on the room.

We found a new pedestal sink at the hardware store that we both really liked for $58. (well, we also found one that we really liked for over $400 too). Of course, that also meant getting a new toilet, since having a white sink, a white tub and a grey toilet was kind of stupid.

And, of course, a new faucet for the sink (Home Depot has a really nice house brand that is really inexpensive; we got a very nice faucet for $85 which compared looks-wise to a Moen that was $140 on clearance).

We couldn't install the toilet or sink last night, because we needed to give the lino some time to cure and seal before putting that weight on it. So that's what I get to do tonight when I get back home from work.

We're also going to be putting wainscoting into the bathroom as a finishing touch, which we're going to paint a dark mahogany-brown or a dark green. I'm really looking forward to seeing everything come together, and I'll have some sort of pictures for you all when it's there.