Downstairs Bath Renovation: Tiling, Grouting, Priming and Beadboarding

Wow, it's been over a month since I posted an update on our downstairs bathroom renovation, other than asking for opinions on our floor grout color (thanks for the feedback, by the way!).

Day to day, I feel like we're moving so slowly on this project and I should work harder so I have more to update on, but then I remember that oh yeah, I've got a very busy job and life outside of what I share on this little blog and it's silly to feel pressure because of it. It's not like I bother with advertising, I mostly just write here because I like to share, in case there's anyone else out there going through similar projects, in hopes that something I link to or give a tip on might be useful. And also for my family to see what I'm up to, since they live far away and I don't do Facebook. So I've completely let go of any self-inflicted pressure and our timeline on this project. I shouldn't have been so ambitious anyway, considering we've never gutted an entire room before. I blame HGTV, and bloggers, who I love reading, but who's full time job is working on their house for putting an unrealistic timeline in my head. We'll finish when we finish, and it is what it is. I'm eager to be done though, can you tell? :) But we're making progress, and are definitely coming up on the home stretch.

So, with our timeline out the window, here's what we've accomplished in the past month on the weekends and some evenings after work. But first, a quick look back at how far we've come.

The above "progress" photo is where I left you last time, about halfway through installing the tile in the shower surround.

I'm happy to report that since then we've completely finished the tile. And tiling did get easier, the more I did it. It's still hard, and nerve wrecking to be working with the thinset dry times, but I definitely felt a lot more confident as I worked my way up the wall.

Floor Grout Options: Opinions Welcome!

I'm going to be spending Friday night grouting our downstairs bathroom floor tiles (exciting Friday night, I know!), so things will be dry enough for us to install the beadboard wainscoting Saturday afternoon, paint it, and finally be able to put our toilet back in place on Sunday. I can't wait to have a toilet on the main floor of our house again!

But that means we need to make a decision on what color of grout to use ASAP. For our shower surround tile, we just went with a standard white grout, which went very nicely with our white-with-light grey-marbling tile.

But for the floor, I'm torn between two options, either slightly darker grey, or slightly lighter grey than the tiles themselves. We're using Spectralock epoxy grout, which is a bit more expensive than standard grout, but you don't have to come back and seal it later, it is stainproof (coming clean even after weeks of being soaked in cherry kool-aid), and it lasts longer and just holds up better than regular grout. But the downside is that there is a limited number of colors it comes in, so we can't get an exact match to our light slate grey floor tile.

Really, that's OK though, because I want a tiny bit of definition with the tiles, I just can't decide if we should go lighter or darker. So I made a little tester board with scrap pieces of tile, and I'd love to get your opinions!

Here is a zoomed in photo, under indoor lighting conditions. The slightly darker on the left (Slate Grey), lighter on the right (Silver Shadow). 

And the same samples, in shaded, natural lighting. Our bathroom has a quite large window, so it will be getting a lot of natural light in the daytime, through the plantation shutters we plan on installing.

I think I'm leaning toward the lighter option, considering we'll have white baseboards, white beadboard and all of the white tile in the shower. But the darker the grout, the easier to clean/shows less dirt. I'm so torn!

Which grout do you like best with our grey tiles? The darker on the left, or the lighter on the right?