Lego and Sawdust

Well, that was better.

I added some shims to the wood blocking behind the faucet. It ended up being an extra piece of 1×4 behind the main faucet and an extra piece of 1×4 and a piece of quarter inch plywood behind the pipes. Sorry, no photo of the blocking (I was so happy I forgot) but here’s the newly-moved faucet. Note the difference between this picture and yesterday’s.

I didn’t want any more surprises, so I tried putting the faceplate on and attaching the handle, with a piece of tile to judge the right thickness. It worked like a charm.

Then I managed to get the rest of the Durock concrete board up around the tub. Note the six inches of space at the top. A tile will overlap the seam between the Durock and the drywall by about 4 inches so there will be a two inch (or so) bit of drywall showing at the top, that will be painted. This allows us to use just full tiles, no cutting partial tiles. Much simpler to lay out.

Lesson: The tub box is designed to be used to cover the tub during construction. I didn’t find this out until a couple of days into the reno. I added two fence boards (they come conveniently five feet long) as a sort of scaffold from corner to corner. I can now stand comfortably on the tub to do the work without fear of damaging the tub finish if I drop anything.

We stopped at Rona to pick up some more drywall to replace the stuff I ripped out yesterday, and to pick up a few other things. One of the important ones was Alkali Resistant fiberglass drywall tape. Apparently normal fiberglass drywall tape will get eaten by the alkali in mortar and cement board, so you need special tape to do the seams in cement board. The clerks at McDiarmid Lumber had never heard of it, and tried to sell me some special acrylic glue to spread on the board before I tape it to protect the tape, then some special chemicals to add to the mortar and then I just left. Rona had special Durock tape sitting right out with the normal drywall tape. Sometimes I wonder how McDiarmid stays in business. If it wasn’t a couple of minutes from my house (as opposed to 15 minutes to Home Depot and Rona) I’d never go there.

Lesson: This is a big one. GET A DRYWALL DIMPLER. A proper one. I think my “issues” with drywall are directly the result of having never heard of this. I used a normal screwdriver bit for a while, and had all sorts of trouble. I bought one of these:

It was no better. It wrecks the screw heads and wears out in a very short time. It still rips the paper much of the time. (Okay, *I* rip the paper, but I wow, hate these things). Today I was in Rona buying some more drywall and I saw a proper dimpler.

It was $20, but it was the best $20 I have spent in a long time. I actually laughed with joy the first time I used it. You can drive a screw at full speed on the drill, and it goes “WHIRR CLICK” and pops off the screw and you have a perfectly set drywall screw with a nice circular divot around it. No worn screw head, no torn paper, no babying the screw for the last sixteenth of an inch. ZIP, WHIRR, CLICK and it’s done. I got the drywall around the bathtub up in minutes. I actually called Jennifer in to show her, I was so excited. It sounds kind of silly, and it might seem obvious to some who read this, but the difference is mind-blowing. I can’t imagine the amount of time I have wasted doing mediocre drywall work in the last few years because I simply hadn’t seen a $20 tool. Arg!

If you have any drywall to do, YOU MUST GET ONE OF THESE.

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Cost for this Post:

1 trip to Rona

– $20.99 – Dimpler
– $1.99 – Knife blades (cement board and drywall are hard on blades, buy extras)
– $3.96 – spare drywall bits for the dimpler
$30.18 with taxes
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$20 — Durock fiber seaming tape
$70 — 5 sheets of moisture resistant drywall

Total for today: 120.18

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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Some major setbacks today. I was pretty depressed by dinner time. There were a few successes, but I’ve got some extra work to do.

I started putting up more drywall this morning, and when I stood back and looked, I realized that it just wasn’t very good. I talked to Jennifer (who is going to be doing all the mudding) and she was of the same opinion. There were too many gaps near the corners, a couple of ugly butt joints and it simply wasn’t up to scratch.

We then sat back and planned drywall together. We’d never really worked out exactly what the plan was for tiles and where the cement board should end and normal drywall begin. I got out the tiles and a handful of spacers and laid out a few rows on the dining room table. This gave us specific measurements to use. We also learned that we should overlap a half a tile from the concrete board onto the regular drywall, which means that the transition between the two needs to be placed properly. Apparently the concrete board is difficult to get smooth enough to paint. We’re also going to have a small gap at the top of the wall between the tile and the ceiling, so I’ll have to have a strip of regular drywall at the top of the wall above the concrete board.

Lesson: Lay out a row of tile with your spacers and get real measurements for your tile install, and plan around that rather than trusting that your 8 inch tile is 8 inches exactly and your 1/4 inch spacers are exactly 1/4 inch. Small differences add up to measurable amounts over a number of tiles.

Lesson: Read up on drywall installation to make mudding easier. This book is brilliant and I read most of it just before dinner and it will help immensely.

So I pulled out all of the drywall I’ve installed so far, with the exception of the ceiling. I’ll have to head out and buy some more, but hopefully I’ll feel better about the end result. Drywall makes me feel useless. I regularly miss studs and have multiple empty holes all around some screws, no matter how well I try to measure. Sigh. Ah well, at least the plumbing is going fine.

I wanted to put the concrete board up first, so I can fit the drywall around it. The first board went up just fine. It’s nice that Durock comes in sheets that are exactly the length of a standard bathtub so there’s no cutting for the back wall. The second sheet was a bit more difficult, because there ended up being a lump of concrete on the back of the board that I didn’t notice until I was on the very last screw and it wouldn’t lay flat. I had to back the whole board off again and scrape the back smooth.

Lesson: Check the concrete board for smoothness on the back before putting each sheet up.

I got the long wall of the tub done, the back wall, and then prepared to put up the front wall (where the controls are).

I measured and drilled a hole for the tub spout, and then placed it up in order to measure the location of the faucet. It was then that I noticed that the tub spout pipe was only sticking out a very small amount. Of course! I’d looked up the needed length and measured a pipe and soldered it on, but I’d forgotten that the measurement was from the FRONT of the FINISHED SURFACE. I just made the pipe that long, but it starts a good two inches behind the wall, so it was far too short. Luckily it only took a few minutes to sweat the short one off, cut a new longer pipe and put it on instead.

Okay, problem solved. Back to the concrete board. I marked the location of the handle, took it outside and cut out the circle with a jigsaw. It fit perfectly. I decided to see what it looked like with the chrome face plate on. There is a plastic piece of trim that goes on under the chrome, and it says on it in big letters “IMPORTANT! THIS PIECE MUST BE FLUSH WITH FINISHED SURFACE”. And as I watched in slow motion, it pushed deep into the hole, past the concrete board. So, add the tile thickness and it means that the faucet fixture is plumbed in about 13/16 of an inch too far back. It will have to be moved. I mentioned earlier being a bit lost in the directions on exactly how far the fitting had to be from the surface. The diagram looked nothing like my faucet. I should have stopped right there and checked. Sigh.

I was ready to give up at this point. After pulling out two days worth of drywall and fixing the tub spout, to find out I had to move the faucet that I was so proud of installing was heartbreaking.

I spent some time cleaning up and organizing tools and then had dinner and a glass of wine. Then I went back to the tub and removed all of the pipe straps that kept the faucet in place. With just the pipes supporting it, there is a lot of flex. I am confident that I will be able to simply add some shims behind the existing wood blocking and it will be fine. Disaster averted, but still more work to (re)do.

Tomorrow is Friday and I go back to work on Monday. So it looks like I might get to a “drywall done” point by then, but no further. Tile will have to be done evenings. Jennifer expressed that it was worrying her too, because she was sure that the mudding will take her a week to do and dry completely. The plan now is to get the drywall up and get the seams on the concrete board mudded so perhaps I can start tile while she is still mudding the regular drywall. Then it’s just a matter of painting, flooring and fixtures, all of which we’ve done multiple times before.

So close. SO CLOSE.

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Cost for this Post:

– My pride.
– A few days work.

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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It started out as “Drywall Day”. I was going to get the entire room drywalled except for the tub front. The taps hadn’t arrived yet, so I was going to leave that wall completely open. We were ready to completely finish the room except for that wall if the taps didn’t arrive in time.

We ordered them from HomeDepot.ca online. The store said it would be three to six weeks to get a faucet ordered, and the website promised five to seven working days and free delivery.

Once I ordered the faucet, I got confirmation from PayPal that I had paid, but nothing else. That was on the 4th of October. I phoned Home Depot on the 9th and asked what was up. The lady there said the order was processed and she gave me a UPS tracking number. The UPS tracking number said that the item was DELIVERED to a town in Michigan. Another call to Home Depot confirmed that this was the Moen warehouse, and they often hold up shipments until they have enough to send in a truckload to Canada. They had no idea when it would actually ship.

I called again on the 11th, and they had no more information for me. I did find out that my gmail’s spam filter had caught my initial order confirmation from them, so I was a little less upset that I had been when I thought they hadn’t sent me anything.

I was pretty angry, but there was nothing I could do about it so I went back to drywall I got one sheet up:

And then the doorbell rang. It was UPS!! It turns out that the tracking number I had was just for one part of the delivery from the factory to the warehouse. The shipment from the warehouse to my door was a different shipment, and I never got that information. I thought it was just sitting on a dock somewhere (because the tracking number said so) when it was actually on its way to me!

Here it is, a $281 lump of cast brass and IKEA style instructions, the Moen 3285 faucet:

Actually, that’s just the guts, the part they call the “Moentrol”. It holds the cartridge, a pressure balancing valve, some built-in-water shutoffs and the shower diverter. We wanted the diverter on the wall rather than the tub faucet for durability.

It was pretty intimidating, looking at all these littler parts and springs and cover plates and instructions, but I looked around on youtube and found some good videos about how it all goes together. Terry Love’s plumbing forum is also a fantastic source of help for these sorts of things. There are a number of very patient professional plumbers there who are great at helping DIYers. Chances are anything you want to know has already been asked anyway, and you can search it without having to ask and wait for a response.

The only thing I couldn’t find was exactly what kind of blocking was needed behind the control. I put the faceplate on and held a piece of drywall up to the stud face and put the faceplate flush to the drywall as the instructions say. That gave me a rough idea how far I had behind the control and what I could use for bracing.

I cut the pipes and removed the old faucet after I figured out roughly where the new one would go.

I was VERY nervous about soldering this unit, because it’s quite expensive and I didn’t have much luck with the brass water shutoffs earlier. I watched a number of youtube videos (seeing a theme here? youtube is GREAT for home reno projects) and decided to try it. I marked the location on the wall as per the directions, and then roughly laid out the plan for the pipes. I counted up the fittings I’d need and then made a trip to McDiarmid Lumber to get them. I also picked up some toilet and sink faucet connectors because I know I’ll need them soon.

I dry-fit all the connectors and little pieces of pipe to make sure it would all go together. Then I took them all outside and soldered them on the sidewalk. I didn’t want to have to stress about singeing the drywall or causing a fire or worrying about soldering a brass connector on the bottom of the Moentrol. Doing it outside allowed me to lay the fitting on its back and put each piece in perfect placement before soldering it. It was much easier. The soldering went just fine. I was definitely burning the flux in my earlier failed attempt. I did it once on the controls, but I just painted some flux over top of it and tried again and it worked like a charm. This is actually some of my nicest solder work. I’m quite proud.

Note that in this picture, I have re-installed the cartridge and knob and diverter. To solder the faucet all of the non-brass parts MUST BE REMOVED or they will be destroyed.

I let the work cool, and then took it inside and soldered the last fittings to connect it to the water lines. It was quite wobbly, because the water lines are pretty flexible. Some copper pipe straps and some 2×4 and 2×6 blocking took care of that. The Moentrol is lumpy and oddly shaped, so you can’t just put a 2×4 straight across the back in a 2×4 stud wall. From what I can see (and I really hope it’s right, because it will be a huge pain to change later) a 2×4 behind the source water lines is just the right thickness to mount it properly. It’s rock solid in there now, as I expect it will take some abuse in its lifetime.

Time for the test!

Lesson: The very important first step, according to all the plumbers forums, is not listed in the instructions. turn the water on without the cartridge or shower head on. This flushes all the pipe crud and solder bits and flux lumps and things out of the lines and faucet without gumming up the works of the cartridge or the balancer.

I flushed the lines, then installed all the parts, turned the water on and filled the tub. I checked all the solder joints. No leaks. I checked the tub from below the floor (in my wife’s sewing room in the basement, I’m in the doghouse if it floods). It held, no leaks. I drained the tub to check the drain piping. It held, no leaks. I refilled the tub and splashed water up onto the overflow to test it.

It leaked like a sieve. Arg!

Water was pouring out all over the floor of the sewing room, and into the light fixtures and dripping out through the roof boards. When I had pushed the tub drain back to get it to fit properly, I moved the overflow pipe a smidge out of place so the rubber gasket didn’t fit tightly enough. A good sized lump of plumber’s putty in a ring between the tub and the overflow pipe solved that issue. I tested again: no leaks. Whew.

Not one to waste a good tub of water, I made use of it to rinse off a couple of days worth of drywall grime. It’s tough to renovate without a shower. Jennifer and the kids went swimming today, not in small part because of the free showers. It felt good to clean up, but even better to do it in a tub I installed myself.

After all that was installed and tested I managed to get a couple of more sheets of drywall up before dinner, and then relaxed and wrote blog posts for a while. Having the tub faucet in and working is a huge load off my mind.

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Cost for this Post:

1 trip to McDiarmid Lumber

– $3.70 – All the copper elbows and couplings
– $3.29 – Brass elbow for the shower pipe to screw into
– $1.29 – 1/2 inch copper sweat to brass thread adaptor (the faucet pipe screws into the Moentrol, not solders, for some reason)
– $2.49 – New decorative cover for the shower pipe (one was damaged in transit)
– $8.79 – New right angle shutoff for the toilet
– $21.79 – Sink faucet install kit that includes shutoffs and braised steel hoses
– $6.99 – Braided steel toilet hose
– $3.85 – 11 copper pipe straps
$58.45 with taxes

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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The day started with an early morning trip to Home Depot for insulation. I was planning on leaving this step until last, but Jennifer convinced me that it would be nice to have the closet in the master bedroom back. Once I get the insulation done I can close it up and reinstall all of the closet organizers and get rid of the piles of clothes on the floor.

I was quite confused when I got to Home Depot, because the only insulation they had for ceilings was 24 inches on center or larger. The very large stuff is for laying over top of the joists, but I wanted batts that would fit between my joists which are 18 inches on center. I ended up getting 24 inch width and trimming them down. It was pretty simple, given that the size of the area I was covering was 5 feet by 7 feet. I used on e package of R20 batts, and got one layer in between the joists and one layer laid crosswise over top. R40 is far better than anything else in the rest of the ceiling, so I’m okay with that.

I also picked up a trouble/work light to work up in the attic because I was tired of having to use a flashlight while working. Much nicer. It ended up being quite useful in plumbing the tub as well.

I got the outer wall insulated and vapour barriered:

It was time to get the tub. Yet again my young helpers came in handy, and we hauled it from the back yard into the bathroom.

It wasn’t that heavy, because we have decided to go with an enamelled stainless steel tub. We have heard many conflicting reports about acrylic tubs and how they deal with scratches. We use the tub for things like washing the furnace filters and washing the dog, so we wanted durable material. The tub that we removed was enamelled stainless steel and it was in beautiful shape (except for being fleshy peachy pink), so we decided to stick with that. This tub is a bit wider, but also a bit shallower. It will be easier to use for cleaning because the sides aren’t so high, but it is definitely not a soaker tub.

The tub needs a 2×4 across the back wall for the long edge to sit on, and it needs to be level. There is a conflict here, because the tub also has a large styrofoam block on the bottom that needs to sit flat on the floor. If the back ledge was level, then one end was at least one inch further off the floor than the other, but if it was to sit flat on the foam block, it wasn’t level. I managed to lower the 2×4 enough that the low corner was supported enough to be level and the block was flat on the floor, but it took at least 4 tries. I had to squeeze the tub into place (it fits by about a quarter inch, and the door frame sticks out more than a quarter inch, so getting it in and out is difficult) and then remove it to relocate the 2×4 at least 4 times. It was getting frustrating, but it finally happened.

It looks like I made a small error in preparing the drain piping, because the drain hole was a bit offset from the tub hole.

Luckily, the piping was all ABS, so the entire piece was flexible enough to fit into place with a little pressure. I watched a number of youtube videos on installing drain fittings, so it was straightforward.

Lesson: The drain tool I bought was an incredible help. I can not imagine tightening the drain properly without it. It’s totally worth the 8 bucks. Get one. It paid for itself in just the installation, it would have been even better to have had it for the demolition too.

And so, the tub got installed.

I don’t have the taps in yet, so I can’t test it for leaks. We’ll see when the taps get delivered…

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Cost for this Post:
1 trip to McDiarmid Lumber
1 trip to Home Depot

– $7.38 – 2 tubes of acoustic caulk
– &7.99 – 1 roll of Tuck Tape
$17.22 subtotal with taxes
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– $63.64 – R20 insulation (20 batts)
– $16.98 – Work light
– $3.09 – 50 watt “Rough Duty” bulbs
$93.76 subtotal with taxes
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$110.98 total

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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I’ve been a bit frustrated at how slow things are moving. I think things are moving at a good place, but the end of the week (and the end of my vacation time) is coming up quickly.

The ceiling got drywalled today. This is where having kids is really paying off. I had one holding screws and handing them to me one at a time, and one on the ladder holding drywall up on the ceiling while I screwed it to the joists and the blocking that I had installed yesterday.

I even managed to get the hole for the fan cut properly! As I mentioned before, I have a habit of needing to correct holes by an inch or so, or retry with a new board. I’m actually quite happy that that hasn’t happened yet.

Vapour barrier around the fan is quite difficult. It has to go over top of the fan mechanism, seal tightly around the vent pipe, and still make an airtight seal with the rest of the ceiling vapour barrier. Lots of acoustic sealant, and some Tuck Tape. The tape isn’t part of the seal, but it keeps everything in place until the drywall goes up.

Lesson: Humitek (green water-resistant drywall) is significantly heavier than regular drywall. I eyed the lightweight stuff at Home Depot, which was cheaper, but we had a mildew problem in the ceiling when we moved in (before I installed the exhaust fan) so I decided to do the whole room in Humitek. It is much more difficult to load into the car, bring up the stairs and install on a ceiling than normal drywall. Get help.

This was about all I managed to get completed today, because it was Canadian Thanksgiving. We hosted my parents-in-law and my wife’s great-aunt for a full dinner and some wonderful wine and discussion. That was all after, of course, I had the dining room table flipped over on the floor, replacing two stretcher bolts that had broken and made the table wobble badly. And, of course, I didn’t have any dowels the rights size so I had to mill some 1/2 inch dowels down to 3/8 to finish the job, because all the hardware stores are closed. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another…

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Cost for this Post:

None. Stores were closed! :)

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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The day started with the finicky job of fitting subfloor. There will be vinyl flooring going on top, so it needs to be seamless and smooth. I measured it out a couple of different ways just to make sure, and then I went into the backyard and started cutting.

One sheet, perfect fit:

Then the second sheet. This one had the toilet pipe hole and the air vent hole in it, so I was nervous. I had a history of measuring very carefully, cutting electrical box holes in a sheet of drywall and then having the hole be inexplicably a foot off from where it should be. But, this one fit perfectly too. Maybe I’m learning. A quick trip to McDiarmid for some more screws (I ran out of flooring screws with a quarter of the last sheet to go.)

Then things got interesting. Jennifer lay down for a rest. I don’t know why… she’s only been looking after the whole house and the kids and a stressed out husband and a brand new puppy that cries to go out every three hours around the clock.

Anyway, I wanted to keep working, but I wanted her to get some rest even more, so I moved into “do all the quiet jobs” mode. I plumbed in the toilet, which was a bit of an exercise in patience getting all the pipe lengths correct when working up in a corner joist space. I used various children as “gravitational helpers” to stand on the flange up above so I could test fit pipes.

One problem I ran into was that my toilet flange was built with a 3 inch inside diameter, when I needed one with a 3 inch outside diameter. Easily rectified with a 15 minute trip to McDiarmid.

I gathered up the kids and we took a trip to Home Depot to pick up some studs for blocking because it was a good way to get everyone out of the house to let Mom sleep.

I then spent some time getting ready for drywall. I cleaned up the studs a bit more, and checked for high spots and nails. I then measured where the drywall seams were going to be and screwed in some extra blocking. I also have a habit of ruining the edges of drywall trying to get screws near the sides, so I decided I’d add an extra 2×4 to the studs where I would have seams, just to make it easy. The blocking in the ceiling that the edge of the drywall attached to had pulled away some, so that needed repair as well.

With that finished, I put up vapour barrier on the ceiling, sealed with acoustic caulk. We’re ready for ceiling drywall.

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2 Trips to McDiarmid Lumber
1 Trip to Home Depot

Cost for this Post:
$5.92 – ABS Toilet Flange (McDiarmid)
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– $6.99 – Plastic Wood (for filling subfloor screw holes)(McDiarmid)
– $15.38 – Drywall screws to last (hopefully) the entire job
– $9.99 – Floor screws
$36.25 – Subtotal with taxes
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$11.66 – 6 studs for blocking (Home Depot, because lumber stinks at McDiarmid)

Total Cost for Today – $75.13

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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Today was a dance of interlocking schedules.

I needed to have the pipe cutter back to Home Depot for 9 am. I needed to pick up the drywall and subfloor at Home Depot. I needed the trailer to pick up the drywall and subfloor. The trailer was full of the old bathroom walls. The dump didn’t open until 9 am. I needed to empty the trailer at the dump before picking up drywall.

I was hoping the dump would open earlier, but they apparently have adjusted the hours for weekends. Oh well, it’s just gas. I drove to Home Depot to drop off the pipe cutter (Lesson: If you rent for 4 hours after 6pm they give you until the next morning to return it for free) and then drove out to the dump.

Then drove all the way back to Home Depot to pick up to pick up a huge stack of drywall, concrete board and subfloor. Loading was pretty easy. Finally, having kids pays off! Getting the full sheets from the trailer up the stairs and into the house was a little beyond the kids’ abilities, though, so I called my brother who helpfully came over to lend his back. He also brought me a circular saw for cutting the subfloor, because I think mine has a bent arbour. Getting to meet Gracie was a bonus payoff for a job well done. Thanks Pat!

The drain pipe for the bathroom sink had a long copper pipe sticking out of it, and it made removing the vanity more difficult and it was going to make putting flooring and drywall on more difficult as well, so I decided to replace it. Here’s the old pipe, after cutting:

And the new ABS pipe after the couplings are on and tightened. The 2×4 to the right is a support I added for the stack, but the fitting itself is pretty solid. Now I’ll be able to leave a hole in the drywall over this fitting and add the drain pipe from the sink when the vanity is in place.

I had a moment of panic when I realized that the pipe is 2 inch, not 1 1/2 inch like all the rest of the pipes in the bathroom. I had to make a trip to get 2 inch fittings. I found a 2 inch tee with a 1 1/2 inch side inlet, which was perfect. Then I had another moment of panic when I realized that the drain from the sink is 1 1/4 inch, not 1 1/2 inch as I had thought. Before I did the final glue up, I made one last trip to McDiarmid Lumber to see if they had a fitting to connect a 1 1/2 inch pipe to a 1 1/4 drain. It turns out that it’s a common item and this is the way I should have done it in the first place. I will have a 1 1/2 inch pipe coming out of the wall with a bushing on it that will accept the 1 1/4 inch drain pipe. I’m a genius and I didn’t even know it. Lesson learned, though: even if you’ve measured every other pipe in the room, measure the one you’re about to work on just to be sure.

I then cut the first of 3 pieces of subfloor. It fit perfectly, and in this picture, the old and new subfloor match up to make a nice flat surface. On day 4 I will add one more layer to make it smooth and vinyl-ready.

After doing some more minor cleanup and removal of extra nails and other minor tasks, it was time to call it a day and spend the evening eating appetizers and hanging out with friends. A nice break.

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Cost for this Post:

Two trips to McDiarmid Lumber for plumbing supplies.

– $13.96 – (2) 2 inch couplings for the drain pipe
– $3.39 – ABS drain tee for the drain pipe
– $7.59 – Tub Drain Remover tool (I saw it in the aisle and thought I’d get one to assist in installing the new drain)
– $6.49 – 3 feet of 2 inch ABS pipe for the drain
$35.00 – subtotal with taxes
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– $2.59 – ABS 2 inch to 1 1/4 inch trap adaptor
$2.90 – subtotal taxes
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$27.10 – Cast Iron Soil Pipe cutter rental (Home Depot)
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Total for today: $65.00

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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I’ve always laughed at how wimpy the vapour barrier plastic is in this house. Whenever I encounter it (usually doing electrical work in the walls) I joke that it’s like the bags they wrap dry-cleaning in.

Little did I know what we’d find behind the bathroom tile: The crest shows that it actually IS dry cleaning plastic!! Literally!!

We also found, inside the wall, but right beside the soap dish, a bar of Irish Spring soap. It’s been there for 50 years. I’ve decided I’m going to drywall it back in again, just so someone else can find it.

In order to remove the tub, the drain has to come out. You normally use the little cross-pieces in the drain to unscrew the whole piece. As I was warned on a forum about old houses, the cross pieces in our tub were corroded and fragile, so they just snapped out. I had to use a large grinding disk on the Dremel tool to cut the drain out of the tub. Very frustrating and time consuming. I cut three vertical lines down the drain, at 2, 6 and 10 o’clock and then used needlenose pliers to break the sections out. I am not sure if I had had a proper drain tool if it would have worked better, but I bought one after this so hopefully the new installation will go more easily.

There were only two nails and some caulking holding the tub in place, so it came out very cleanly.

Finally we got the walls down to bare studs, including the tub area. It was time to pull down the ceiling. Here is the only photo I got of the process (of the bathroom fan), because as soon as I got any further, the sawdust and insulation began pouring down on me and I was soon shin deep in stuff and the air was so thick with dust I could hardly see. I kept pulling and just ignored all the loose fibers stuck to my arms and down my neck. Using a dustpan as a shovel, it took 5 large garbage bags to get most of it.

I took the time to clean up and sweep the place clean, then tackled replacing the tub drain. I found the specs for my tub online, and it had a great technical diagram of the distances and locations for the various required pipes. The internet is a wonderful thing. I don’t have a before picture, but it looked much like the after picture except it was all brass and copper and it was badly corroded and in the wrong place for the new tub.

Next came that wrecked up toilet flange. The flange was one piece with the large elbow down in the floor, and it was solid lead. There was no way to repair or replace it (it was packed into a cast iron waste pipe in the basement with oakum). I had to cut off the 3 inch cast iron soil waste pipe with the lead elbow and the toilet flange attached and replace the whole thing.

After some reading I realized I had two options. One, to buy $30 worth of abrasive carbide blades for my reciprocating saw and take an undetermined long time to cut the cast iron pipe or two, to rent a soil pipe cutter for $30 and have it cut cleanly in seconds. Home Depot to the rescue. The soil pipe cutter is a large chain attached to a ratcheting handle. The chain has pointy wheels on it that stress the pipe when you ratchet it tight. Cast iron is apparently very brittle, and the focused stress causes the pipe to just snap cleanly. So says the theory.

I put the pipe cutter on, and started to pull the handle. I was quite nervous, as I had no idea how hard I’d have to pull or when it would actually break.

There was a “pop” sound and the chain went slack. The pipe was perfectly cut, exactly as advertised.

I cut again, about two feet further on to remove a section of this cast iron soil pipe so that I could remove the elbow and the toilet flange above. The lead elbow weighed more than twice the two feet of cast iron pipe. I used an old chisel and a hammer to cut to flange off the elbow so I could get it out of the floor. The lead was soft and easily cut. (I put the new toilet flange in on Day 4)

After the toilet flange was out, the floor needed to be torn up and replaced before the new toilet plumbing could go in. This was another one I gave up on. The quarter-inch subfloor is in reasonable shape, but is a little rough to put linoleum on directly, and it only covered half the room (there was no subfloor underneath the tub). I tried to take it up, but it just broke into pieces, and it would have taken me literally a full day just to remove it. Judging it strong enough to keep, I decided to fill in the rest of the floor with new quarter-inch subfloor to make it all even, then put a new full layer of quarter inch subfloor over the whole thing. This will raise the floor a quarter inch, but it will give us an nice smooth layer to put the vinyl flooring on.

I used a heat gun to remove the old linoleum and it was ready to go.

Time for bed.

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Cost for this Post:

One trip to McDiarmid Lumber for more useful stuff for the next few days:
$4.59 P-Trap
$8.79 1 1/2 inch rubber coupling
$14.99 3 inch rubber coupling (for soil pipe)
$3.39 ABS cement (for joining pipes)
$4.49 3 inch ABS elbow (under the toilet)
$22.99 Drain Waste Overflow for tub (separate plug and chain type)

$66.35 Total with Taxes

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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Vacation begins, and so does the actual work.

The day started with some preparation. I cleaned out the closet in the master bedroom and moved all the closet organizers, because the hatch for the attic is in the room of the closet. Then I laid out some drop cloths on the floors in the hallway to keep them from getting too badly damaged.

I took the bathroom door off the hinges, and then put two layers of plastic over the entire doorway, one opening left, the other right. This created a nice dust airlock.

My first actual job was to move the insulation off of the roof of the bathroom so I could tear down the drywalled ceiling. The insulation is a few inches of sawdust, then a few inches of vermiculite, then about a foot or 18 inches of shredded pink fiberglass.

Important note: There is a 1 in 3 chance that vermiculite has asbestos in it. We had ours tested a few months ago and it came back negative. If you have vermiculite insulation, treat it like asbestos until you know for sure.

Before:

The black tube is the bathroom exhaust fan. Part of the job is to move it one joist space toward the center of the house so it will be easier to work on in the future. See those wicked nails sticking down from the roof? See how narrow the space gets out near the edge? See all that fluffy, itchy, dusty insulation? I gave up after about 30 minutes of shovelling insulation. We have a hip roof on the house, so in order to reach the outside walls, you need to get wedged right into the space where the roof meets the attic floor, and then reach your arm about 3 feet further. I had rubber gloves and a ventilator on, and it was hot. My gloves filled up to the first knuckle with sweat, and I couldn’t see anything because the sweat dripped down onto my glasses and turned all the dust into sludge. I eventually reached the point where I decided I would just pull the ceiling down from below and deal with the mess.

Here’s what I did in a half hour:

An auspicious beginning.

Then it was time to pull out the fixtures. The vanity came out easily, and the toilet came off without and major problems. The toilet flange was completely wrecked. It is made of lead, and it is torn and warped. I’m actually surprised the toilet stayed on as long as it did.

Bonus: Look at the original wallpaper:

Then the fun part:

Bonus: The old medicine cabinet had a slot in it for disposal of old razor blades. This slot apparently just dumps down into the stud space, because when I pulled the drywall off, there was a huge pile of old rusty razor blades to clean up.

We finally got all of the walls down and all of the drywall carted out to the trailer to go to the dump.

The insulation was paper thin. This ball is most of the insulation from the outside wall:

The corners of the tubs were all rotten, as we suspected. It was normal drywall behind the tile, and water seepage had ruined it. I peeled the tiles back, I didn’t smash up the drywall in these photos. This is what it was like behind:

Renovating stopped here for the day, because we decided to drive out to pick up something that we’ve been wanting for quite a while and just came available. Meet Gracie:

She’s an eight-week-old Poodle/Bichon/Shitzu. Because with a major renovation and hosting Thanksgiving supper for the in-laws we really needed just a bit more excitement in our lives. :)

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Cost for this Post:

Muscle pain and sweat.

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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It took a while to decide on tile. At first we had thought we would go with large white glossy subway tile. We love the look, but Jennifer thought that perhaps low gloss tile would be more practical and show the water spots less. We also wanted a larger tile to cut down on the amount of grout to clean.

We wandered the tile aisle at Home Depot and Rona, and the the tile areas at a couple of custom bathroom shops.

A few observations:

1) Custom bathroom shops are very trend-based. Everything there is variations on one or two themes. Everything there is very expensive compared to similar product at the home stores. If you want the latest in-look, fine. Otherwise you are stuck.

2) Rona is good at it, but everywhere else needs big improvement in marking which tiles are floor tiles and which are wall tiles. The samples are all mounted vertically in the store, but many of them are floor-only.

3) I am terrified at the thought of doing my own tile and having it stare me in the face every morning for the rest of my life. I just wanted to make that clear. I am going to tile this bathroom, but it scares me silly.

We decided on this Italian tile from Rona. The very subtle green will pull in the green from the main living areas, and the pattern will hopefully mask water spots and such. The tile itself is semi-gloss, 8 inches square.

The tiles are $1.89 each and we need 160 of them. I bought 165, and we can go back and get more, they have lots.

I also picked up some miscellaneous plumbing and electrical things that I will need.

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Cost for this Post:
$311.85 – 165 tiles (Rona)
$11.69 Grout float (Rona)
$3.99 Mortar trowel (1/4 square notch) (Rona)
$9.38 1/4″ tile spacers (bought the wrong kind, have to get 1/8″) (Rona)
$20.99 White Ultracolor+ Grout 10lb (Rona)
$39.99 White Ultraflex II Mortar 50lb (Rona)
$7.98 Grout Haze cleanup (Rona)
$2.09 Grout sponge (Rona)
$5.48 Electrical boxes (Rona)
$6.99 3″ silicone coupling (To mate the old and new toilet pipes) (Rona)
$11.49 3′ of 3″ ABS drain pipe (for the toilet drain) (Rona)
$1.49 Wax toilet ring

Total cost with taxes: $485.31

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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