Not Just a Pretty Face: Adventures in Remodeling

The arbitrary bathroom numbering system is based on the order in which the rooms were remodeled. Number 2 & number 3 kind of got torn apart at the same time because of, well, read on... Number 3 didn’t get finished until almost the last week or two that I lived in the house.

So, on to bathroom number two!

The Elvis Sink after I painted it so I could deal with it for a while

When I purchased the house, lovely bathroom number two was fitted with what I called “The Elvis Sink”. I called that because of its likeness to the era in which fat Elvis would have lived. It was awful. Awful is an understatement. It sparkled and had swirls that were supposed to look like marble I think, but really just looked pitiful. Not only was the lovely Elvis sink attached to the wall, the walls themselves looked like exterior stucco and since it’s small, these little stucco fingers would reach out and grab you every time you turned around. Stucco Fingers got sanded down and the walls painted until I could come up with the money to do anything else. It just had to be usable. Bathroom number two also had a pocket door that didn't work, or worked sometimes but then came off the track and was impossible to get back on so it eventually just stayed off the track and we proceeded to tear it and the wall apart every time we opened or closed the door. Oh yeah, it was also a hallow apartment style door that was fitted to a pocket door so never even right to begin with.

The day finally came when I’d had enough of bathroom number two and decided it was its best interest to be torn out. In order to get the bathtub out, part of the wall had to come out but before that the toilet had to come out. Since the toilet was fairly new I decided to keep it, clean it and reuse it. After all, anything that can be reused in a whole home remodel is valuable.

There has to be SOME modesty in remodeling! That grate looking thing was a "vent" that opened to the downstairs bathroom and was more of a "intercom" than anything of actual use. It was weird.

Elvis sink out, light fixture dangling because it was the only source of light to work with

I proceeded to pull part of the wall out, which was a lot easier than I thought mainly due to the fact that it wasn't done right to begin with and was made of 1x2’s in order to accommodate the pocket door. I removed the screen from the window and the top of the stairs and just started throwing everything that would fit out of it to the yard below.

That's where that goes, right?

Part of the wall missing, bathtub out

There was once a not awesome skylight - it leaked, I had it roofed over

Now, before the bathtub could be removed, all the drywall surrounding it that was once covered in weird stucco fingers had to be removed. Having drywall around a bathtub meant that there would, without a doubt be mold in the walls around it. And there was. It was gross, and smelly and well, just gross. So now all the insulation had to come out only to find that whoever had placed the studs previously either didn't know what they were doing, or knew what they were doing and just hoped no one would ever find out what they had done. This was not the first wall I had torn out that ended up this way so I think whoever did the majority of the work in or around the 50’s just didn't really know what they were doing.

Nasty!

With the drywall removed from the ENTIRE bathroom, the Elvis sink out and the toilet sitting in the hallway I was ready to call some muscle and get the bathtub out of there too. Unfortunately it wouldn’t fit out the window so I didn’t get to throw it into the yard and see what happened. It would have to be lifted up and over the pony wall and carried down the stairs, around the corner in the dining room, through the kitchen, across the dilapidated porch and out to the ally to await its final resting place at the dump, whenever I happened to get it there. At least bathroom number two’s bathtub didn’t weigh what the one in bathroom number one did or it might still be sitting upstairs, repurposed into something useful.

Now I had an empty shell of a bathroom that looked horrid, I could see into the inside of the roof and it was kind of creepy. Because there was no natural light in the room, and because it was really really tiny with a sloped ceiling because we’re technically in the attic now, I decided a small window would do wonders for the feel of the room. I invited the ‘rents over with promises of BBQ and asked for assistance in putting in the window because doing so would require an extension ladder (which I had) completely extended (which I didn’t want to climb on) and someone to stand on it while holding a sawsall to cut a hole in the wall, frame the window, place the window and do all the other necessary stuff to get a window secure. I could have easily put in a 24”x24” window myself……..on ground level.

Bathtub fixtures and wall behind the toilet

Tiny window, HUGE improvement

With the hole cut and the window placed the next thing to do was insulate the crap out of it and insulation was far from being my favorite job. It was a necessary evil though and was usually pretty fast. Once it was up with the plastic covering it, I basically had walls.

Now came time to find a bathtub I could afford and that would fit – found out it was pretty standard size, cost on the other hand was something I wasn’t prepared for. Also, it needed to be white so the used store was out and the old one was tan so that was out too. I finally found one, drug it home and sat it in the dining room until I felt comfortable enough in my bathtub installation research, asking some friends who had done it and doing some minor plumbing to get it “set”. I think that’s what they call it.

I called up my PIC and after some coffee, a pot or so, and some discussion as to how exactly it’s done, what needs to be done, the order it needs to be done in, etc, we were ready to carry the bathtub up the steep stairs, over the pony wall and into the closet sized bathroom. You may be wondering why with it being so small that I didn’t just put in a shower….well, I could have but anyone showering in it would have had to be a toddler or a dwarf and a dwarf is pushing it.

So in went the bathtub. It all seemed pretty straightforward and simple once it was done but I was feeling kind of weird about the fact that it felt a little bit wonkey. It would rock back and forth slightly side to side and if I planned to tile around it, I couldn’t have this movement or it would eventually just tear it all out. I left it for a couple days and debated over whether or not to pull it back out, revise my method of installation and reseat it or just leave it as it was. By the time the weekend had arrived I was ready to tear it out and redo it. It just didn’t seem right.

The second installation was much easier it seemed and much more stable. I was happy enough with it that I went on to figuring out what I was going to do at the end of it, wall/no wall, a little shelf? I decided on a wall so I could put some storage in there because there was none. Up went the wall, it’s at an angle and I can’t math so you can only imagine how difficult this was for me.

Feeling pretty good about the situation I started to drywall and cement board where appropriate and got that all done in roughly a day. Mudded the next and figured I was well ahead of schedule (self imposed) so kind of just left it as it was for a bit.

About a week or so later, could have been more, everything is kind of a blur now, I get a call at work saying that there is water gushing down the outside of the house AND there is a waterfall in the downstairs bathroom number three and (frantically) where is the main shutoff!?!?

I give the instructions for the shut off and leave work knowing this is going to be the mother of all messes to take care of. Just what I wanted to do on a cold Tuesday. And yes, it was cold because the water gushing out of the side of the house was freezing on its way down.

I came home, took a look at what was going on, burst into tears (naturally) and went and grabbed a crowbar and hammer. I immediately went to work tearing out the ceiling in bathroom number three to see if by any luck of the remodel gods there was any way I could get to the broken pipe through the ceiling there since it was underneath the tub that I had just installed TWICE. I also didn't want to tear the ceiling apart in completed bathroom number one. With the ceiling out and part of the wall out I could see what was broken but I wasn’t going to be able to get to it from underneath. The words that came out of my mouth just aren’t appropriate to repeat and were something you’d imagine a weathered old sailor to say. Maybe not even a sailor, maybe not even a drunken sailor. Anyway, it was bad. Real bad.

Worse was that there was no water anywhere in the house until the situation was resolved and resolution involved tearing out the cement board that I had just put in and the upstairs bathtub. Naturally taking the cement board out also involved taking the drywall out, the now soaked insulation, etc. AWESOME. Also, in a fit of rage I tore out the wall at the end of the tub because I couldn’t get the tub out with it there, well, not easily, and I was mad as a hornet and oddly seemed to have the strength of ten men.

With the tub out, the problem pipe was visible. Still unknown was the extent of the damage to the pipe and where exactly on the pipe the break was. I instructed the boy child to turn the water on while I stood over the now exposed pipes to see if I could tell where the break might be. Immediately when the water was turned on, water shot into my already seething face pretty much soaking me. Allrightythen, leak spotted. It was in an elbow joint and was a split almost an inch long. Fan-fucking-tastic. With the little plumbing knowledge I had acquired over the course of the remodel, I looked to see how said joint was put together and YAY ME it was soldered. Hmmmmm. Would a cigarette lighter work? I called the only person I knew would know and natch, he was sleeping. Told me to come over, get the keys to the garage and go rifle through it til I found the torch. Drove to his house, got the key, got the garage open after some trying because in all my greatness I am key challenged and have been since birth. Went back into the house to be instructed on use of the torch and how to get the pipes apart. Simple enough. Back to my house, torch in hand, up the stairs to melt the solder and take the joint apart then off to either Lowes or Home Depot to get new parts.

Sometimes when you think all is lost and you wander into the plumbing section of Home Depot soaked and looking like something that just got pulled out of a drain, covered in black insulation from tearing a ceiling apart that turned out to be unnecessary (at this juncture) and clearly frustrated, along comes someone who actually knows what they are talking about or better, can decipher your frustrated mumbling and explanation of what happened and probably feel sorry for you because as hard as you’re trying not to be, you on the verge of a breakdown at any second. So probably more for his own safety, judging from my appearance, than out of friendly helpfulness, plumbing isle guy proceeded to listen intently and then offer the wisest suggestion in the history of plumbing. He lead me to a different section of plumbing land and directs me to something called Sharkbite (which is a registered trademark so hopefully I am crediting correctly). He says it has revolutionized the DIY plumbing world and now ANYONE can do it. Even joints I ask? Even joints he says. Even if it was standard to begin with I ask? Yep, even if it was standard. No need for solder, just a clean cut at the break and one of these amazing Sharkbite fittings and you’ll have running water in no time little lady. I’m skeptical, naturally. Plumbing is supposed to be a mystery, a professional only type thing right? Apparently not any more. Well, at least not this job anyway.

Sharkbite and skepticism in hand I head home. Its already been a really long day and if I don’t get the water turned back on I was facing sleeping in the black insulation that was now covering all of me, on the floor, because no way was I crawling into bed like that, and getting up and trying to figure this out all over again in the morning which meant missing work because there was no way in hell I was going to work looking like I did. Remember the dirty girl pic from tearing out the kitchen ceiling? Well, I looked like that, with water, tears and rage added in and lacking the dirty toothy smile and feeling of accomplishment that allowed me at 2 a.m. covered in filth to flash a peace sign while washing down said filth with a warm Mountain Dew.

Since early afternoon there had been no water on in the house and I had my brothers staying with me so there was more than just me who needed running water. I’m pretty sure that I warned everyone in the house that if a Number 2 were to happen in the other semi-functioning bathroom that they would be murdered so to pinch it and wait or go to the gas station because something like that would literally put me over the edge of sanity and I would no longer be responsible for my actions.

I got home, headed up the stairs with my little bag of goods that I was promised would work on the first try. I sanded the edges of the newly cut pipe to smooth them out, remove burrs etc, slide on one end of the Sharkbit fitting, lock it into place like I was instructed to do, heard the popping sound that I was supposed to hear and hope was slowly returning. I slid the other end of the fitting on the pipe, heard the pop and then tried to pull it apart with all my might and what do you know? That shit was STUCK! I could have cried again I was so happy. I once again instructed the boy child to turn the water on, towel in hand this time so I didn’t get sprayed in the face incase for some unknown reason this WAS NOT the problem, and lo and behold, there was no water leaking, not from anywhere much less spraying out.

Relief washed over me for the simple fact that I was going to be able to take a shower before going to sleep and secondly, it was fixed. However, I now had a dismantled Bathroom Number Two and a partially dismantled Bathroom Number Three and the biggest mess since the removal of the kitchen ceiling.

But you know what? I had running water again.

I insulated the shit out of the pipes and the exterior walls. Part of the reason for the freeze up was that I had insulated from the upstairs, the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom and no heat from the inside of the house could reach the pipes and they were basically exposed to the weather with only the roof to insulate them. This time around, the inside of the roof was insulated as well as the walls out to the sides where the interior walls didn’t go to. Plastic was stapled in and it was left that way for a while to test the quality of my handiwork. Once I was satisfied that foam pipe insulators and massive amounts of insulation around that was suitable I moved on to once again seating the bathtub.

Since I was happy with the way I had done it the second time, I just put the tub back the same way BUT not before stepping into it while it was sitting on one of the bolts for the toilet and bending it just enough to crack the porcelain covering the steel. I said a quick “Woo-sah” and carried on with a mental note to figure out how to repair that at a later date. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, the worst thing had ALREADY happened.

Once the tub was back in and not before placing Durarock on the floor because I would be tiling, I could move on again to cement board and drywall. I changed my mind about the end of the tub and ended up just framing a space to tile to use as a shelf when taking luxurious long baths (what the hell is that?). This worked out better in the long run since it made it seem slightly larger and left a space for another shelf later on once it was finished.

Revised wall at the end of the tub

I hadn't changed any of the plumbing or wiring, but I did add an outlet so that involved moving a wire but it wasn't anything I wasn’t capable of. Once all that was done and I was satisfied (as I can get) with how it would turn out I proceeded to finish the drywall and mud and at the end of the day was feeling very very accomplished. Happy with the progress.

My friend came over later that day and we were having some drinks, she basically kept me sane with copious amounts of vodka when she felt like the stress level was getting out of hand. She would either show up with vodka and sprite zero or tequila and a bag of frozen goodness that could be turned into margaritas. After a couple of drinks and a few trips outside for a smoke I began to realize that I had not once, all day, seen my cat! I went outside and called for her because she was always in by the time it was dark and she was a little piggy so going a few hours without food for her was cause for panic. I called out the back door, then I called out the front. I walked through the house to see if I’d accidentally locked her in a closet and looked under my bed and check the boy childs room to see if she was camping out in there. I grabbed a flashlight and went to the creepy basement and looked under the house in the dirt area to see if she was there cuz she liked to go chase spiders down there sometimes. I came back up baffled and now starting to worry about my Blue Kitty.

Her Royal Catness

My friend jokingly says, you didn't drywall her into the wall did you? I was like, NOOOOO……..right? Nooooo. Well, when the walls were open, nosy kitty liked to go into the walls and creep around and find god knows what because really, I have no idea what’s inside the walls other than what I could see when I was working on the roof. The upstairs area of my house is really a converted attic so there is about 4 to 5 feet of space behind the walls where the slant makes it unusable. There was actually quite a bit more stuff in the walls that I saw when the roof was off than I really wanted to know was in the walls. Like an old mattress that just had springs left. With how my imagination works, that’s just creepy. And, it was inside of MY bedroom wall. Ew!

By this time I’m getting a little more freaked out and I cracked a can of chicken, because she didn’t like tuna, hoping that just the sound of it would send her running as it usually did. No kitty. Hmmmm. The wall theory was starting to seem plausible. I go upstairs calling my kitty kitty the whole way hoping that she was just hiding somewhere and would come running and was sleeping so soundly that she hadn’t heard the can opening. No kitty. I go into my now drywalled and mudded second bathroom and timidly call, “kitty, kitty, kitty!” I hear a muffled meow in response. I call her again, “Blue Kitty!” I hear a louder but still muffled meow. Holy fucking shit, I drywalled my fucking cat into the wall!! My announcement sent my friend into such fits of laughter that I’m pretty sure she wet herself and was unable to stand up straight. I, on the other hand, was quickly devising a plan to get Blue Kitty out of the wall with as little damage to the newly mudded seams as possible. Seriously? Only me.

I decided my best bet was to remove a piece of the cement board around the tub since there was no mud on those seams and hope that she could get out from wherever she was through there. Four screws later and the board was out and now I was calling for my cat into the wall which of course sent my friend into another hysterical fit of laughter and now since it didn’t seem so bad and I was sitting on the edge of the tub calling into the wall for my cat AND the vodka and exhaustion was starting to take effect I started to get a bad case of the giggles as well.

It wasn’t long before Blue Kitty came peeking out of the wall looking at me like I had done this on purpose just to torture her and she had great plans of doing something awful to one of my favorite pairs of shoes in retaliation. I wanted to grab her but now she was covered in insulation from other parts of the walls and the dust from one hundred plus years of whatever settling behind the walls and I’d already showered. I grabbed her by the scruff to inspect her for filth and she was indeed filthy and now the only option was to give her a bath. And kitties just LOVE baths. It was like adding insult to injury. I didn’t want her insulation covered body snuggling into my bed but I had to get the wall closed so she didn’t run back in there when she was all wet. I handed her to my friend, and grabbed the cement board and put a couple screws in to secure it. You’d think I’d just close the door, but there was no door, not for a very long time. Then I was off to bathe kitty and luckily I’d had a few drinks or the lashing I took for the bathing probably would have hurt a lot more. It was for her own good though. Really.

Cat Rescue Area with test paint

Once the cat rescue was done, the cement board back up, the mud sanded and the window trimmed it was time to paint. Generally I obsess over paint colors but a few days before, I ran into the store, grabbed a sample, said yep that’s it, one gallon in Kitchen and Bath and left within ten minutes of getting there. I’d already painted the ceiling with leftover paint from the downstairs bath and the kitchen so I just needed to paint the walls so the tiling could begin which hadn't even been picked out or purchased.

The next trip to Lowes was to pick tile, try to make it as inexpensive as possible but aesthetically pleasing, neutral and timeless unlike the Elvis sink and stucco walls that were there before.

It didn’t take very long to make the tile decision and that even included a handy dandy design I planned to work into it.

The plan was to get it done the next weekend and since I didn’t really know what I was doing, careful measurements were made then taped out on the dining room floor and everything was laid out in the space to the exact measurement that it would be once it went in. Or so we though. Things never go as thought but in this case, they mostly did. Mostly. Also, the dining room seemed like the best spot to do all the layout since I was cutting tile on the dining room table.

Before

In Progress

Getting the tile up was pretty easy, drilling the holes for the water and other things that have to come into a tub not so easy but it worked out. We only broke a couple tiles and only swore a little. We got it done in a day, including the floor so that I could grout the next day when it was all dry and well, ready for grout. Once the grout was done, I stood back and looked and was pleased. It actually turned out a lot better than I anticipated and this meant it was SO CLOSE to done. One more thing done! One more thing I would never have to do again!

I have this thing in bathrooms, I like to tile behind the toilet because a) its easier to clean and having a boy child I know how dirty it can get, and b) because you NEVER HAVE TO PAINT BEHIND A TOILET!! Who wants to do that? So, this bathroom got the tile treatment behind and around the toilet. It’s just better that way and hell, I was going to live there a long time so why not make it how I want it. Right?

Tile BEHIND toilet

Once the tile and grout was done, I already had the toilet that was originally in there so I just had to get some wax thingie, technical term there, shove it in the hole and bolt that bad boy down. A new water hose later and the toilet was in full working order. Yay. I still didn't have a sink but meh, all things in good time right? I’d gotten it to mostly functional, so I was happy. No door, no sink, but mostly functional.

I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do for a door, but I was always thinking… A pocket door seemed to be the best idea since there was no room for the door to open in because of the slant of the roof and I wasn’t even sure there was room for a door to open out because of the pony wall I had built. I’d seen a sliding barn door style getup somewhere in a house online or something and decided that was what I wanted, needed, had to have. The only problem was that I didn’t know what it was called and to try to search for something you need to buy when you don’t know what it’s called only what it looks like, makes it a little bit difficult.

I finally found what I was looking for at Johnson Hardware and luckily I had gotten some doors from a friend for helping him move and as luck would also have it one of them had this awesome wavy glass in it. Not only was I going to have a super awesome door, I was going to have a super awesome door with wavy glass that the light from the new window could come through making the hallway just a little bit brighter. I felt like a freaking genius but quickly reminded myself that really, it just all kind of came together that way.

Totally cool right? It's even level so it slides right.

The hardware for my door was about $75 and had to be ordered online because I couldn't find it anywhere in town and that meant I had to wait. And wait. And wait. I finally got it and excitedly opened the box to find that it looked a little more complicated than I thought it would be and required drilling into the top and bottom of the beautiful door to mount the hardware that would slide along a track that hung from the wall above it. And the track had to be cut. It all got done, just slower than I thought it would and it worked out beautifully. Finally I got a pedestal sink mainly because it fit, threw an antique shelf in there that I’d picked up somewhere, hung some towel racks and wah lah! Done! And quite lovely I might add.