I am amazed at how long it takes to renovate a bathroom
 

We have been renovating our one bathroom and its taking a long time...

We laid tile yesterday to me its incredible how difficult it was to

A)get the cement backerboard in
B)measure and cut the tiles right
C)lay the tiles right

Hopefully the grout work I doing today shouldn't be so bad

I have remodeled many homes. It was my profession for a few years. If there is anything I will pay someone to do, it is tile work. Looks easy, isn't easy, hurts the body, takes a long time.

The feeling of being angry and exhausted with only one tile left to go which has to be cut on the wetsaw, only to watch said tile chip while being cut, is how I imagine outer darkness.

I remodeled our master bath a couple of years ago. Put in tile floor, tile tub surround, etc. Cali's description is pretty accurate (hard, hard, hard) but it is also satisfying to see it finished. It does take a long time to do it yourself. I had some decorative border pieces from Italy that cost a mint and those things were constantly chipping and cracking.

The problem with most floors is that they aren't level. Even if you tear down to the subfloor, your subfloor also probably isn't level. So, if you want it to be a really nice tile job, you have to contantly be leveling and adjusting the amount of mortar base you are using for each tile. It sucks. And then it sucks some more. Or you can do a crap job that isn't particularly level and let the next guy cuss you out when he tries to put down a parquet floor over the top of the tile.

Sadly, very sadly, I am about to tear out our shower and put in a tile base and walls (with glass block on the front side that arches up to the ceiling over the shower door). It will look nice when done, but I am not certain my salvation is worth the price, since I am pretty sure I will kill at least one person during the course of my labors.

We will be remodeling our guest bathroom in a few weeks and I am 90% sure that I will not be touching the tile/travertine work. I think that I could do it...but I started figuring out in my head: Is it worth 30 hours of my time to do a crappy job and be in pain from all the work?

Yeah, it would be nice to save the money...but I would rather have well done work than show people how crummy of a handy man I really am with unlevel floors.