DIY Calacatta Entry Tile | Week 3 | Fall 2020 ORC

It is week 3 of the One Room Challenge and we are halfway through it! We are halfway and just barely ripped up the carpet to a not so fun surprise. 3 weeks in with 3 weeks to go and I am just learning we have to create a whole new plan for the stairs. Definitely not panicking…. More on that later. How about we talk about what we did get done and how beautiful it turned out.

Look back on Week 1 and Week 2.

I am most excited about the fact I finally have my dream Calacatta tile in my home! Ever since I first laid eyes on this tile I knew I needed it in my life. The shiny white with the gray and gold veining are the perfect combo. When I went into Factory Flooring Direct and they had just barely gotten it in that week, I knew it was meant to be.

The only challenging part about choosing the tile was whether to go with matte or gloss. Usually you want a matte finish for a space like an entry. In Utah, we get lots of snow in the winter and I know that creates very wet shoes and floor. Matte is less slippery, buuuut gloss is just so much prettier in my opinion. I was thrilled when Jay from Factory Flooring Direct told me that this gloss tile is slip resistant! Does that make it completely slip proof? No, but it helps! With a rug right in the doorway I think it makes it totally worth it.

First, we had to rip out the old, dingy colored tile as seen below. Why was this tile used in so many homes?? It’s the same tile that was in my last house! There is zero character to it and I’m so glad it’s out of my life.

Once we got the tile up, we found that there was a layer of particle board under the tile and over the subfloor. It was rough and full of nails so we had to rip that up as well. Below you can see the subfloor and just a bit of the particle board left. Now, we are on to the subfloor. To get that more of a flat, level surface we added a layer of thinset to fill in the low spots.

One other main piece we had to get was a schluter. That is an edge piece that you can use for flooring so that it rounds or finishes the edge when you come to a ledge. We got a white metal schluter edge to match the tile for where the stairs go down. I feel like it blends perfectly and its much safer!

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The best part about this whole install is that the 12×24 tiles fit so well we only needed to cut 7 of the tiles to make it all fit. That is pretty dang impressive. It also made it go so much more smoothly. I had fun taking all the tiles out and matches up the veining as best as I could to create a pattern. It was like a puzzle. You can see this process below.

I picked a light gray grout called Frost that we picked up at Lowe’s. I really wanted white because I thought it would look prettier, but knew that was unrealistic for an entry that gets a lot of traffic. I definitely don’t have time to be scrubbing grout all the time. The husband grouted the tile while I was at work. So here it is!

It looks absolutely beautiful and definitely white. Ha ha ha… I swear it was supposed to be gray. I am pretty much obsessed with how it looks and we know that there is a good chance we may have to re-grout in a darker color one day. Until then, I’m going to enjoy this color.

I know there are a lot of you that have been wanting to see more of the exterior! I am excited to show you this little bit so far. We installed these Modern House Numbers and I love the cool, modern feel they give. This is the 6″ Palm Spring font in Matte Black. They came with a template to make installation easy too. Then, we hung these modern exterior lights that we picked up at Home Depot for just $60 each. I love how well these two compliment each other. Now, I just can’t wait to add in the new door and hardware. It’s gonna be so dreamy.

The numbers pop off the wood to give a floating effect. Aren’t they so cool? They are also made of recycled aluminum and UV resistant. Even better!

I started the bannister painting this week as well. I sanded the entire thing. Including every dang spindle. Then, I primed it with Kilz Primer. Kilz is key when priming wood. It prevents any yellowing bleeding through the wood and showing up through the paint. Have you ever seen wood painted and it had discolored spots? Below is a picture of what I’m talking about.

Wouldn’t it be a nightmare to get through painting and have it discolored? Kilz is a lifesaver. Our last house was previously owned by a smoker and all the walls were yellow. It was bad. We did Kilz on the entire home before painting and didn’t have any issues with colors or odors coming through. It’s that good!

Now that it’s primed, I realized how hard it was to paint and not get noticeable drips or brush strokes. It really wanted to pool around every curve or corner of the spindles. Just one coat of primer took an entire day and that was when I didn’t have to make it perfect because it was just primer. Instead of painting the paint with a brush I’m looking at using a sprayer. So, that needs to wait since we have more pressing matters with the stairs.

Oh the stairs, these dang stairs. I was thrilled to rip off the carpet. To get rid of that DIRTY carpet! We have ordered our flooring for the stairs. We ordered it before seeing what was underneath, assuming that it would be a regular wood tread and wood riser. Once I got it all up I saw this… dun dun dun.

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The picture on the right you can see a close up of the stair. At the end of the wood tread there is sheetrock for the wall going down the stairs, sandwiched between another piece of wood. Exposed sheetrock. Insert an exasperated sigh and an eye roll. The original plan was to add a thin piece of wood to the riser part of the stairs and paint it black. Then, add the Coretec Luxury vinyl flooring with a bull nose to the stair tread. Below is my inspiration picture so you can see roughly what I am going for.

With that sheetrock being there we can’t just put the flooring over the top of these existing treads or that will leave the exposed drywall. The bull nose only goes down 1/2 inch and does not cover the full stair. I think we are now looking at replacing the entire wood tread for every single stair. This is going to be a lot more expensive and time consuming than I want. It’s a real pisser. Wish us luck that we get it figured out! And watch my Instagram Stories to see how it’s coming.

The best part about this week, though, was that we celebrated my husband and I’s 12 year wedding anniversary and my son Baron’s 5th birthday. It was a beautiful week of celebration. I am so lucky to have these two boys. Now, let’s hope my husband wants to stay married for year 13 after having to do this stair remodel. JK. I love him soooo much and I am so grateful for all his hard work in these projects. It would not get done without him. Love you Babe!

Thanks for following along! I hope you are enjoying this process and can learn from my mistakes if you decide to try it too. Ha ha ha…

Cheers,

Jenasie

Some items shared in this blog may be gifted or sponsored. All opinions are my own.