Demolition Days & Plumbing the Shower

I am not sure where I left off, but there was a few day break between shopping for most things and the beginning of the rest of the demolition. During that time, I ordered the paint, picked up towels, curtain rods and exchanged the grout for the tile a couple of times.

Then this happened.


In about a day and a half, hubby managed to remove all sheet rock, insulation from the ceiling, the bath tub, half the flooring, light fixtures, light switches, mirror and wall cabinet, the window and the back wall. Things were looking really good and surprising big in our empty little bathroom. :)

That's when the plumbing began and the problems started. The short version is that plumbing is difficult. The bath tub had to be turned into a shower and it took many hours and help from the neighbor to get it all figured out. Then the tub was brought in through the hole in the wall and holes were drilled to the plumbing. The studs in the wall were replaced and the new window installed. Then we realized our first BIG mistake. One of the plumbing pieces was put in upside down. So if it actually was to work, then the hot would be cold and the spigot would be the shower head and vice versa in both cases.
It turns out it didn't work and it had to be righted. So the tub had to be removed and the plumbing reworked. All of the plumbing and reworking took most of two days. The last 2 evening have found the bathroom looking like this. The blue that you see is just what you might think, a tarp acting as our wall for 2 evening in early February. The other great thing about plumbing is that if you can't get it right, you can't turn the water back on. We have been without water at our house for most of 3 days now.
But doesn't the shower look great? I think so. The last pieces of the shower puzzle that my husband tackled today was attaching the faucet handles. This also did not go well. Either directions were bad, or directions weren't followed, or pieces were missing. The story is a little wishy washy, but when the water was turned on, it couldn't be turned off. So parts need to be purchased in the morning and we'll spend one more night without a wall or water.

The Bathroom Remodel - Before Pictures

The Bathroom Before

We are finally remodeling our small 1970's family bathroom for a few reasons. Mainly, it is because of the shower, or lack there of in this case. We are purchasing all the supplies and materials this week. Hoping to begin demolition and reconstruction shortly after. My husband has claimed that he is capable of completing all of the work himself. I have insisted that we hire some of his highly skilled friends to assist. The compromise is that they will help with the shower install since we are removing the outside wall of the house to bring in a complete new shower and it is the rainy season and we have a toddler. A giant whole in the wall could be disastrous for our marriage.
As I am the number cruncher and analyst in the family, I will be tracking the spending and updating as we go.
Cost:
Tile $80.52
Tile supplies, mortar & grout $84.32
Bamboo vanity $300

This would be our current non existent shower. Notice the beautiful piece of scrap wood that affixes our shower head to the wall and the deteriorating drywall that lines the shower.

Our vanity.

This would be the close up of the shower wall and the holes in the drywall.

The lighting above the mirror.

The view of the ceiling light fixture and heating vent. Notice no other vents.

At this point, we have just realized that we purchased a vanity that was made for someone else but is too deep for our bathroom by about 3.5 inches. In a bathroom this small, this isn't going to work. My husband talked to the cabinet maker about resizing the piece and he will do it free of charge.

Next problem was the tile, we found something that we liked better than what we already bought at a slightly cheaper price yesterday. But, the tile we liked came in a big run of tiles that were all very different. We really liked some of the tiles, and didn't like others. So we had to buy almost double the amount of tiles that we needed to ensure that the boxes had enough of the ones that we liked. Does that even make sense? We can return the full tiles we don't use at the end. The total cost of this project might never be known.

The last situation that we had to tackle was the counter top and sink. The only criteria that we both wanted was an under-mount sink. The problem being, where we live, there are very few options for custom counter tops with under-mounted sinks. The first choice was paperstone, which is an eco friendly option, but the package deal that would have worked had a cream colored sink. I thought that would be ok until I really thought about the new white toilet and six foot tall white shower and surround that were going in right next to the cream sink. The only other option was Corian, so we just ordered that today. The sink will be attached to the countertop to form one solid piece, and we were able to save a couple hundred dollars by picking a color that they had extra of and not ordering our own sheet. Still, that is $668 for a sink and counter top that is barely more than 3 feet long. I don't want to dwell on that any longer.

Demolition has already started, but I will start a whole new post from here.