The last two pieces of the subfloor went in today, after a good deal of measuring and fitting. The final piece took quite a bit of very slight alteration to get into place, but that’s to be expected. Our reward for all that hard work is the foundation for the new bathroom. Before putting that final piece into place, though, we took the opportunity to fish some new wires up from the basement.

We can rebuild it. We have the technology. After a much deserved break on Monday, Tuesday marked the start of putting things back together and adding in the new. Brad got up on the roof bright and early to install the roof cap for the bathroom fan. Since I still can’t bring myself to get on the roof, I watched from the ground. Since the top of every existing floor joist had been beveled to accommodate the mud job, we had to sister in new floor joists.

The dumpster is a little more than full, and waiting eagerly to be picked up: Contents: One Bathroom

Today turned out to be quite the day. Between some minor mishaps and only having the dumpster until tomorrow, there was a LOT to be done. I rented the big pipe cutter first thing this morning, and we got to work taking down the stack. Partway through that, I heard a noise coming from the kitchen and discovered that some debris had fallen onto the ice maker line, causing it to burst and spray water all over the kitchen.

Today was another day of demolition. Lots of hard work, for sure. We managed to get all of the drywall removed, from the walls and the ceiling, as well as removing some bits of old wall tile and plaster and lath from the old tub area. Dirty dusty messy heavy work. We also started removing the cement “mud job” from the floor. It’s basically 4+ inches of concrete poured on top of the subfloor.

Yesterday evening marked the official start of the project, and my friend Jeremy came over to help with more demolition. We very easily removed the vanity, and the shower partition wall, which left just one more thing… the tub. A cast iron beast, original to the house, and far too heavy to remove in one piece. So several hours with a sledgehammer later… It took about three hours total to get it broken into small enough pieces to carry out, and made a HUGE mess.

My dumpster arrived today, which appears to be some sort of mythical dumpster-unicorn hybrid. Time to start filling it up! The Fabled Dumpster-corn

I thought I should take a step back and cover the “before” side of the bathroom remodel. Stepping through the door, you’re immediately greeted by the original cast iron tub. At some point in the past, it was modified into a tub/shower by adding pre-fab walls and a floating partition over one side of the tub. It was also sloppily refinished to some sort of vomit color, which is now flaking off in several spots.