Painting Yourself Out of a Bathtub

Day forty-five. Repetition days — the unglamorous middle of every renovation, where the same three trades advance a few percent each.

The tub’s first rubber coat. Yesterday’s mortar render cured, so the Gomas went on — the masonry tub’s first true waterproofing layer. Two disciplines governed the work. Thickness: counterintuitively, thin — spread just until the gray of the cement disappears. A thick first coat feels virtuous and then stays tacky for days, stalling the schedule; waterproofing performance comes from multiple thin coats (two more planned after full drying), not one heavy one. Choreography: corners and walls first, then the floor, painted while walking backward toward the opening — the floor-varnisher’s retreat. Nobody wants to be the person standing in the middle of their own wet waterproofing.

Tiles with a personality. Cheolsu-hyung continued his advance: another kitchen wall face in the morning, then the main bathroom — where the precision ritual ran longest. Six full sheets of mosaic accent tile went up after painstaking leveling; small-format mosaic amplifies every substrate error, so the prep is the work. These six sheets are the bathroom’s jewelry — the moment the room stopped being infrastructure and started having a face. Watching spaces change personality one tile-course at a time has become the daily reward.

Clearing the decks for the pour. The coming milestone is the supyeong-moltal — the self-leveling mortar pour that will give the whole house its flat floor — so the day ended in measurement and cleaning: the bath’s doorway measured precisely for its pocket door and hardware, then a full interior scrub so the mortar bonds to concrete instead of dust.

(Honest postscript, learned after the pour: the wet mopping wasn’t necessary. Dust-free is the requirement; damp is optional. We’ll take the clean floor anyway.)