When we moved in our house, the home inspector pointed out that the floor around the toilet was soft, and would need to eventually be replaced. When looking up at the floor from the basement, we could see that the toilet was being supported by additional 2x4s. OK, no problem. It's just a floor, right?
A few years in, we finally decide to go for it. The list became quite large by then:
New Floor, ceramic tile
Jacuzzi tub
Tiles off the wall
Granite Sink top
A "big boy" toilet (elongated bowl)
I took a LOT of pictures. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll try to keep the commentary to a minimum. This is the most complex task I've ever attempted, and probably the last huge project I will ever do to this house. So, if you dare, check it out!
Some before pictures. I installed a better mirror and light fixture before this remodel. So the first picture is a few months older. At 6'1", I hated ducking to shave. This involved moving an outlet box to the left also.
We also have previously replaced all our windows, so that window is new.
So, first thing's first. Start removing fixtures & appliances.
The next part was extremely fun. Take a hammer and crowbar, and start ripping the walls down. This house is a 1950's house, and back then, behind tile, there was wire mesh and about 3/4" to 1" of tile cement. The wire helped, I could grip & rip.
Lots of dust, what a mess
Once I got the bathtub out, guess what was behind it??
Mold.
Lots of Mold.
I went to My Best Friend and found out how to kill it. Vinegar, Boric Acid, and Bleech. This mixture also kills the mold reproductive spores, which spawn when the mold is dying. Also, a respirator is recommended.
That's me
Left: Me, Right: My Bud, Center: My Bud's son.
After getting the mold taken care of, the floor was next. I don't have any picutres of the floor, but here's how it was constructed. 1/2" subfloor, 1 whole freaking inch of tile cement with wire mesh, ceramic tiles, and vinyl tiles on top of the ceramic tiles. I cut it into managable size chunks with a diamond blade on a grinder. So after that, only the 1/2" subfloor remained.
Floor chunk
Once the subfloor was visible, we checked out the weakness of the floor by the toilet, the whole point of getting into this mess. As it turns out, the wire mesh below the ceramic tile was the only thing keeping us from falling through the floor. The wood was as mushy as oatmeal.
Some more shots.
Close-up of the ceiling above the tub. Someone before me went lazy and just added wall, hence the 3 layers.
And finally, removing the remainder of the floor with a sawzall.
This shot is from the basement looking up.
That one wall cavity with no insulation - this cavity was larger than 16", so all that cellulose fell out when I took the wall down. Nice to see the other cavities packed in nice. I detalied the insulation in a previous blog.
I bought 3/4" DryPly for the floor. The way the floor rafters were laid out, I needed to add support braces to the front and back.
If you have a significant other, always so something like this for a remodel. Nobody will ever see it and it's there forever. It gets you a free easy lay.
Nice Floor, mate
Next was a dry-fit of the beautiful Jacuzzi tub.
Old plumbing still in place. We bought a Scald-guard assembly to install.
The new one I soldered up, just sitting next to the old
Next, Drywall. I chose the moisture/mold resistant.
Tub walls that go directly to the studs. Highly recommended, they've worked out great.
After the walls were up, I started preping the floor for ceramic tile. Cement board, which gets pasted down, and also screwed down. The gaps get pasted too.
The whole reason the floor was so bad, the toilet flange was shot. It was basically a crumbled piece of tin. Each flush contributed a teaspoon of water to the floor because of this. All of the cast-iron plumbing below had to go.
The old stuff, the tub inlet already removed, obviously.
A grinder and diamond blade can do wonderful things.
Calculated material, trip to hardware store. Dry-fit, then primer & cement them together.
I knew the skill of potato gun making would come in handy some day
Leak test.
Supply was good. Drains had a leak in the overflow tub outlet. After tightening that up, all was well.
We could now take a shower again at our house! Luckily, we have a half bath downstairs so at least we had another toilet in the house during this.
Drywall spackle & primer & paint.
Time to install the throne.
No leaks. Finally.
Cabinet & sink top.
I had a little trouble with the water supply dripping from the wall. I found a handy substance called "Plumbers Goop", a clear paste-like stuff that hardens, to be very usefull. I applied this goop around the inlet seam, and after 15 minutes, turned the water back on, and no leaks. A quick fix, I suppose.
Just put the new door on, and we're pretty much good to go!
I eventually get the base, door, window, & crown molding in there.
Is it wrong that I came in expecting this blog to be about clogging toilets? hahahaha... edit: sick amount of photos, jesus! edit2: after going through all the photos, that was actually pretty interesting and it seemed to turn out really well!
Some before pictures. I installed a better mirror and light fixture before this remodel. So the first picture is a few months older. At 6'1", I hated ducking to shave. This involved moving an outlet box to the left also.
We also have previously replaced all our windows, so that window is new.
So, first thing's first. Start removing fixtures & appliances.
The next part was extremely fun. Take a hammer and crowbar, and start ripping the walls down. This house is a 1950's house, and back then, behind tile, there was wire mesh and about 3/4" to 1" of tile cement. The wire helped, I could grip & rip.
Lots of dust, what a mess
Once I got the bathtub out, guess what was behind it??
Mold.
Lots of Mold.
I went to My Best Friend and found out how to kill it. Vinegar, Boric Acid, and Bleech. This mixture also kills the mold reproductive spores, which spawn when the mold is dying. Also, a respirator is recommended.
That's me
Left: Me, Right: My Bud, Center: My Bud's son.
After getting the mold taken care of, the floor was next. I don't have any picutres of the floor, but here's how it was constructed. 1/2" subfloor, 1 whole freaking inch of tile cement with wire mesh, ceramic tiles, and vinyl tiles on top of the ceramic tiles. I cut it into managable size chunks with a diamond blade on a grinder. So after that, only the 1/2" subfloor remained.
Floor chunk
Once the subfloor was visible, we checked out the weakness of the floor by the toilet, the whole point of getting into this mess. As it turns out, the wire mesh below the ceramic tile was the only thing keeping us from falling through the floor. The wood was as mushy as oatmeal.
Some more shots.
Close-up of the ceiling above the tub. Someone before me went lazy and just added wall, hence the 3 layers.
And finally, removing the remainder of the floor with a sawzall.
This shot is from the basement looking up.
That one wall cavity with no insulation - this cavity was larger than 16", so all that cellulose fell out when I took the wall down. Nice to see the other cavities packed in nice. I detalied the insulation in a previous blog.
I bought 3/4" DryPly for the floor. The way the floor rafters were laid out, I needed to add support braces to the front and back.
If you have a significant other, always so something like this for a remodel. Nobody will ever see it and it's there forever. It gets you a free easy lay.
Nice Floor, mate
Next was a dry-fit of the beautiful Jacuzzi tub.
Old plumbing still in place. We bought a Scald-guard assembly to install.
The new one I soldered up, just sitting next to the old
Next, Drywall. I chose the moisture/mold resistant.
Tub walls that go directly to the studs. Highly recommended, they've worked out great.
After the walls were up, I started preping the floor for ceramic tile. Cement board, which gets pasted down, and also screwed down. The gaps get pasted too.
The whole reason the floor was so bad, the toilet flange was shot. It was basically a crumbled piece of tin. Each flush contributed a teaspoon of water to the floor because of this. All of the cast-iron plumbing below had to go.
The old stuff, the tub inlet already removed, obviously.
A grinder and diamond blade can do wonderful things.
Calculated material, trip to hardware store. Dry-fit, then primer & cement them together.
I knew the skill of potato gun making would come in handy some day
Leak test.
Supply was good. Drains had a leak in the overflow tub outlet. After tightening that up, all was well.
We could now take a shower again at our house! Luckily, we have a half bath downstairs so at least we had another toilet in the house during this.
Drywall spackle & primer & paint.
Time to install the throne.
No leaks. Finally.
Cabinet & sink top.
I had a little trouble with the water supply dripping from the wall. I found a handy substance called "Plumbers Goop", a clear paste-like stuff that hardens, to be very usefull. I applied this goop around the inlet seam, and after 15 minutes, turned the water back on, and no leaks. A quick fix, I suppose.
Just put the new door on, and we're pretty much good to go!
I eventually get the base, door, window, & crown molding in there.
The cheapest, most labor intensive thing I have ever done. I had fun, and I'm glad our floor is now safe.
First time huh? ^^ looks very good, :D
On July 24 2010 01:57 micronesia wrote: For comparison, do you have a decent guess as to how much this job would have cost you if you just handed everything over to a professional?
Awesome pictures. I hope everything you did is to specs since if I did this I'm sure inside of a year something would go wrong lol
I am a j-man electrician and my buddy is a j-man plumber.
we usually do basement renos, but for a bathroom like that, you could easily look at $8,000 CAD from the contractor.
of course, they would get nicer stuff, and use new material - or at least charge ya for it :D (guessing the $50 bucks wood is also using exsisting?)
edit: cost of labor is the big ticket as with any reno. if you can do your own electrical and plumbing you'll save a couple grand. tile is super easy, never pay a tile guy to do a bathroom omg.. what a waste lol, goes for drywallers too.
if you have to hire professionals, hire a carpenter. you'll get the most use out of him lol.
Looks really good, how much prior experience have you had with this kind of stuff? I've recently started doing some woodworking, building shelves and stuff and was hoping to one day try something larger scale like this.
Amazing job, I love seeing others do their own home improvement projects like our family, not only is it much cheaper but the job you do yourself is always the most satisfying.
This looks amazing, you have a talent into these remaking homes stuff :D. This blog makes me feel like this is an online version of the Home Makers Garden or something. Really cool stuff.
The Bud's Son is freaking pimpin also.
Yeah definitely putting emphasis to ZeaL.'s quote, what prior experience did you have with this sort of hard manual labor? There was definitely planning involved, but how far did you guys like.. research and stuff?
On July 24 2010 01:57 micronesia wrote: For comparison, do you have a decent guess as to how much this job would have cost you if you just handed everything over to a professional?
I have a friend with a similar sized bathroom that was quoted $12,000 for a complete gut & replace. This is from those commercial contractors that specifically remodel bathrooms only. I would expect what Chunkybuddha said about $7000-$8000 from a private contractor.
On July 24 2010 01:54 News wrote: Did you do the painting yourself too? If so, how do you rate it?
I did OK on the painting. I'd rate myself a B-. Pictures always look way better since you can't see the flaws.
On July 24 2010 01:54 SilverSkyLark wrote: how long did it take to fix all of that?
Most of it occured within 2 weeks. Once we had the bathtub/shower working, I slowed down and took another 2 weeks for drywall sanding, paint, toilet install, etc. I only took a few days off work and did much of it on nights/weekends.
On July 24 2010 01:59 Chunkybuddha wrote:
of course, they would get nicer stuff, and use new material - or at least charge ya for it :D (guessing the $50 bucks wood is also using exsisting?)
Yeah, the $50 was for 2 pieces of dry-ply. I have standard stock of 2x4's, I probably used 8 @ $2.50 each that I didn't account for.
On July 24 2010 02:27 ZeaL. wrote: Looks really good, how much prior experience have you had with this kind of stuff? I've recently started doing some woodworking, building shelves and stuff and was hoping to one day try something larger scale like this.
I too started with things like clothes chests, and speaker boxes. I dove into these bigger project with little experience, you have to start somewhere I guess. Once you study the anatomy of how a house is constructed, you get a better feel for what needs to be done & what is involved.
I've done some other blog entries on a kitchen, and exterior doors & windows. Experience came with ambition, I guess. I researched online and had the guts to try it. I always go into a project thinking, "If I screw this up bad enough, I can always hire someone that knows what they are doing to fix it." I've helped a friend drywall & carpet a room, and reshingle their roof.
Things like the tub and tub surround come with detailed instructions. I've got a Home & Garden "The big book of home how-to" that gives the basic jist of what needs to be done.
On July 24 2010 03:46 Disregard wrote: I prefer the easy yet dangerous alternative, with explosives.
I considered it
On July 24 2010, a lot of people wrote: Looks awesome, Nice job.
Thank you all! My photobucket bandwith is over 50% already, too many pics =)