The SO and I just stumbled on 'our' first home 8 months in advance of our wedding. It was a foreclosure and is 'livable' but it's honestly gross and needs lots of work.

We got it for a great price and even with our <$80k renovation budget we will still be under what the house is worth by at least $40-50k.

The SO wants to do 'vintage farmhouse' since her favorite show is 'Fixer Upper' on HGTV. Yay me

I will be doing almost all of the work myself unless noted but I will be posting photos along the way. If anyone wants to provide input - go for it

There are a few issues which need to be addressed immediately and there will be an order of operations to get things done for 'move-in'. We obviously need paint and floors to be able to at least drop our moving boxes into the rooms around the house, but in order to do paint and floors there is lots of demo and leak fixing to be done.

The inspection came back great and nothing major needs to be done. The bulk of the leaks are coming from soffit and fascia rot on the exterior as well as a few holes in the stucco on the outside.

I am taking 2.5 weeks off of work to complete much of the 'me' work in between the few contractors and hope to have this all done in 6 weeks max - some of it in the later phases may be worked on after move in so maybe 8-9 weeks for the outliers.

Phase I:
Install new deadbolts and door handles throughout
Locksmith key whole house (locksmith)
Patch stucco exterior (contractor)
Soffit and fascia work roof (contractor)
Demo interior walls
Demo all tile/marble flooring
Demo cabinets
Demo a bunch of other crap
Paint garage floor with epoxy coating

Phase II:
Relocate electrical outlets for TV's to mid-wall (contractor)
Install recessed can lighting in master/kitchen (contractor)
Drywall work
Pressure cleaning exterior/pool screens/roof tiles
Painting interior/exterior (painter)

Phase III:
Wood (laminate) flooring
Baseboard install
Crown molding install
Fix chipped/broken/rotted interior door frames
Kitchen cabinets/quartz install
Appliance installs
1/2" Brick veneer flooring in kitchen and outside patio install (herringbone pattern )
Bathroom tile install

Phase IIII:
Landscaping
Pool system work
Build outdoor kitchen

...and probably more stuff I forgot.

Onto initial pics.

This is the current kitchen:



Obviously this is all being razed to the floor and a new larger square island installed with all new cabinets and the works.

The walls on the left behind the weird chandelier will be removed since they are not load-bearing to open it up. Also the wall next to the office nook thing parallel to the camera will be removed.



This marble fireplace surround is being demo'd and the cabinets as well. New white cabinets installed and brick will be going half way up the fireplace and the remaining space up to the ceiling will be shiplap and a mantle in between.



The home came with nice exposed beams. Not sure if they're fake or not.



This is what all of the bathroom look like. This is the main guest bath. It will all be demo'd.



This is the kitchen small wall being removed.



The walls on the left of the opening here are the ones from the kitchen photo coming out as well.



Marble flooring being removed and more gross carpet to be removed.



Bar area! Not sure what to do here yet but maybe new cabinets with granite or matching quartz counter tops and new shelving with a built in wine cooler underneath?



Master bath - this divider wall will be cut in half and that built-in jacuzzi tub will be demo'd out and replaced with a clawfoot free-standing tub.



I haven't even seen the pool yet but the water is blue. I hate the blue surround tile but that comes after we move in maybe this summer to re-tile it.

This green carpeting is coming out and the patio will be pressure cleaned for sure.

In the top of this photo you can also see some soffit 'patching' the maintenance company did to keep critters out of the attic because there's huge holes in the soffit from rot.



More gross green carpet to demo and you can also see some drywall hanging down from the roof here from the water damage.

Best of Luck!   One suggestion, keying your own locks is easy with the kits you can get at Change-a-lock.  I just did mine for the second time.  Only about $15.00 to re-key six (6) locks

Will look into this. Thanks.

Tagged for the fun.

6 weeks?

Sorry, not being an ass, but I bought a house in May 2015 that was in better shape than yours and said I'd have it all done in 2 or 3 months. I'm not even close to that now...

I know We'll see how much sleep and whiskey I need to make this happen.

The current home maintenance company decided to not pay the previous HOA dues for the last year and the deal cannot be closed until it's paid

Bunch of clowns at this company in another state need to cut a check and we have 72 hour wait period before we can 'officially' sign on the house even though the lock box is off and we have the keys in our hands. FFS.

Anyway I did some work from the old home that I could.

I assembled the 6U wall mount cage I got for the new home network setup.

It has a patch panel an a netgear 16 port gigabit/POE managed switch. This will allow me to run my IP cameras that I am upgrading to from my old wifi camera system.

I will be putting the cameras and my NAS inside a DMZ on the network so there's no funny business from snoopers outside



Also went and picked up 150sf of tile for the guest and half baths and these boxes are HEAVY. We got this 'wood look' tile in rectangle shape for 1.09 per SF so it was a great deal.

Cool project! Looks like you have a lot of work in your future but seems like a good shell to start improvements from!

Cool. Looking forward to updates.

Good luck!

I have 2 suggestions, based on our previous experiences.



1. If you are going to spend the money on a locksmith, get keyed deadbolts that have matching keyed padlocks. We bought 5 padlocks that match our housekey, and have already used them all. It's great not having to search for "which key opens the shed?" and "which key opens the back gate?"



2. If the wetbar is close to the kitchen, do it up with matching cabinets and counters. It makes a nice visual transition from one room to the next. In our current house, the previous homeowners redid the kitchen counters but left the wetbar (less than 20 feet away!) with its beautiful 1970s avocado-green laminate.

Yes the bar top will match the kitchen - worst case scenario the kitchen will be quartz and all other counter tops throughout the home will be matching granite.

And will search around the house for other locks to key...as of now the doors have the locks but not the gates.

like others have said, the locksmith is not needed. get these from Kwikset and do it yourself. it is extremely easy.

Link - http://www.handlesets.com/kwikset-sale/c8930

Good luck. I am still working on the one I bought in August.

I'm very interested in seeing how this goes for you. My wife and I want to do the same for our next home.

I feel like an idiot for asking this, but is the tile in front of the fireplace floating?

OP, are you getting permits for the work to be done?  Have cabinets been ordered yet?  Is $80K your budget or do you have monies in reserve?  Does the house have a basement?  If not and you are relocating electrical and plumbing for the kitchen island, that is almost a week between trades and inspections.  Depending on where you are getting cabinets from, they are usually 4-6 weeks + alone.  Countertops are a week after templating, How much of the main living area are you going to tile?  If most of it, that can be a good three days of 2 men 8-9 hours a day.  I haven't even begun to get into all the other details and issues that can arise.

I am a GC and the HGTV shows don't even begin to get into the details.  PM me if you have any questions and I can share HGTV stories with you that you'd probably be .

No we are not getting any permits as we don't need any for the work we are doing.

I can image your GC stories

Let me clarify ; the work that I will be doing I'm planning to finish in that timeframe. The work for the kitchen will likely extend past that with ordering times and etc.

I will only be tiling about 500-600 sq ft total - the rest will be laminate done by a contractor for $1.25 per sf over the cost of materials.



Yes - in front of the fireplace is some sort of floating mantle That's getting knocked out and we're going to do a brick area in front of it directly on the floor.

In case anyone was wondering, HUD didn't pay the HOA dues for an entire 16 months while maintaining the property so we had to wait an additional 3 weeks to close while they cut the check and sent it by snail mail.

Should be swinging hammers by next Friday.

Good luck.  Looking forward to following the project.

first level the floor and then use Ditra/DitraXL under those long tiles.

http://www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=11

ar-jedi

I saw this at Lowe's - what's the reason for using it? Do I need to use it even if I'm putting the tile straight on the foundation?

Do you also recommend using the redgard sealant over the hardy board in the shower before I put the shower tile in? As of now I'm doing it in the corners with fiber tape.

These remodel posts always interest me.
I have a 1960s built lake cottage that had an add on in the 80s, and it is in bad need of a remodel.
A question I always have is "Who can I get to look at my home and tell me if it is even worth the effort?"
Don't know if I will sell or stay, so I would hate to sink $50k into a remodel and only be able to sell the place for $100k, when I could probably get $70K as it sits.

Ditra will prevent cracks in the tile.  It allows minor movement of the substrate without the tile cracking.  Great stuff.


I like redgard and the similar products out there.  I am in the process of building a house and will be tiling the shower soon.  I used a paint on type of membrane on the concrete backer board.  My last house had redgard over moisture resistant drywall.  Not the ideal install but I never had a problem with it.  Kept the backer drywall dry the entire time I owned the house (about 7 years)

Do it yourself.  Start looking at what houses are selling for in your area.  Find similar houses and that'll give you a good idea what your place might be worth.

YES.

first, i think you mean "slab" not "foundation", but i know where you are going.

the concrete slab and your tiles have different mechanical characteristics, and the result of this is that you have to do *something* to decouple the tile from the concrete underlay.  furthermore, it is likely that over time, the large slab will crack.  in some cases cracking will be unavoidable.  having a decoupling membrane helps prevent cracks in the concrete from propagating into the tiled surface.   i would not lay tile on a fresh or old concrete surface without an intervening decoupling layer - this is the exact reason that products like DITRA exist.  the slab does not even have to crack to cause problems with the tiles; the difference in thermal expansion properties of the concrete slab and tile will be enough to cause significant mechanical stresses, and ultimately cracked grout lines and/or cracked tiles.  

the bigger your tiled area, and the larger the tiles, the more you need a decoupling membrane.  

http://www.schluter.com/schluter-us/en_US/floors

not using a decoupling media just makes a costly effort (procuring and setting tiles) a waste, because fixing the problem(s) usually results in a complete do-over.



YES. ...  you must waterproof the shower walls.  this is written into building codes nowadays, for example you can no longer simply use "moisture resistant" gypsum board (sheetrock) behind tile exposed to direct water spray.

it is true that water does not go through the tile. but the tile grout, water will go through. this is guaranteed.

folks assume a tiled surface (vertical or horizontal, doesn't matter) is impervious to water. It is not, because the grout lines "leak". for this reason, when constructing (for example) a shower wall, you either need to use an impervious backer (e.g. Kerdi, DensShield, etc) or use a CBU backer with a waterproofing liquid (e.g. Redguard or Hydroban over Durock or Hardiboard).

water (more specifically, moisture) that gets behind the tile has three ways out: evaporation back through the grout, collecting and draining down into the pan (fiberglass base) or pan liner (mud base), and finally *but not desirable* wicking into the surrounding framing. the last leads to mold and structural degradation.

showers without an impervious backer or applied waterproofing basically rely on the CBU simply drying out into the wall cavity. while the CBU itself is not prone to mold, it does hold a lot of water and will eventually become saturated. older methods of shower construction have the CBU attached to the framing over a vapor barrier (poly sheet or 15# felt). while a "barrier", it is still perforated in many places by attachment screws or nails, and the now-saturated CBU simply "leaks" into the supporting framing.

for the above reason, modern shower construction is such that you first need to accept that the grout lines will leak, and thus the conclusion is to ensure that the moisture goes no farther "in" than the thinset under the tile. the only way to accomplish this is to use an impervious to water surface directly under the tiles -- Kerdi, DensShield, Redguard, HydroBan, etc. -- and make sure that at the bottom of everything there is a way to capture water from behind the wall tiles and direct it to the drain (again, using a fiberglass one pice pan, or using Shluter's top membrane shower system, or using a traditional mud base sloped rubber membrane which comes up the walls at least 4-6" above the curb).

moreover, hardiboard -- like most CBU's -- sucks water from the applied thinset.  this decreases bond strength.  so, by applying HydroBan or Redguard over the backing, you prevent the backer from rapidly pulling moisture out of the drying thinset, and in turn that increases adhesion between the tile and the wall surface.

again, you need to consider what is at stake -- waterproofing membrane (Kerdi, etc) and liquid (HydroBan or Redguard, etc) may seem expensive, but a leaking or moldy shower requires a complete do-over with almost no possibility of saved tiles and 150% more labor (demolition and resetting of new tile.)

nowhere does the saying, "an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure" apply more than in tilework.

ar-jedi

first video below is a large tile-on-concrete project.  

btw this guy Sal is practically the *only* guy on youtube you should pay attention to regarding setting tile.  
there are tons of hack tilesetters making youtube videos, but this guy knows exactly what he is doing.

the second video shows a closeup of the DITRA...

ar-jedi

The install and specs of ditra are pretty much what I suspected - that's good to know I will definately spend the extra money and put it down first - as well as redgard the enture durock layer under my shower tiles.

PLEASE go to www.johnbridge.com before you lay any tile in your shower. They are a good bunch and can save you some heartache.

FINALLY! Official paperwork was signed a few days ago so the demo started.

Step 1: 2500 sq ft of carpet and foam backing



Found some rot from an outdoor facing window. It looks like a sprinkler was hitting the window for YEARS without being fixed and broke down the seal somewhere.

I tore out the drywall for now and will rebuild the backing/insulation/drywall and put new romex in as well as a new outlet box and drywall.

I have a window contractor coming to replace and repair about a half dozen windows before I do that, though.



Here's the master bath jacuzzi tub thing after some demo...it will be thrown in the dumpster soon.



My fiance did some demo too....lol



Demoed the kitchen with a buddy as well, took all the old crap out in preperation for the kitchen contractor to put everything in new













Here you can see the new opening from walls I demo'd and some new framing I put up with the old wood I pulled out. I re-used allot of 2x4's and re-built a few wall sections that needed to stay for wall switched and power outlets as well as the double 36" pantries that are going into the kitchen.



The new laminate floors were delivered as well





Fiance decided this was a good time to go buy fixtures and fans. Since the house was built in the late 80's and had only one owner - there is virtually NO ceiling lighting in the house. New fans with built in lighting need to be installed as well as hanging hallway lights and sconces.

Here you can also see some bitch-ass marble tile I need to take up with a demo hammer tommorow



The 20 yarder was delivered on Friday and we filled it in 24 hours over the top. Gonna have to pay another $150 to swap it out as well as $150 in overage fees for piling the crap too high



Coated the garage floor in grey epoxy coating before moving in lots of furniture and etc from the old townhouse. Our townhouse garage is FULL of shit from years of living in it and expanding things we own so I had to do the garage floor before moving anything in and building shelves, etc.

In this photo you can also see concrete rot from the stucco/window in the photo leaking over a period of years without being fixed....that's getting fixed as well.



More demo in the patio. Had about 800 sq ft of this shitty green outdoor carpet to take up:





FREE WOOD! Yay. The pool was framed in by the foreclosure maintenance company so no one drowned while it was vacant. I will be dissassembling this and using the wood for shelving in the garage as well as some misc projects.



Leaking hot/cold washing machine outlets....COPPER PIPE!!!! Have to put on new crimp connectors and some braided SS line for the new hot/cold box.



And my lab is an idiot

You have tons of work.......I love it !

Enjoy and keep the pictures coming.  It is fun to watch.

I'll be putting in some offers in the next few months on a foreclosure fixer upper......

So,  by defaut,  you are now  leader of my motivational team.

Monday was a total bust as our 20 yd dumpster was full and the house is full of debris right now. The dumpster company also dropped the ball today and removed the old one - but did not deliver the new empty 30 yard dumpster

Hopefully tommorow.

Paint color testing:



I think we're going to go with the taupe for accents and the light white-ish color for the whole outer stucco area.

Current kitchen area dump



The good thing is that I was able to rent a 25lb demo hammer this morning with a 6" scraper bit and I went to town on the tile.

Busting up tile:



More debris outside the office bath:



Office bath tile-free!



Also had the roofing contractors come today to work on the soffit/fascia outside of the home....

Here's a look at the inside of the soffits





More tile demo:







Got bored and installed a fan on Monday



Pulled a sink out too quickly and broke my 1.5" PVC line But also added new compression connectors to the copper line



Brick delivered! These are 1/2" brick veneer pavers that will be going inside the kitchen area and then white-washed



Also went back to my rotten window leak area and squared off the drywall as well as cleaned out the rotted wood.

Will purchase some new .5x2" striping later this week and tack it to the wall in preparation with new drywall after the windows/stucco leaks are fixed on the outside

Damn man, you've been Busy!!!!

Looking good.

I have never seen that done to a pool. I bought mine out of foreclosure, and the pool was wide open and nasty.

Op, I had some issues with my sophit on my old house and it was because the previous gutter guy did a piss poor job slopping the gutters and didn't put enough down spouts in.  It looks like you may have the same problem.

The problem with this roof we found out is that the plywood underneath the felt underpayment stops 1/2" before the fascia starts.

Don't know what retard made this roof but we're getting metal flashing sealed into the edges underneath the first row of tiles to fix the soffit rot issues.

Glad to help

Had some ups and downs this weekend.

During some demo in the master bathroom a copper line and sanitary trap were broken in the cinder block wall. What a pain in the ass this was to fix.

Here's  a pic of almost two whole cinder blocks chipped away making a hole through the entire house (I can see outside from the master bath now, lol) and my 1/2" copper line fix.

I have to go by the hardware store tommorow and get some replacement sanitary trap fittings to get that back up and running then I will patch the wall back with concrete mix and pieces of cinder block.



Toilet shopping Currently there's no working toilets in the whole house - the women are pissed



Stone shopping the other day...I believe we are going with white-ish colored quartz countertops through out the home.



I chipped up the old thinset that was underneath the carpet in this entire living area with a 6" blade and 25lb demo hammer...my body hurts



...also finished removing thinset from the kitchen area.

before:



during:



after (below in drywall photo)

DRYWALL DAY! Put up some drywall over the 2x4 walls I had framed in and added plastic corners to them. I will mud these sometime this week.





Here's a photo showing half of the pool area pressure cleaned. What a difference it makes. The stamped concrete was BLACK from dirt and mildew when we bougtht it - you can see the difference in the photo



today was tile day after the copper lines above were fixed.

Put down some ditra with LFT mortar for my 9x20 tiles. This is a small half bathroom that we will be setting up a working toilet in while we finished up the rest of the projects so the women can do their thing







Tommorow I will grout that and then installed the new toilet on top of it.

Probably finish the rest of my drywall work and also put in the new hot/cold water box in the laundry room.

Once that's done I have like 500 sq ft of 1/2" brick pavers to thinset-in around the house and then it's mostly contractor time! We will be moving into the house once the 2200 sq ft of laminate is installed and the walls are painted, then I will complete lots of small projects when we are moved in so there's still lots to do.

Looking good...

just a heads up -- give that setup at least a few days to fully dry before walking on it and grouting.,.

you are using Mapei LFT?  that is a polymer (latex/acrylic) modified thinset, and modified thinsets generally reach full "cure" by drying out, just like latex or acrylic paint does; this is in contrast to unmodified thinsets which cure only by the chemical reaction of the portland cement.

i advise you of this because the moisture currently in the LFT thinset -- when trapped between the non-permeable Ditra and the (mostly non-permeable) tiles -- has no where to go right now.  it can't dry out and cure as quickly as you'd think because it is held between two materials which by definition do not accept moisture.

see
http://www.schluter.com/schluter-us/en_US/faq/ditra-ditraxl-tile-thin-set-mortar-type
and
also see the "limitations" section of
http://www.mapei.com/public/US/products/Ultraflex_LFT_EN_lr.pdf

additional reading:
http://floorelf.com/modified-thinset-a-brief-history
http://floorelf.com/unmodified-thinsets-a-users-guide

summary: ANY time you have two non-permeable surfaces mated, use an unmodified thinset (sometimes callled "dry set" mortar).  (Mapei KeraBond, Laticrete 272/317, Bostik DITRA-set, TEC Full Set Plus, etc)

ar-jedi

I did not use Mapei LFT - I used Mapei uncoupling membrane mortar without polymer added. The tiles sat for 18 hours before I grouted them.

They're solid - I'm not worried. I will wait a full 24 hours in the next room.

ok, so ignore EVERYTHING i wrote above --> you got it spot on with the right mortar type for setting tile atop DITRA and you're good to go.  

nice work btw, it's coming along nicely.

ar-jedi

Well this past few days I learned I suck at drywall mudding Gonna take lots of sanding to make it look right even before spray texturing - and I will probably pay someone a few hundred bucks for the day to go over all my mistakes and make it look presentable.

My beautiful work:



This was the rotted area underneath a window that was being hit by a landscaping sprinkler for years. Bought a .22 fastening tool and put up new wood drywall supports and put in a new electric side-mount box as well as a new decor outlet to replace the old rusted stuff.

Also using 1/2" foam insulation instead of fiberglass insulation.



Drywall'd up:



Shower demo in the office bath with the SO cleaning it up



Put up durock in that office bath before tiling it. This will be our only functioning shower before I tackle the master shower which youll see below.

I will be putting mortar/fiberglass tape along the durock seems and then using redgard over them to seal it....maybe redgard the entire walls?



My question is this for anyone reading: this shower was the original from the home built in 1988 and it has no shower liner underneath the cement shower pan on the floor.

If I just use redgard or shluter kerdi tape to seal the durock to the surrounding shower area and graded concrete pan below should I be OK? As long as 2x4 wood and drywall isn't getting wet - right?

Here's what it looks like:



Roofing/soffit was redone by the roofing company....who did a shit job of finish work btw



Patched in my concrete hole in the master bath! Yay! Now I can insulate and re-drywall over this and do some mud work before doing the flooring here for the vanities to be installed



Another corner of the master bath getting new foam insulation and new drywall. The old drywall was rotted out.

This is the area where there was a jacuzzi tub built into the bathroom and it was demo'd and removed. You can see the hole in the foundation and the current 1/4" copper plumbing lines - not sure what I'm going to do here yet with the clawfoot tub setup.



Master bath shower demo. It's a god damn half-circle



How it looks now:





This is where I got upset because I don't feel like jack-hammering the actual concrete poured foundation of the home. This stupid-ass half-circle shower is FORMED INTO THE FOUNDATION! WTF DUDES

So I think what we might end up doing here is squaring-up the walls since it's so much bigger this way - and then using the half-circle shape as some sort of corner seats aka shampoo holders



Here you can see the current shower head spigot location from the half-circle design so I will relocate that to a direct overhead spot to make one of those large 'rain' shower heads work nicely



So the kitchen contractor came today as well with his installer and we mapped out the layout with tape.

The far wall will be the double oven/24" cabinets/36" range cook top/fridge with a large island in the middle and the tape to the left of the photo is for dual 36" pantries.



The rest of the week and this weekend I will be finishing the drywall sanding (aka messing it up) and putting in brick/LFT floors in the bathrooms/laundry in preparation for interior painting and the laminate installed! Once that's done we will be moving in and this will become a live-in renovation!

Wow - you're moving right along!  The progress is great.

shower walls:

CBU (cementitious backer unit) like PermaBase or Durock etc is not waterproof; it is true that it does not degrade when wet, but it is not waterproof.  most folks assume that a tiled surface (vertical or horizontal, doesn't matter) is impervious to water. It is not, because the grout lines "leak".for this reason, when constructing (for example) a shower wall, you either need to use an impervious backer (e.g. Kerdi, DensShield, etc) or use a CBU backer in conjunction with a waterproofing liquid (e.g. Redguard or Hydroban over Durock or PermaBase).

water (more specifically, moisture) that gets behind the tile has three ways out: evaporation back through the grout, collecting and draining down into the pan (fiberglass base) or pan liner (mud base), and finally *but not desirable* wicking into the surrounding framing. the last leads to mold and structural degradation.

showers without an impervious backer or waterproofing liquid basically rely on the CBU simply drying out into the wall cavity. while the CBU itself is not prone to mold, it does hold a lot of water and will eventually become saturated. older methods of shower construction had the CBU attached to the framing over a vapor barrier (poly sheet or 15# felt). while a "barrier", it is still perforated in many places by attachment screws or nails, and the now-saturated CBU simply "leaks" into the supporting framing (usually in conjunction with rusting the nails/screws, so eventually the CBU is loose on the wall).

For the above reason, modern shower construction is such that you first need to accept that the grout lines will leak, and thus the conclusion is to ensure that the moisture goes no farther "in" than the thinset under the tile. the only way to reliably accomplish this is to use an impervious-to-water surface directly under the tiles -- Kerdi, DensShield, Redguard, HydroBan, etc. -- and make sure that at the bottom of everything there is a way to capture water from behind the wall tiles and direct it to the drain (again, using Shluter's shower system, or a traditional mud base sloped rubber membrane which comes up the walls at least 4-6").

so with PermaBase (etc) on the shower walls your options include 1) Redguard/Hydroban every square inch, or 2) apply Kerdi or other waterproof membrane using thinset.  In general, rolling out Redguard/Hydroban will be easier -- except for the fact that...

shower floor:

your shower floor presents a bit of an issue, assuming you want to tile it.  it does not appear to have pre-slope to the drain, and this will lead to complications.  you should investigate whether you can use a Schluter drain setup to mate with the existing drain pipe, in conjunction with a pre-formed Schluter foam shower base. apply Kerdi on top the foam, and then you can set the floor tile.  the basic problem is what to do at the interface of the wall to the floor; generally this is an area that would be transitioned from vertical to horizontal with strips of Kerdi.  this however implies you also do the walls with Kerdi membrane, though.  the nice part about the Schluter drain setup is that it is designed to be usable "top access only" in slab floor applications.  

otherwise, get a fiberglass shower floor pan and you are GTG.

see also
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1843214_Bathroom_Remodel_disaster.html&page=3#i58526097
and
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1843214_Bathroom_Remodel_disaster.html&page=3#i58526337

ar-jedi

just tripped over this:
http://www.diytileguy.com/shower-tile-backer-board/

ar-jedi

I will be doing the first shower with permabase/redgard(aquagard) and I will probbaly do a shluter shower pan and curb system if I can figure out a way to extend the drain up over it with the shluter drain system...somehow

Bathroom #2 got ditra and tiles yesterday



Also put up permabase with mudded/fiberglass taped seems



Put dowm 1/2" brick veneers in the laundry room...this is a fun' expirament because I will be doing 500 sq ft more of it in the kitchen area





Went over to bathroom #3 in preperation to install tile tommorow and found some fun stuff the previous installers did.

This shower is quite obviously not original to the home in 1988 since inside the walls there are sharkbite connectors and PEX instead of all copper.

So the installers built this shower over the flat foundation as opposed to the other two showers which are sunken and formed into the home's slab. They installed a curb made of 2x4's and put a shower waterproofing mat over it. So far so good - right?

Until i tried to take up the shower tile and found this:



Two sheets of cement board tacked together as the shower base over the waterproofing mat

In their defense, the waterproofing mat was installed correctly under the drain

Anyway i tore all that shit out and now it looks like this...



...ready for a new shower in a few weeks after the shower above is finished.

Tommorow this bathroom #3 will be tiled and the master will be as well. Drywall contractors are coming Sunday and Monday to finish the home - and then the painters will be done in about 11 days from today.

Once paint is done the laminate will go in and we will begin the move.

I'm enjoying your thread.

I don't like the brick veneer floor. I think it looks tacky.

If your wife likes, I guess that's what is important anyway.

let me guess -- there was no pre-slope on the rubber liner, correct?

ar-jedi

Nope - no pre-slope. Just flat boards. I went to replace the moisture/fume vent fan above the shower area today in the attic and found the installers did not install any pipe out of the roof for it - it's just venting into the attic



Yes, she does

This is the finished idea after white-washing:

Got the kitchen renderings back from the installer today. Looks pretty rad but he's using new software and couldn't get some colors right...

The island will have grey cabinets and the walls will be white cabinets as well as the rest of the house.

The kitchen, fireplace and dry bar area will have white quartz caesarstone countertops and the bathrooms will probably have quartz.