Bathroom Progress, Day Who Knows?

Where were we last time? Oh yes, the larger window was gone. Meanwhile, Mr. Burli has epoxy-ed a crack in our stem wall and bolted the wall together (remember all those crazy estimates for fixes to various sinking spots in our house? We decided to do some minor repairs - like this - ourselves and wait another year and complete season cycle to see what happens. Hopefully this and some shimming done under the bathroom (posts) will keep this area from shifting).



Here are the nice new copper pipes under the bathroom (and no cast iron drain pipes anymore).

Mr. Burli putting in the subfloor. (Finally.)

The shower tree is coming together - just a few more hours of contemplating (aka overthinking) placement of valves, depth of valves, extra studs for handrails, etc., along with some more sodering and then the shower will be in place.

One light fixture arrived! This is the overhead light from Rejuvenation. The sconces are not here yet. Neither are my medicine cabinets, scheduled to arrive in .... May. WHAT? If I could find others I like, I might consider cancelling, but I really like the look of these (in chrome). I guess I could have ordered a different color but the fixtures are all chrome. The sconces will be black porcelain (like the overhead light) with a white shade.

 

So here we are now - - Mr. Burli has to finish the window a bit (foam stuff and trim pieces), he is was at the store buying more plywood, cement board and drywall, after a mult-day, many hour conversation about the floor and the walls. Here were are dilemmas (if you are interested in construction. If not, skip ahead to cute kid pictures):
a.) the subfloor is 3/4 inch plywood and is even with the flooring in the hallway. It is pretty solid and Mr. Burli sistered the joists (several old ones were shaved to a point, probably to allow screeding over a mudbed in the original bathroom installation) so that they are closer than 16 inches apart. BUT all the sites I read said you need thicker subfloor before tiling.... so do we add another layer of plywood before the heating coils/mat and the self-leveling compound, which will then be covered by thinset and tile? If so, the floor will be at least an inch higher (maybe slightly more) than the hallway. Mr. Burli felt the floor was pretty stiff and wanted to skip the second layer of plywood. I said no, since I read too many construction/remodel sites that warn of tile or grout cracking or 'crunchy' tiles due to inadequate subfloor. Another suggestion was to forego the heating mat thus eliminating a lot of height - we wouldn't need the mat or the slc to go over it, instead there would be another layer of plywood and then hardiebacker. That was not a popular choice. In the end, we will have a tall threshold so watch your step when you come to our house.
b. Should we use greenboard or regular drywall on the walls outside of the shower. There seem to be 2 opinions out there - about half say use the greenboard (mildew/moisture resistant) on the remaining walls, the other half says don't bother - you can also coat the walls with a layer of Zinser primer to stop mold. And the consensus was no greenboard on the ceiling. I think I might have won that argument, but Mr. Burli's brother wanted greenboard (or first he suggested cement board!) everywhere (including the ceiling). I countered with: he is in Europe! Most people don't even have shower curtains and end up tiling the entire bathroom. {Update: Mr. Burli decided to go with the greenboard on the walls but not on the ceiling.}
I am sure there were a couple of other issues we had to overthink... BUT the idea is to NOT have to fix or change the bathroom for at least 20 years. Will that be possible? We are going with massively neutral - plain white hex floors and plain white subway tiles with a oyster grey grout and hopefully these can stand the test of time....
Which reminds me, cute kid pictures coming up:

Okay, not that cute. One is sick on the couch watching classic Tin-tin cartoons. The other fell asleep after a birthday party and is resting in his "tent" on the deck. :)

 

Update (since I wrote this Sunday and now it is Tuesday): Kid #2 is also sick. Maybe the flu? Neither had a stomach symptom,  luckily. Both will be home at least another day. Who will get it next? Me or Mr. Burli?