Before moving to tiling the floor, this weekend I wanted to one final pass on the built-in and window molding to make sure as much of the paint was stripped. The stripping gel is a mess and I don’t want to drip any stripper on the new tile. Also, I need to do one final skim coat of plaster around the medicine cabinet and also do 1 of 2 coats behind the built-in wall.

For the built-in and window, I continue spot stripping the wood followed by wipe downs using TSP and water. The wood gets pretty clean but is moist, so I back off that and use some Durabond 90 to patch up the cracks in the plaster wall behind the built-in. After the Durabond sets, I put down a coat of Master of Plaster.

While I have the plaster going, I hit the rest of the walls with a very thin skimcoat. This is mostly to cover up the extra Durabond 90 that I put on the area near the medicine cabinet. It’s still not completely level, but I think it’s as good as it will get.

The other task I wanted to do before the tiling work is patching some holes in the plywood floor. 2 of the holes are relatively clean. The first one is the size of a hole saw bit so I’m able to cut a patch out of plywood using a drill. It’s a little tricky to get he cut started because the drill flies around as I start the cut. This is where a drill press would be helpful but I don’t have one so it’s just stabilizing using muscle.

For the other clean hole, that is larger than any of the hole saw bits I own, so I decide to trace the hole using a compass and then cut out the wood using a jigsaw. The compass doesn’t produce great results so I end up just putting the paper over the hole and cutting out the pattern that way.

Once I get the hole cut out, I use a rasp to shave off some of the excess to get a good fit. I put some glue on the edges and pound the plug in using a mallet. The other 2 holes were not clean. They were already partially filled with some putty-like substance. I decide to continue with the putty and fill the rest of the hole using Durham’s Water Putty.

The last task is some more tub scrubbing. I keep making my way around the tub using a combination of CitriStrip to remove the white paint and then the Rustoleum rust dissolver on the rust under the stripped paint.