ORC Spring 2024 - Week 100

Dearest Gentle Readers (can we tell I have been catching up on the most recent installment of Bridgerton?),

The title of this week’s update is a little tongue in cheek, but I admit it does now feel like this bathroom update has been going on for eternity. I have finally reached my perpetual-mess-in-limbo threshold. The good news is that frustration has really lit a fire within me to wrap up as quickly as possible.

In my last update, I had just installed the new vanity fixture, trimmed out the built-in shelves, and was getting ready to start the BIG project - plastering over the tile. So let me take you through that enormous task.

Let me start by saying, no one will be hiring me for my plastering skills any time soon. But I am very pleased with the outcome! It has made one of the biggest changes to this space.

As a reminder, this is where we started - chipping, mint tile that I longed to cover. I came across the idea of covering tile with a water-resistant plaster because of Drew of Lone Fox Home. He first introduced me to the concept and the product, Concretta (microcement) by Meoded. When researching the product, the local distributor declared it “not a DIY product.” Perhaps he was right. It was not an easy application, and the process was fraught. I could have done more research on best practices, I think. But in the end, it turned our exactly as I had hoped!

To start, I drove for an hour to procure the needed product. I had spoken with the manufacturer, and they recommended at least 7 gallons for my project. You need to apply two coats of the plaster at least one day apart, so I just got two five gallon buckets of product, thinking that I could mix one for each application. That was a great theory. But it was also my first mistake. Being as it was my first time working with plaster, I discovered that 1) I’m not that quick at it, 2) you’re supposed to add the plaster to water, not the other way around (it makes a HUGE difference. Who knew?), and 3) it would have been better to work in smaller batches, as I had a lot of waste. Fortunately, I had enough excess that the waste didn’t matter. The act of mixing it though - I almost burnt out the motor on my drill! I shall not make that mistake again.

The next mistake was, unbeknownst to me, going to the distributor on the weekend. It turns out the Mr. Not-a-DIY Guy was the owner and was the only one who knew much about the product. Specifically, no one seemed to know how to mix the colorant. Although the Meoded website says you can match any Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore color, it’s easier said than done. I ended up finding a Meoded color that was a close match to the SW color I had picked. I asked the nice men at the counter to give me two containers (one for each 5-gallon bucket) of the colorant. They took it upon themselves to be… “helpful”. Not sure how this was more helpful, but they decided instead of premixing the colorant according to the formula, they would just give me the formula and 3 cups of pigment (red, blue, yellow) and I could custom mix my own. The explanation was long and confusing. I typically feel pretty confident at my measuring and mixing capabilities, but I was unsure about this approach. I should have listened to my gut!!

Upon going home and getting to work with the plaster, I could tell right away that something was off. But I decided it was a “trust the process” moment and forged ahead. It look a lot of trust because just look at what I was spreading on the walls:

Yup. Baby poop brown. I was trusting real hard! I started to have a bit of hope once it started drying, since the color was changing dramatically. Ignore the less than stellar application. I actually wasn’t convinced I was going to move forward with the plaster.

At the end of the day (or rather, the next morning), the color was a LOT better, but still not what I wanted.

It was at this stage that I took a little pause to collect myself and think about what to do. I thought about driving another 2 hours round trip to get the correct color formula. But there was no guarantee that would give me exactly what I wanted either, given how slow I was at applying the plaster and that I would need to work in batches.

**I will just note here that I think the better approach for this, especially as a beginner, would have been to buy the individual gallons with separate corresponding colorant jars and just mix one at a time. It would have save a lot of time, waste, and workarounds.

Anyhooo, I decided to go rogue and proceed with untinted plaster and paint it all at the end. There is nothing that I could find on the interwebs about this approach. I knew it could be a gamble, so I proceeded the best way I knew how. I created some sample boards with plaster and played around with my options.

The two things I wanted to determine was the order in which to apply the paint and sealant and the water resistance of each. After each sample had cured, I then did a water test by putting a few drops of water on the board to see if it soaked in or bubbled up the paint. I ended up going with paint first, then the sealant, figuring it would give a better finish and be easier to clean.

In the meantime while sampling, I proceeded to plaster the rest of the bathroom with untinted microcement. I definitely did a better job on the second coat than I did the first. Better mixing, better texture, better application, better pace, better everything. I still decided to give it all a quick sand with an orbital sander after it had cured the required 72 hours. Oy, the dust!! And lemme tell you, schlepping over to Frank’s every day to shower was not my favorite experience.

But that’s all behind me now, because THIS is what the shower looks like now, post-sanding, painting, and sealing:

BEAUTIFUL, right?!? RIGHT?!?! No matter, I love it. It makes the shower so zen! I am really in love with the change.

And with that, I will bid you adieu for another week before I share the next update on wallpaper and plumbing. Stay tuned, Gentle Readers.