Shower, Floors & Paint....Done!

Wow! It's been a busy week, but we got a lot done! The shower and floors are tiled and there's a fresh coat of paint on the walls. It feels like a whole new room.

We still have the counter tops, sinks and faucets to go and then eventually a nice shower door. Then we'll be ready to move on to the next bathroom...it'll seem like a piece of cake compared to this project!

Slow Start, Great Finish

Well, today didn't start off on the greatest note. Our circular saw had some issues and jammed up. Our friend, who was coming to help us, had forgotten about a previous engagement and wasn't able to come. We realized we bought the wrong size of pipe for the shower drain. I was almost in tears at noon with everything that was going wrong. We were supposed to make great progress today and now it wasn't going to happen. Thankfully we were able to return the saw for a new [and better] one, and we bought the right size of pipe while at home depot for the saw. We thought we were all ready to square off the "hole" and patch with plywood, so we thought we were going to get a lot of the "heavy lifting" done today. But the reality was that we had to pound in most of the nails, remove some of them that were close to where we'd be making the cut and we still had a few pieces of the top layer of plywood to remove, so we had plenty to do and got a lot done. By 8:30 PM we'd squared off the hole, removed all the stray staples and nails and cleaned up after ourselves. Here's what it looks like: Notice that we had to tear a bunch of the closet floor out too.

We went to put the shower pan in to mark where we needed to make the whole in the floor to rough in the drain for the shower, and guess what...it was about 1/4 of an inch too big. They only make shower pans in certain "standard" sizes and 60 inches was the one that the measurements told us we'd need. Not to worry, this is just a hurdle, and we think we've figured out how to take care of it. See the plywood under the backerboard on the right side of the picture...there is our 1/4 inch! Once we take a piece of it out, our shower pan should slide right in. Whoever did the previous bathroom remodel was plywood-happy, that's for sure.

We're inching closer and closer. What started out as a downer day, actually turned out OK.

Bye Bye Mold & Dry Rot!

We think we've successfully removed all of the moldy, rotten subfloor! What a relief to have that nasty stuff out of our house (although it's still sitting in our driveway). Obviously we took the toilet out too, it hasn't made it to the garage yet though. Next step, square off our lovely hole we've made so we can fit new plywood in and then I can begin tiling! Don't worry, some of the black that you see on the lowest level of the floor is just discoloration from the barrier that was beneath the lowest level of subfloor we tore out. It probably saved us from having to tear everything out down to the floor joists. Here's a photo of the highlight of my day...

Our new shower head arrived. I know that it was probably a little premature to install it, but I was just so excited and needed to have something, if only one thing complete. :)

Pull or Pound? That is the question.

Progress is slow. Only having a couple of hours each day during nap time is kind of limiting. Trying to be quite as not to wake the lil man is also a challenge! We tore back the first layer of plywood to find another layer of linoleum...and LOTS of staples. Ugh!

The discolored area was even bigger on the lower level of linoleum.

Under the linoleum was a very saturated piece of plywood that will have to be torn out. We've sprayed all of the mold and mildew with bleach water (thank for the tip Wendy), and that has really cleaned things up. It really helps us determine what we'll have to take out and what was just on the surface, and I feel killing the mold and mildew will help clear our sinuses up a little too.

So, the question is, what do we do with all these staples? Pull them up, which we've tried to do and haven't been real succesful (those buggers are stronger than we are) or pound them in and then put the hardi-board down for tiling?

The saga will continue...hopefully uneventfully. :)

It's Time to Remodel!

When we started seeing this gray discoloration in our master bathroom, we knew something was up and that it was probably time to do a little remodeling. We were pretty sure it's not a good thing when your flooring changes colors. :)Here's the culprit - a tiled bench in the shower. Obviously this picture is after we removed the tile and some of the backer board. Lovely. As we tore it apart we could tell exactly why we were having issues...the previous owners must've hired a 3 year old to install it.

The shower stall after the removal of the tile, bench frame and shower pan (which I, Kelli, removed all by myself...just had to give myself a pat on the back).

Next I tore up the linoleum and found a really pretty, black, moldy mess.

While I was tearing out the flooring, I notice in a crevice by the wall that it looked like there was another layer of linoleum under this top layer of plywood. Sure enough, I was right...

Yeah, so that's the mess that we have going on at our house. We're hoping that the lower level of linoleum acted as a barrier and that we'll just be able to pull the top layer of plywood and the lower level of linoleum off and we'll be good to go. Keeping our fingers crossed!

Not sure why someone would think it was easier to lay plywood over the existing flooring, rather than simply pull the old linoleum up and relay linoleum? I guess if you like playing with power tools...