Bathroom progress? Really?

Do you remember that I was doing a bathroom remodel awhile back? Which began, oh, um, let's say, while back? If you recall, this is what the bottom layer looked like, after ripping two layers out which were on top of this.

Yesterday, I finished ripping up that layer, in preparation for a tile guy to come and do my floor, which he did today...


...as you can see in this picture. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a tiled bathroom on the first floor of my house. Unbelievable, really. The guy's coming tomorrow to grout the floor, and then it's off to do the rest of the remodel, which won't take too long at all. This floor was a huge, massive obstacle to me. I was honestly stymied by a fear of screwing it up. The money I spent having a guy who does this every day of his life is worth every penny I will spend.

I'm dogsitting this weekend for a couple of friends. This dog is in need of therapy...I've never met a more skittish, nervous dog. I awoke last night to the sound of her puking in my bedroom, the poor thing. (I'm fearful I'll have a permanent record of the scene of the crime). She's often whining, looking up at me with expectant eyes, and I have no idea what to do with her. Right now, thankfully she's sleeping comfortably on the living room floor.

I'm a dog lover, but without having a fenced in backyard where I can send the dog out to go do her business, I've decided I don't want a dog. Having to leash up a dog every time he or she would want to go pee is a huge deal breaker for me.

On a somewhat related note, I'm wondering how she'll manage having my buddy Steve over today, who's coming to help work on my bathroom. We'll be making noise, drilling things, and I'll be curious to see how she handles all of the noise. I'm thinking not well.

The good news is that the bathroom is going to be making some major headway this weekend.

Bathroom Remodel To Do List

This is primarily for me. When I'm facing a project, I look to try and envision all of the steps that I'll need to go through in order to get it accomplished. So here's my personal to do list for my bathroom.

1. Prepare for lowering ceiling by adding 1 x 1's to the bottom of joists.

2. Run wire for exhaust fan.

3. Cut hole through to the outside for venting exhaust fan

4. Install exhaust fan

5. Install new drywall to ceiling

6. Tape and spackle ceiling and joint between wall and ceiling

7. Prep walls for painting

8. Paint walls and ceiling

9. Finish prepping floor for new flooring.

10. Install new backer board to subfloor

11. Install marble threshold

12. Install new tile

13. Buy and paint new wainscoating, then install.

14. Install chair railing to wainscoating

15. Replace trim pieces around door

16. Paint trim around door and windows. Hmm...I should do THAT before I paint the walls.

17. Install new light fixture

18. Build and install new medicine cabinet

19. Install toilet

20. Install sink

21. Miscellaneous, unforeseen and unavoidable issues.

We'll see if this gets done by November 1.

Bathroom Remodel

I'm back in action today, after a several month hiatus, and I hope to finish my bathroom by the end of October. Today I'm working on finishing getting the wallpaper off the walls. It's been incredibly stubborn, and despite using a steam machine and chemicals, there is a bunch of residual gunk all over the walls. I started in last week using chemicals again, and at the rate it was taking, I realized I'd be at it until January. Time to call in the power tools--go figure that sanding off paper from a wall works.

Anyone need a toilet?

The Easter Vigil service at the Cathedral lasted about three hours Saturday night. Three hours is a long time, and by the time I headed out of town, and filled up at the gas station, I became aware of a serious need to use a bathroom. I asked the gas station clerk if I could use their bathroom.

"We don't have one," she replied.

I looked a little surprised, and probably a bit desperate, so she continued with more information.

"Well, we used to have one, but the owners shut her down when the toilet was stolen."

I tried to stifle a laugh, but was only partially successful.

Who steals toilets?

I tried to imagine the people who did this. Did they stake out the joint? Did they test drive the toilet before stealing it?

"This one's a serious flusher...nothing'll get stuck in this puppy. I think we hit the jackpot with the one, and it's gonna look great in the master bath. I'll call Rod up, and we'll do a little "shopping" on Saturday night. What we're gonna need though, is a diversion, Mary Lou. You're gonna drive up in your car, and go buy a pack of Virginia Slims and some Krispy Kremes. Offer one of each to the clerk, and get her gabbing about how much she hates her job, cuz you know she does. She talks my ear off every time I'm inside, so it shouldn't be too hard, plus you're a Chatty Kathy yourself. It's gonna be a quick job...just gotta unbolt the thing, and break that wax seal. Rod and I will pop her in the back of his Jimmy, throw a tarp over it, and then we'll go put her in. When you see us leave, follow us home--and don't leave the Krispy Kremes behind!"

Bathroom inspiration

To keep me rolling along, I'm going to post some pictures of my plans for the bathroom.

So here's the tile I'm going to be using, but with either a grey or black grout to make the white squares really pop, similar to my upstairs bathroom. Found this at Lowe's, after already buying another tile. I like this a lot better for my house, and it was 20% off!


A room shot of the tile.



The wall is going to be wainscoting, like this picture. It's a little wider than the standard wainscoating that you usually find. Most is 1 1/2 or 2 inches wide. I liked seeing a slightly wider beading, and I was able to find some in town that's 3 inches wide. I like it. Still zeroing in on the chair rail and the base trim pieces. I don't like the standard chair rail that you usually find. I really like the stuff in this photo, so I'll be doing some more searching around, probably online.



I've been thinking of a wall color similar to this bathroom below. I think it would look great, and fit well with the color scheme of the rest of my house.




This is the bathroom sconce I'll be using, but in nickel finish instead of bronze like this.



And these are the toilet and sink I'll be using, but in white. I've had these for at least two years, maybe three. About time they got into the bathroom, don't you think?

Wallpaper is down!

Just finished up. Spent about six or so hours on it today. Started with the steamer. Rented it for four hours and only got two strips of wallpaper down. It was a total POS, with more steam coming out the release valve than came out of the attachment I was using. Oh well. Talked to a friend who had good luck with one of those sprays, so I bought two kinds: Dif, and something called WP Powerblaster. The latter worked pretty well, but I'll still have to either go over the entire surface again to get the last remnants off, or just sand it off. We'll see what I feel like doing. I think I'll have to end up sanding anyway, so I'll probably just do that.

Next step: start adding some firring strips to the ceiling to bring the drywall down a little bit, and then getting the exhaust fan situated and drilling the hole for the exhaust vent. Then I'll have to seriously begin thinking about the electric work that needs to be done, and in between, I'll work on patching the walls. The floor will wait until all of that messy stuff is done.

But for now, it's time to pour myself some Calvados, and light up a cigar.

Bathroom Funk

So I finished ripping up the second layer of subfloor today in my bathroom. I feel like I'm at an archaeological dig. This floor is amazingly ugly, uglier than the last, believe it or not.

Check it out:



What's bizarre about this, is that the floor seems to have a funky stench to it...a smell I'm not familiar with. Who knew this was just waiting to be unleashed all these years?

And it begs the question: did it smell like this 50 years ago?

This is as low as I'm going. The good thing about the stench is I'll be motivated to put that baby under wraps again, and soon!

Bathroom Remodel

I've been chipping away at my bathroom, working on it when I have time. Today, it was time to tackle the floor, ripping out two layers of old linoleum and their corresponding subfloors.

I'm halfway through ripping up the second subfloor, which is tedious due to an overly zealous use of nails by the previous owners. I'm basically eating away at tiny sections, using the crowbar and sledge hammer. Slow going, and I thought I'd take a bit of a dinner break and post something on how the remodel is coming along.

Here you can see what was underneath the paneling. This is the original wall covering--basically a plastic faux tile in a delightful salmon color. Let's hope that never makes a comeback! You can see the swirling pattern of the adhesive, which was adhered really quite strongly in places, enough to rip off the plastic tile underneath, revealing the plaster below.



I wish that the original towel rack still existed. You can see that it was attached directly to the wall and was made of porcelain. Would be nice to have, along with the built in toilet paper thingie which you can see in the first picture.



Here you can see the outline of where the pedestal sink used to be. All of this was ripped out as one of the first things my predecessors did here when they moved into the house. She seemed proud of this fact.



Here's a look at the ceiling, the impetus for all of this remodeling in the first place. An exhaust fan is going up in there (along with a new ceiling--thought that would be a good idea).



The mess where the sink is going to go.



The mess underneath where the sink is going to go.



I thought you'd all like a close-up of the beautiful linoleum that was on this floor for a long time.


I'm thinking I might just use this for a wallpaper on my laptop.

The Demolition has begun!

I'm in the middle of tearing apart my downstairs bathroom. It's amazing what people will do to houses, isn't it? My bathroom is a very generic, blah bathroom, with a tiny built in sink. When I came to pick up the keys to my house, and the previous owner gave me the final tour, she gazed fondly on the bathroom, clearly proud of what she and her husband had done to it.

"When we moved into the house," she began, "there was one of those awful pedestal sinks here in the bathroom. My husband took care of that right away, ripped it out, and built this nice cabinet on his ten-inch table saw. Made such an improvement, don't you think?"

I cringed as I heard this, pining for what used to be. The moment I saw that bathroom, I knew that it needed a pedestal sink, and my plans were to put one in, and restore the bathroom to its original condition.

I've had the sink and the toilet, plus the new light fixtures, for probably two years now, and for whatever reason, I just haven't gotten around to tearing up the old one. I suppose it's because once you start, you're committed. And I'm certainly committed now! I'm tired of waiting for my new bathroom. And besides, my tub sprung a leak a few months ago, that forced me to rip out the ceiling.

I've been wrestling for the past couple of hours with taking down the wall cabinet and dismantling the sink cabinet. Had to take a little breather, but I'm going back in for some more destruction!

I'll post some pictures of the progress. I've got today, Friday, maybe Saturday (is the painting party still on, Torey?), and next Monday. We'll see how far along I make it.