Progress

Progress...  Finally!

Well...   its been a while since I posted, but I haven't been completely idle.  Had a few hiccups along the way. 

• Money - Faith's MCA tuition came due a little faster and costlier than I expected, so had to postpone the bathroom.  Sigh....
• Truck broke down...  New engine.   Sigh...
• Medical Issues... (Mom has cancer, Faith broke her arm)

But...  I'm back on it.

So, here are some pics to show that I am making progress (I know, I know... SLOOOOOOWWWW progress)

 

Soon, soon....  you gotta believe me...

(By the way, Susan doesn't any more)

Waiting...

Praise the Lord...  It didn't leak.

So I am ready to go with the tile...

OK...

Maybe not.

Rats, Out of money again...

Sigh, This seems to be a recurring theme.  I start off with these big projects, gonna do it myself (cause I like to say I did it, and, well... cause I'm cheap)

Then I run out of money before I finish.  Oh well, part of life, I guess.  But I think I have the budget estimated so that I will have to let it sit about a month.  Early November, I think I will have the money to purchase the rest of the tile, and complete it.

My Bathroom is Orange!

Now I know what the inside of a pumpkin looks like...

This stuff is called Schluter-Kerdi or just Kerdi.  It is a waterproofing membrane.  Essentially, there are two ways to waterproof a shower (You do want it waterproof!).  

1. You can go the traditional route, which consists of a rubber liner with a cement pan poured inside the rubber liner.  Then you have thick plastic liner between the studs and the concrete backer board, or green rock sheetrock( The Green sheetrock was in my house, with no liner, but they used cultured marble which is essentially plastic, and fairly waterproof.   Barely acceptable...)
2. Or the new-fangled stuff, which is what I chose.  Threre are a few of the waterproofing membranes available, but the one I found was Kerdi.  

Essentially, you have to keep the water away from the studs and rest of the wall.  Contrary to popular belief, Tile and Grout are NOT waterproof.  With the traditional method, the water gets the concrete pan wet, but is contained by the liner, and slowly weeps out to the drain.  The new stuff puts the waterproof side immediately next to the tile & grout.  Your concrete backer board and drain pan never get wet...(If you do it right).  You can even install it over plain old sheetrock, if you're feeling lucky, anyway.  I chose over concrete backer board.

Next step is to water test this sucker...  I'm praying that I did everything right.

1. I don't want it to leak
2. I don't want to have to tear anything apart to fix it, if it leaks...

So, I think it'll be dry enough to water test on either Sunday night or Monday...  Which means leaving water in the shower pan for 24 hours at least.

This stuff is pretty expensive, but hopefully, worth it.  I bought a shower kit ($400), complete with a prefab pan sloped correctly to the drain.  Then I realize, son of a gun..   Gotta buy the drain separate.  It doesn't come with the kit( $125).  Then of course I don't have enough membrane...  So another $100 worth of orange rubber.

Lord, Please don't let it leak.  

I promise, if it doesn't leak, I'll give you the credit.

What am I saying...   Even if it does leak, it's all You!

Bathroom Remodel

I have a problem... 

 My beautiful wife watches all these shows on HGTV. She wants to be Candice Olsen... (wait, that doesn't seem like a problem...) except that Candice has Chico for electrical, Lorne for carpentry, Andrew for painting, Terry and Edmond for fabric, and Paul for everything else...

Just call me ChicoLorneAndrewPaul (I don't do sewing... well... hardly ever)

I guess I can't blame it all on her... cause I really have one other teeny tiny problem. I can't STAND to pay someone to do work I can do... Call me cheap... (She does).

So... This all started 3 years ago (maybe more... can't remember)... I came home from work after having the hardest meeting I'd had in my history at the company of the past 14 years. My team had been broken up, and all given the choice to leave the company if we wanted. When I got home, in the back of my truck was the glass from our shower stall in the master bath. Susan chose that day to start demo.

I was so mad, (I'm sure my work day exacerbated the feeling) I didn't mention the bathroom for a month.

... Fast forward... 

 (we've been showering in the other bathroom for 3+ years now 

so.. ok, maybe it's Slow Forward!)

Finally, I guess I'm over it enough, and we have enough saved up to start working on the re-model.

 Well... of course... Now I've waited soo long to do this that just fixing the shower ain't gonna cut it. Gotta be a little nicer than that...

Home Depot / Lowes is bad enough... So many ideas about how to fix it up to look so pretty... Then, we stopped by Floor & Decor. uh-oh... Marble and Travertine look soo nice, It'd sure look good in our bathroom. I agree... it'd look nice.... but...

Warning... plan your trip to Floor and Decor carefully. If you go on a Saturday, there are more flooring & tile contractors than customers there. Yikes, it's like they issue you a sticker at the door that says "Here's a live one!" We finally got out of there with only one free estimate.

Estimate	$7,000.00
not including the Clawfoot Tub	1,200.00
Tub fixtures	700.00
shower fixtures	450.00
Grand Total	$9,350.00

and I don't really think we were going to get all of the decorative trim we wanted...

I dunno...   maybe that's cheap for a travertine remodel...  It probably is, if it is someone else's money... but it had too many zeros for me to think "cheap".

So...   I'll do it my self!

actually, with a little help from the Floor Elf - Great site, with lots of good info...

1.  Start Somewhere

Blank Slate

You can see the framing of the new "Pony" wall.

I guess they call it pony, cause it ain't as tall as a full grown horse.

2.  Plumbing

This was a mess...   This is the new plumbing under the tub.  The original stuff

stuck up everywhere, and looked ugly (not that it's pretty now...)  It was hidden by

the old tub skirt, and couldn't be seen so they didn't care what it looked like.

I moved it all below slab level, and moved the connections for the tub faucet.

Here you see the new shower faucet, and mixing valve. ( had no idea

 you needed one of those)   I raised the height of the shower head.  No more 

hunchback for me!  I also added the connection for a hand shower.  Don't know why 

you need one, but now is the time...  And if you look, you see taking off to the left

The new body sprays in the pony wall.  This is a total upgrade.  From 

what I read on-line, everyone wants 'em, and then when they have 'em, 

no-one uses them...  Still, we got 'em if we want 'em.  Only added 2 body sprays

cause I only have 1/2" pipe supply lines, and for more, you need 3/4" supply lines.

Not to mention the possibility of overwhelming your drain system.  Yikes, I an't changing

either one of those out, so 2 will have to do.

3.  Tub is here!

Clawfoot Slipper tub.

ordered on-line from Vintage Tub & Bath 

4.  Cement board - yuck!

It's heavy, and hard to cut, but it is what you want behind the tile.  It is "dimensionally stable", whatever that means...

It says Durock - Lighter Easier Faster...

Than what!  Backing a cement truck up and pouring directly on the wall?

You can see that I 1. expanded the area covered from the first photo, and 2. If you look

closely, you can see the little shelf.  Susan came up with that.  That's so we have a place to put the

iPad while soaking in the tub...  Gotta find some kinda holder.  Don't want the iPad IN the tub.

Arrgggghhhhh!!!!!!   More Plumbing problems...

I was dry fitting the plumbing drain for the shower, and man was it loose.  Ouch, not only loose, 

but BROKEN!  Here, you can see the broken one I pulled out, and the new one in place.  It was deeper than I expected...  Funny... I was fussing about how big that hole was earlier.  Now

I'm glad it was that big...  have to backfill with sand, and then morter, and then put in the drain...