a project of epic proportions

Most of you have heard that a few weeks I ago I did some work in our bathroom. I haven’t posted pictures yet because I wanted to show you the “after” shots and we only just finished (most) of the fiddly finishing bits. Rachel is still going to touch up some paint and decorate a bit. But anyway…

So we’ve known for a while that the floor around the toilet was soft. However since we only have one bathroom we had to wait for the right time to work on it. ie. when Rachel and Anna were out of the house at a women’s retreat.

Here’s what our bathroom looked like before I started.

On saturday morning I got up early and tore into it.
One of the very first things that happened was that a pipe broke on me. I was disconnecting the cold water line on the sink and the valve broke right off. Water spewed everywhere and I ran around like a maniac trying to remember how to turn off the main supply. This stupid pipe cost me more time than the whole rest of the bathroom. Since the pipe was rusted I couldn’t just unscrew it. In fact I sheared off an extractor tool trying to remove. I ended up opening up the wall, remove the elbow and replacing elbow and nipple. But that took 3 trips to home depot and about 5 hours work. (stupid, stupid, stupid)

The subflor was nice fir, like the other rooms in the back of the house. But maybe 40% was rotten. The linoleum tiles were all brittle and stiff. Under the fir was cedar planks. That’s what you see here.

Here is the infamous sewer line. I only removed a few of the cedar boards. Most were in good shape.

I learned that I have no idea how to properly use a reciprocating saw. Rachel bought me for christmas. I’ve heard these are awesome tools and they look really handy. But almost every time I used it in this project I bent the blade.

I quit taking pictures at this point (saturday afternoon) because I was so focused on solving problems (like the broken pipe). So this next picture is from when I stopped work on saturday. It was about 11pm, the water got turned back on around 8 (with my fingers crossed hoping I’d fixed all my leaks) the new subfloor (3/4″ ply), the new vinyl and toilet were all in. The toilet and sink weren’t hooked up because I didn’t have all the fittings I needed. In case you are wondering what I did with no water or toilet all day, let just say I’m glad we have a big tree and no nosy neighbors.

Sunday I was a little slower to spring into action. But Rachel was coming home that afternoon and I was determined to have a working bathroom by then. Two more trips to home depot (bring ing the total to 6 trips between friday night and sunday) got me enough fittings to connect everything up.

During my work I’d found that the sheetrock near the floor was soaked. Possibly due to fairly high humidity caused by a rusted pipe. So after I removed the baseboards I cut about 3″ of the sheetrock out. This I replaced with plywood. When we went looking for new baseboards we picked up some of that vinyl baseboard (which I would not recommend now that I’ve tried it) in the brown color we wanted the trim to be. This in turn led to buying paint and painting the bathroom. So without further ado I give the new and improved Davis bathroom:

There is still more we want to do. An exhaust fan, tile around the shower, refinish the tub. But we’ve run out of money for this project and are tired of have an “under” construction bathroom. Next time I buy a house it will have two bathrooms just so we can avoid that.

It has been a very rewarding project. I feel like we’ve added real value to the house and getting rid of that awful teal color has improved my self confidence and mental health dramatically. Just as soon as we got the bathroom painted Anna sprouted a tooth and started standing on her own, so I think it was affecting her too. Stay tuned for further episodes of the never ending projects… Next time, the 3 year garage remodel!