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The curtain hanging on the right is acting as the door for this bathroom. The door came out during the floor project and has not been replaced yet. Note the lovely flowered wall paper. Immediately after taking these pictures, I tore it from the walls, it came off quite easily. The room looks much better! |
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Yes, those are pink tiles on the vanity top. And those are pink and grey mosaic tiles on the floor. Those mosaic tiles are set on a one inch thick mud bed that will have to come up. I am sure at one time there was a full wall mirror over the vanity, but it was replaced by the hanging mirrors. The hanging lights are quite hideous as well. |
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Here you catch your first glimpse of the pink tub. The tub is not in good shape and does not even have a shower. I added a hand shower to it so I could wash the dog in the tub. Eliza does get ready in the morning in front of the wood vanity. She will have to be displaced after demolition. |
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The pink toilet and white? sink. Obviously the sink had been replaced at some point. The medicine cabinet matches the mirrors and was also a replacement for the original. Note the missing black tile at the bottom of the medicine cabinet. The original medicine cabinet had sidelights and was probably identical to the one in my other bathroom. |
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One of the scary plumbing pictures. This is looking in at the crawl space under the bathroom. I've got 2/3 basement and 1/3 crawl space... go figure. There is a lot of corrosion on the plumbing, especially where copper meets galvanized with no dielectric union. When I purchased the house, there was no cap on the drum trap, so any water from the tub was spilled directly into the crawl space. How long this condition existed is anyones guess |
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Looks like there may have been a toilet leak at some point. This is one of the reasons that the mud base needs to come up. This joist also runs under the tub, so I will sister the joist the length of the crawl space to make sure that area of the floor is properly supported. Sometimes you just want to throttle the previous owners... |
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And so it begins. I pulled this shower wall down to check what was behind it. I plan to start removing wall surfaces and will filling up garbage cans to see if the garbage man will take them. He's been a prick about taking some things. |
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It was just outrageous how much some places wanted for bathroom cabinets that weren't particle board with drawers held together by staples. Well, after getting some quotes for bathroom cabinets, I decided that I would attempt making my own. The Kreg pocket hole jig is the means to this madness. Everything will be assembled with pocket hole joints. |
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After a weekends worth of work, this is what I accomplished. Drawers and shelves should get built this week with drawer fronts and doors coming sometime after next weekends wood show. (I need some new bits for the router) It will probably take more time to sand and finish everything then it did to put them together. I figure I should easily be able to get everything finished for under $500. |
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Another weekends worth of work brings about the removal of the toilet, tub and half the walls. Mike came over and helped me with the demolition. We started at 8:00 Saturday morning and finished up about 10:30. The dump closed at 11:30, so we loaded up eight or nine garbage cans and had a full truck load with the tub and toilet. The waste weighed exactly 1300 pounds and cost $58 to dump. |
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Hmmm... The bathroom has always been a little cold in the winter time, do you think that having only one inch of insulation on the North wall might have anything to do with that? I picked up new insulation for the walls and ceiling tonight, as well as a vapor barrier that was not present. |
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I spent the following week filling eight more garbage cans and seven heavy-duty 3-mil trash bags. Another trip to the dump relieved me of 1600 pounds of debris, and another $58. Under the one inch mud bed, I found what I had suspected, rotted boards. The joists appeared to still be in good shape even if they do look a bit nasty. I replaced the plank floorboard and patched in a piece of 3/4 inch plywood where the toilet closet is. All of the diagonal planks were screwed to the joists before being covered in plywood. |
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Well here the walls are all down, nails are out and a 1/2" plywood sub-floor has be laid over the diagonal planks and 30# tar paper. My digital camera is freaking out on me more than normal and is putting spots on all of my pictures. A new digital camera may have to be worked into the budget. |
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As I was planning the plumbing for the bathroom, I did some checking in the crawl space and found this! I knew that my cast iron DWV wasn't in great shape, but I had no idea that it was cracked and that you could actually see inside it! This particular run services everything but the bathroom I am working on. Replacing it meant shutting down the kitchen, laundry and the only working bathroom. |
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Part of the problem with replacing the cast iron DWV runs is that they meet at this wye and then disappear into my concrete covered crawl space and then, presumably, out to the septic tank. I wasn't sure how to tie in to this wye with PVC. I looked at doughnuts that would fit in the hub and decided that I would fall back on that if I couldn't simply use banded gaskets on the four inch straight pipe. My big concern was that I wouldn't be able to get a clean cut on that pipe and I might have to call in the pros. |
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This is why I was concerned. To much of that run has cracks in it and I was afraid that the pipe might crush instead of snap. (this section of pipe did crush) Initially I thought to avoid this problem by using the sawzall to cut the pipe, but I made a trail cut on the bathroom closet flange and chewed up three blades without making much progress. Time for a new plan. A well placed call to Lincoln-Rent-All and a soil stack cutter was reserved for Saturday. I started gathering the pieces that I thought I was going to need to do the replacement. |
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More big kudos go out to my brother Mike who came over on Saturday morning at 8:00 to help me. No coffee for us today as the bathroom would be off-line. We made a few trial cuts with the cutter. What a cool tool! Nothing to fancy, just a chain with some cutting wheels and some rachet action, but it does the job. By 10:30 we had all of the main run removed with fairly nice cuts at both ends and started piecing together the replacements. A trip to Home Depot for some parts (and a potty break) and we removed the bathroom stack and drain. We had the main run back together by 2:00 and once again had a functioning bathroom. We stopped working at 6:00 with only the two inch run to the bathroom sink left to do. We would finish that up Sunday morning in about an hour. The replacement PVC looks SO much better than the cast iron did, but it's not without its problems.  |
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The main run in the full basement had almost no slope for the first 20 feet and the new run is nearly level as well. This is due to the fact that we had to connect it to existing cast iron on both ends and there just really was no room to change it. When I remodel the other bathroom, I will replace that section of drain and increase the slope of that run. For now it is not any worse than it has been for 50 years. The new bathroom run has good slope and the sink has excessive slope! In this picture you can see the three inch rough for the toilet and two inch wye for the tub that are not yet connected. The toilet will be one of the very last items to be installed. |
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Well the cabinets took a step closer to being finished this weekend. After a week or two of staining and spraying polyurethane, I finished up some details to get these cabinets together. I waited until the cabinets were finished to do the crown moulding, backs, drawer slides and shelf holes. They are now ready to install. Raised panel doors and drawer fronts will be built and installed after the bathroom is complete. |
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Close up of the toilet topper sitting on the bathroom vanity. I'll build an shelf for this when I work on the desk portion of the cabinets. (For Elizas area) There are four pin positions for adjusting the shelf. |
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Close up of the linen closet. The two shelves have 5 position pin holes spaced one inch apart and have a beveled solid oak front edge. I believe the overall height is around 84 inches. This should provide some good additional storage! |
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The installation of this Panasonic bathroom fan presented a unique challenge. I really did not want to put another hole in the roof as it inevitably would leak at some point. The sofit was my exhaust point of choice, but there was only two inches of space between the header and the roof deck. Enter a marvel of modern engineering - the rectangular ductwork meant to be used behind a clothes dryer. It was almost exactly two inches and just fit. Works for me! |
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Well the tub finally found its way into its spot. I fought the installation pretty hard after finding out that my floor slopes badly. Two packages of shims later the tub is level and securely in place. |
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I started off putting Durock up around the tub, but after fighting to get two pieces in place, I gave up and just used moisture resistant drywall. Perhaps the biggest problem is that the studs are not spaced properly to allow the Durock (32 or 36 inches) to fit nicely. Conversely I was able to cut a sheet of drywall to fit the nearest stud. Since I am using a fiberglass surround and not ceramic tile, the drywall should be adequate. |
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Just another shot of how things are moving along. I actually got drywall installed up to this side of the partition, but it's probably more interesting to see some fo the mechanicals. |
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WOOT! Here's all of my sexy copper plumbing. This is a completely new run using 1/2" thick walled rigid copper. After my experiences with PVC drain, I have become more of a fan of copper plumbing. Plastic looks nice, but in two spots on this run I had troubles with the final connections. Plastic just doesn't dry fit well to make accurate length measurements and angle calculations, plus there's no going back once you've glued it up.
Also note in the upper left some shiny new ductwork. The bathroom previously did not have an air conditioning vent. I tapped a 6 inch run from the main ductwork and ran that into some 4 inch through the "wet" wall. I'll try to remember to add a picture of it later. There was no obviously good location to add an AC vent where it wouldn't blow on somebody (sitting on the toilet, standing at the sink...) and the floor will later be tiled anyway. The new vent is located above the linen closet location. It doesn't blow really hard, but it's more AC than it used to have. |
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The promised photo of the ductwork for the new air conditioning run. Everything was stock pieces from the local Menards, so there wasn't really much tin work involved. Hopefully this will keep the bathroom from feeling so hot and muggy. What looks like a crack in the stack is really just purple primer that ran down from the joint above. |
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Same basic shot with the drywall up. Keep in mind that a 84 inch linen closet will sit in this corner, so it's unlikely anyone will even notice the vent in the wall. Have I mentioned that I don't really like working with drywall? At least with the drywall behind me the house will no longer be covered in a fine layer of white dust. After finishing up the drywall, we put two layers of First Coat drywall primer on the ceilings and wall and then a coat of wallpaper primer on the walls. The ceiling and shower got two coats of Perma-White mildew resistant paint. I also removed the hydronic radiator and put down 1/2 Durok on the floor. |
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So much to look at here. It's almost starting to look like a bathroom. After mapping out my attack plan in Visio, I came to the conclusion that I just didn't have enough tile for the entire floor, so I decided to install the vanity and tile around it. I spent about five hours on Saturday getting the main floor area laid. I will have to work this week on the cut pieces. |
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Another shot of the vanity & floor area. Notice that the stub-outs now have shutoffs. I have to get the floor finished before I order the toilet that I want and can then think about making the bathroom half functional. I also need to start work on the desk left of the sink before ordering custom vanity tops. Stay tuned! |
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I got the tub surround in last weekend. It wasn't really difficult to install, but I did have to brace it to keep it tight against the wall. It looks like four inch tile squares, but it's really an plastic material of some sort. I didn't want to have to deal with the hassles of grout maintenance and I really like the looks of this surround. The wall area around the surround was painted a light beige color to match the floor and wallpaper. You can see here that I got some fo the wallpaper up this weekend. |
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Here is a better shot of the wallpaper. There will be a boarder at the top when the walls are all done. I really don't like doing wallpaper, but it's better than tile. I wanted to paper half way around the room this weekend so that I could get the toilet and linen closet installed, but I didn't quite make it that far. I need to get the desk installed and tops put on before I can paper that area. |
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Speaking of the desk, I got it finished and installed this weekend. I guess it's time to head out to the counter top places and see what this is going to run me. It almost feels like the bathroom project is starting to come to a close. I can't wait!!! |
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The door and cabinets were installed and really started to give a glimpse of what the finished bathroom was going to look like. I got a phone call at work from the driver who was delivering my toilet. I rushed home to find a big 18 wheeler parked in front of my house. That's no mean feat considering I live on a dead end street with a small cultisak turn around. I unpacked the one piece Toto UltraMax and it appeared to be in prefect condition. It got installed that afternoon! |
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Here you can see a much better picture of the toilet and toilet topper. Everything still needs drawer fronts and doors, but I haven't made those yet and at least the doors will probably not get made until Christmas. It's starting to look pretty good though! |
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The countertops came in on a Thursday night and I picked them up on Friday after work. The piece of flat stock for the desk was suprisingly more heavy than the larger sink piece was. I've never worked with marble and I was a bit concerned about installing these myself, but the quotes I received for installation forced me to attempt it. These poured marble pieces were very easy to work with. I made a template for the flat stock out of posterboard and transferred the lines. The belt sander makes quick work of the marble and the pieces were soon cut to size. The sink piece was almost as easy, though I did not use a template as the bowl and backspace made an overlay more difficult. I used silicone adhesive and clamped the pieces in place. The half wall piece kept sliding off to the right, but after sever adjustments over a couple of hours, it finally stayed in place. |
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The next afternoon I took the clamps off and everything seemed to be good. I tested out the plumbing and ran the water - opps, had a couple of leaks. I tighted up the supply lines and the rubber gasket at the bottom of the sink bowl and everything was now dry! Yea! we have a sink now!!! The bathroom is now fully functional! |
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I finished up the wallpaper on Sunday and it really made a visual difference and pulled everything together. This is probably the first good photo of the completed tile floor. It's probably the single piece of the bathroom that I like most. The towel bars and such were installed without to much problem. I had some heavy mirrors to hang and I wasn't sure the best way to install them. I decided to put the lights up first and then worry about the mirrors. |
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As you can see, the bathroom is in full use now. Eliza has moved into here little station and really likes it. The mirrors were not to bad to hang once I decided on the anchors. I used some new ones that I had not used before - metal hooks with giant plastic drywall screws. It really worked out well. I installed the baseboard heat only to discover that I was about 1.5 inches short on each side with the baseboard covers I had. A quick web site search revealed that the company makes 5.5 inch baseboard covers! Another trip to Builders Plumbing Supply and those were placed on order. The lamp above Elizas area was missing two rings to secure the glass, so the place I ordered those from are sending me some. I have to say that I've had really good experiences with the internet companies I've dealt with for this project. The next phase of this project is installing baseboard trim. All in good time... |
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This is a shot of the completed bathroom. I did finally get doors made and installed during Christmas 2002. I'm just a little late in getting photos up. Things turned out really well and I am quite pleased with the results. |
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I finally updated the dark photo that was here. You can see that the vanity has drawerfronts and doors on it now. It turned out really nice and again I am quite pleased with the results. I did get the two rings I needed for the light above the desk. |
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A closeup of the vanity and desk. Everyone that has looked at these cabinets has been very impressed. While it makes me feel good, it is kind of sad that people have come to expect less from the quantity manufacturers. |
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This is a good shot of the linen closet and toilet topper. It really didn't take to much time to get the doors and drawerfronts together once I got started on them, but it was just finding the time to work on them. Now that they are done, I can honestly say that I'd put these cabinets up against any stock cabinets that you could go out and buy under $2000. What I saw out there in that range was just pathetic. |
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This is a good shot of the drawer and door construction. The drawers are 3/4" oak plywood construction with a 1" solid band at the top. The drawer side tops have a decpratove 45 degree bevel on them. Drawer construction was done using Kreg pocketholes and are very solid. I'd have used dovetails, but have no means to do so at this time. Note the reading material in the form of Woodcraft and Grizzly catalogs. I purchased, but opted against putting handles on the doors as I felt that it would detract from their look and they open easily without. I put felt bumpers on everything and closing drawers and doors is much quieter now. I think this just about concludes this project. I'll try to get updated photos of the vanity, but that should be about it. |
