Delaying Tactic #3 -- Redoing the Bathrooms

Last spring the Wizard and I went to a Home Show because there were a number of things that needed to be done to and around our house -- the kitchen cabinets were pieces of crap (so this was marginally a de-crapifying project), all 3 bathrooms in the house needed various amounts of work, carpets needed to be replaced, etc. We also wanted to replace a rotting patio cover and get some estimates for screening in the balcony off our bedroom.

We talked to various people who did one thing or another (e.g., kitchen cabinets, sunrooms) and to some general contractors who could do the whole kit-n-kaboodle. People came to the house and looked at what needed to be done, including two general contractors who went over the house with us and discussed every possible thing we could want done.

Then the interesting stuff happened. One general contractor never got back to us. Never. He had had some great ideas that hadn't occurred to us; we were actually looking forward to hearing what he had to say. But not only did he not call us back, he didn't return our phone calls when we tried to reach him. We are pretty sure he's still alive and working in Dodge, because we saw him at this year's Home Show. But whatever.

The second general contractor who came to the house did get back to us with an estimate -- an estimate that was approximately equal to what we had paid for this house in the first place. He wanted to tear down about half the house to the studs, completely replace all 3 bathrooms and the kitchen, including thousands of dollars of kitchen applicances to replace appliances that were (at the time) all working just fine. We didn't quite laugh him out of the house, but it was close.

The upshot was that last summer we replaced the kitchen cabinets using a local kitchen contractor. There were a few small glitches, but all in all, we are happy with the results. We also replaced the patio cover outside Sports Nut's bedroom and enclosed the balcony upstairs with a very nice screened room that the cats (and humans) enjoy on a daily basis. An unexpected bonus to covering and enclosing the balcony is that we no longer get the morning sun in our faces, and the average daytime temperature of the bedroom is a good 5 to 10 degrees lower because it doesn't get direct sun all day.

Ahh... the workmen arrive for the day!

What workmen? This summer we are getting needed work done in the bathrooms. Here's why:

Bathroom #1 (master bedroom):
The previous owners put in a Jacuzzi tub, but didn't put anything under the tub to support it. By the time we had been using the tub to shower in (never as a Jacuzzi) for 5 years, the fiberglass bottom of the tub had cracked.

We tried caulking the crack so that it wouldn't leak, but it wasn't long before we noticed water spots on the ceiling of the bathroom below this tub. Oh, well.

Bathroom #2: Main downstairs bathroom.
We started taking showers in the main bathroom downstairs, along with Sports Nut and Future Vet (who was still here at the time). Then one morning while I was showering, the tile wall of the shower fell in on me.

Obviously, this bathroom also needed some work.

Bathroom #3: Media Guy's room (aka Guest Bath)
In the meantime, the shower in Media Guy's room, which theoretically doubles as the guest room because Media Guy keeps his room neater than anyone else in the family, had a leak. We had already replaced the shower pan and done some tile work, but there was still a leak through the tile into the attached bedroom. A shower curtain inside the shower stall has been keeping the leak at bay.

So this year when we went to the Home Show, we were primarily interested in talking to people who did bathroom work. We talked to several people at the show and one not only came to the house and looked at what we wanted to do, he followed up. And now he and his workers are busy on the first of the three bathrooms that need work -- the master bathroom.

Though I am not personally doing any of the work to fix the bathrooms, the bathroom work has prevented me from getting back to decrapifying on a full-time basis. The Wizard and I had to go pick out tile for all three bathrooms, and fixtures, and make decisions about all the thises and thats. But look what's happened in the bathroom already!

Here's where we started, with a cracked and leaking Jacuzzi tub:

And an adequate tiled surrounding area:

First they took out the tub and hauled it away. They had to cut it in half to get it down the stairs, but that's another story. And then they took down the tile and existing walls to get to the studs.

And, of course, to get to the old plumbing:


Then it turned out that they needed to take up a bit of the old tile floor to get at even more plumbing. We are all hoping that the original tile can be replaced or, failing that, the we can match the existing tile rather than having to replace the entire floor -- which continues out into the vanity area.

Hmm.... lovely old linoleum beneath that tile!

Materials to fix the walls and floor were delivered, just in time for the deluge. (Heavy rain and hail, which our newly planted garden fortunately seems to have survived.)

The work continues. New plumbing is in place. Check out that flexible plastic tubing -- no more copper or PVC pipes for water:


That pipe sticking up in the middle is where the new shower drain is going. I guess the plumber wanted to make sure no one missed it.

And new, extremely sturdy subflooring is now in place as well:

And, as I type, there is more banging going on upstairs. We are not putting in another tub upstairs, just a large and (we hope) luxurious shower. The new shower pan is supposed to arrive today.

With any luck, the Drama Queen will get her laundry done before they have to do something drastic like turn off the water to the house.

Oooh.... the shower pan just arrived!

More later.....