Bathroom Floor

Lots of pictures today. Just a warning...

It all started with this (Lowe's Creative Ideas should come with warnings, don'tcha think?)

And I thought, Hmmm, what if instead of a river rock bathmat I did the whole floor! And it would be CHEAP!!!(To get the full effect, insert maniacal laughter here.)

But then I started thinking about balancing things (like toilets--ewww) on the rocks, and other problems, so I decided to go with the best of both worlds:

Start with rocks:

(They are landscaping river rocks, bought at Lowe's, for about $4 per .5 cu.ft. bag--around 40#. I'm guessing my 6x10 bathroom will use 1 1/2 bags.) I had to wash them first, so I only did a few to start.

Next in my arsenal:
Landscape adhesive! This stuff will glue anything! Rock, wood, plastic, no problem. Only a couple of bucks per tube (one tube seems to do about 5-6 7" squares) And it is waterproof. Can't beat that.

And to eliminate the unbalanced rock problem, insert one grid:

(The oak strips are the 2 1/2" wide, 3/4" hardwood I'm flooring the rest of the house in. There are always strips that can't be used for one reason or another. I'm using the rejects in the bathroom. The squares are 7"x7")

First, squeeze the adhesive onto the (clean) floor.

Then, spread it out to make an even coating. Just don't get it on anything...it's worse than superglue.

I picked out large-ish rocks to put into the corners to get started.

Then, just take the larger of the river rocks and start spreading them in a single layer on the adhesive. Kinda smoosh them onto the glue and shove them around--gently--so they cover the glue and floor:

Keep adding large-ish rocks:

Then pick out the smallest rocks and scatter them over the top of the larger rocks. Work them into any gaps in between the big rocks.


And this is what it looks like. I've finished the one 4-square row (all I have time for today.) My goal is to get the rest of the floor done by next week, an hour at a time. That way I can coat the rocks with clear polyurethane, let it dry and then get my tub in!!!

Stay tuned...