Renovations

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Bathroom Renovations - October/November/December 2002

Week 1 - Piles of stuff in the living room, ripping up the floor to find out how rotten it really was and smashin' up drywall.
This first week involved buying most of the supplies we'd need for the process - i.e. new tiles, tub, flooring, paint etc. and piling it in our living room or "staging area". We then ripped out the giant old vanity and started pulling up the floor to figure out the origin of the suspicious soft spot. It turns out some Einstein had filled a rotten hole with putty which was rotting further. Luckily it was only a small section meaning we only needed to replace a few floor boards, instead of the entire thing. After the floor was up, we smashed the crap out of the tile walls and pulled out all the incredibly rotten drywall. We also hauled out the old (peach) tub to assess the floor underneath. Thankfully, it was just fine.
It was at about this point when we realized we should have taken some "before" photos. Alas...

Week 2 - New Floor, joists, and tub.
The second week involved cutting the new floor boards and plywood sub-floor (thanks Jeff!), as well as replacing the rotten joists in the wall. At first we thought there had been a fire because of the black, crumbly appearance of the joists but our genius friend Larry explained that it was dry rot. Yick! We had to keep covering any hole in the floor for vents or plumbing because the cats kept trying to climb down into them. Sephie almost ended up in the furnace one day. By the end of the week we'd managed to install the new soaker tub and I was able to have the first bath. It only leaked a little.

Week 3 - Evil Drywall!
We recruited Jeff again for the horrific task of cutting and hanging drywall. Well, that part wasn't nearly as bad as the mudding and taping. I don't know how anyone does a good job of that. Anyone who is considering home renovations should pay a professional to drywall. It sucks beyond all belief.

Week 4 - Tiles! Tiles! Tiles!
Tiling, unlike drywalling is actually pretty fun. Theo and I had a great system going to get them up quickly, thanks to the help of cute little plastic tile spacers. I don't know what people did before these things were invented but I'm glad I didn't ever have to tile in those times. We were also able to see real progress at this stage so it was pretty exciting. I also got to use a tile saw, which is like a mini table saw that is run on water. It was cool - and extremely messy.

Week 5 - Hot Grout Action and getting the tiles cut (finally!) for around the fixtures.
After many smashed tiles as we tried to drill out the holes for the fixtures (yes, even using a ceramic tile bit) we finally gave up and took them to Revy to be cut there. Once all the tiles were adhered to the wall we were able to start grouting the cracks. People talked about what a chore grouting is, but again, compared to the drywalling it was a breeze. We were thrilled with how professional and finished it looked as it was filling in. The instructions said to let the grout cure from 3 days to 2 weeks. We didn't know where in the spectrum we should be so we were incredibly cautious and waited the full 2 weeks before painting the grout lines with silicone sealer.

Week 6 - Painting, flooring and caulk. Heh.
Since we had to wait for the grout to dry before doing anything else with the tub, I decided to do a faux finish paint job on the walls, mixing grey with the blue to tie in to the colour of the tiles and cabinets, as well as softening the Windows 95 colour of blue. We bought one of those crazy split rollers to mix the colour and it worked really well, although there are chunks of lambswool from the roller in the paint on the wall. Oh well...
After the paint was dry, I lay the laminate flooring. This isn't dificult but it is incredibly time consuming. I also did all the cutting in the carport so I ran up and down our stairs at least 100 times that day. My legs were actually sore the next day from the stair running. It was a little absurd.
Once the floor was down we were able to start caulking the tub and the edges of the floor. This is incredibly messy and I didn't do a very good job. (In fact, we have to redo some of the bottom caulking in the tub - Here's a hint, if you ever do this, fill the tub with water to sink it down as far as it will go before caulking the gap. That way it won't split later) This was a big hassle but I did get to make a bunch of terrible jokes about not being able to go out because I was covered in caulk. Heh.

Week 7 - Baseboards, cabinets and mirrors.

Once the caulking was dry around the floor we painted, cut and installed the baseboards. We naïvely cut the baseboards to 45 degrees but once they were getting installed we realized that the corners of the rooms weren't square - why would they be when nothing else was. Oh well was our reaction and we haven't done anything to them since.
I was finally able to put together some of the Ikea cabinets that had been sitting in our living room for 7 weeks. I discovered after putting together the wall cabinets to hang above the toilet that they'd given met the wrong ones - they were meant to hang vertically instead of horizontally. Another Oh well and I hung them anyway. The tall cabinet was the right one at least and the mirror was perfect.
Sephie discovered at this point that it was fun to hide in between inner and outer layers of the shower curtain. Her tail tends to give her hiding spot away though...

Week 8 - Sink and second cabinet
Finally in the closing stretch we went back to our buddies at Hillcrest Plumbing and got more supplies and information on how to install our pedestal sink. It was time consuming but not too hard. Once that was done, we were able to start brushing our teeth in the bathroom again. Both Theovis and I went into the kitchen automatically and then had to walk back to the bathroom in order to brush our teeth the first night. It felt really good to have that piece taken care of.
After the sink was in I put together the last of the Ikea cabinets and installed it on the other side along with a towel thingy. The bathroom renovation was officially (mostly) finished. Yipee!!!

There are still a couple things to do, but they can wait for now.