Sorry. Typo. I do not have 350 bits. I meant 250. I'm not that outta control.

That really IS a funny coincidence, because I'm planning the exact same thing for the walls in MY pink bathroom:



I'm letting a plumber take care of a new shower/surround, toilet, sink and vanity (as we're having the entire plumbing system replaced) but as far as the walls go, I had the exact same plan: Assuming that the tiles coming off the old horsehair plaster were going to leave a mess, we're planning white wainscoting to be applied directly over the tile, with molding along the top to not only trim the edge, but make up for the difference in depth (thickness).

Edit: Oh, and Joyce also wants to paint the walls above the white wainscoting a sky blue!

That lens sure makes the bathroom look roomy. The one I'm working on is small, and there's no way to capture it well with any of my cameras.[s][/s]

That was shot at 12mm on a full-frame camera.

Looks good Mark, but I think you missed a few opportunities for more pink in "Man Cave".

Your bath looks like my house when we bought it in 2004. When new in 1998 apparently there was a massive sale on every shade of pink, in every fabric and paint available. We have gotten rid of near all of it, but every now and then you look somewhere and a bit grew back. Hard to kill pink.

Peter, if you're using MDF wainscoting in a washroom, make sure you seal it good, both front and backside. MDF does not like the the type of moisture and dampness that you get in a bathroom.

Mark, just how much farther does that window go into the corner, anyhooo?

I already got my "Master Bathroom down-to-the-studs-and-back-again" merit badge. Those were NOT the Good Old Days.

I am impressed by all of you, and am currently successfully resisting such projects, despite their obvious merit.

I have a 2nd bathroom that I reduced to removing the walls and the studs about 8 years ago, due to a massive amount of mold in the walls. I've been waiting for the bathroom to grow back, but so far no luck.

Half the window is blocked by the shower curtain. The new tub/shower is going to go up against the back wall, after the radiator is moved. That'll open up the rest of the window.

This bathroom looks just as it did when we bought the house 20 years ago...except for jury-rigging a shower setup (it was a tub only).

Tom, I get no points on my man card on this. Outside of the wainscoting thing, I'm only writing a check. I keep telling you guys "Just because I've been buying lots of tools, that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing!"

I was originally going to build the cabinet for the sink, but I even copped out of that when Joyce saw one she really liked at Home Depot. I've got WAY too much on my list of Things To Do to get into "optional" projects!

Ahh, now it makes sense. So my problem is that I haven't gotten to the "coveting" part yet. I'll work on that.



I wasn't sure whether things like hole saws counted as drill bits. It seems like you either need a lot of different-sized hole saws or you need to be able to pirouette while holding a jigsaw without falling over and cutting off your nose.

While we're talking about workbenches, I was reading Chris Schwarz's workbench book which talks about matching your workbench design to your clamping needs. That made a lot of sense, so I thought about a few likely projects and what clamping would help.

The most obvious project was a set of Muskoka chairs (Adirondack chairs south of the border) which require long angled cuts to make the slats. Normally I would put my foot on the board, start cutting until I reached my foot, awkwardly move my foot out of the way while holding a spinning circular saw, put my foot back down behind the saw, and then complete the cut. I tried to imagine how a super-duper workbench would simplify this but without a lot of success since any of the fancy hold-down thingies would get in the way of the saw. I guess the obvious answer is "if you have one of those fancy workbenches then you're probably going to have exactly the right handsaw to zip through the cuts in a matter of seconds, and a handsaw won't run into the hold-downs", but that line of reasoning only made things seem worse.

Would the right solution be for your bench to have a set of dog holes running along one of the edges so you could clamp the board lengthwise between a fixed dog and a dog in the tail vise, close enough that the cut could overhang the edge of the bench ? Presumably the dogs could be adjusted sufficiently low that the base plate of the circular saw would not hit the dogs during the cut ?

I kinda get the impression that only hand tools are to be allowed near Precious Precious Bench so maybe the whole idea of using a circular saw to make the cuts is wrong