Bathroom Remodel 4: Progress

On Monday afternoon, the wife put a couple of coats of stain blocking primer on the ceiling and walls. I realize I still have some bumps to smooth out on the ceiling patch, but it looks okay.

Before work on Tuesday morning, I removed the only toilet in our tiny house.

I ended my last post by sayaing, “I’ve had a bad feeling about this project from the beginning. So far, every step forward has resulted in another step back. I don’t really mind that as long as it means more work instead of more money. Still, I’ve been expecting bad news and I’m afraid I’m going to get it over the next few days.” I was right. I met the tile guy on Tuesday morning at about 8:30 am. He said he couldn’t do anything to the shower walls until a plumber comes in to fix the faucet drip and re-pipe everything. He agreed to come back the next morning. I finally got a plumber to the house at 4:00 pm and he agreed to do the work the following morning. I arranged with the tile guys to come after lunchtime so they wouldn’t be in the plumber’s way. As a result, all they had time to do was put the cement board in along the walls and floor. That pushed the entire project back at least a day.

After a long day of work on Wednesday, I decided it would be best for me to patch the walls above the shower area so the tile guys’ thinset will fill any gaps along the bottom seam. It looks simple, right? It’s not. To begin, I had get the wife to help me snap chalk lines 18 inches above the cement board.

Since there’s no way to really score the plaster (and the cement board behind it) in a way that makes it easy to snap off, I carefully set the depth on my circular saw and cut as straight a line as I could. This threw an amazing amount of dust in the air. I had to stop cutting a couple of times to let the dust settle because I couldn’t see anything at all. At one point I actually pressed my mouth up against the window screen so I could breath a little fresh air. The neighbors must think I’m some kind of freak. I finished making my cuts with my new Dremel Multi-Max and very carefully removed the old plaster and nails.

As I’ve mentioned before, nothing is square or plumb in my house. Moreover, the thickness of the plaster varies every few inches, sometimes dramatically. In order to hang 1/2 inch sheetrock and have the surface be flush with the existing plasterboard, I had to custom cut shims for each individual stud. I would lay the new sheetrock into the space and use my carpenter’s square to get a proper depth measurement. Even with that kind of attention to detail, the seam still comes out uneven in some places. There’s really not much you can do but accept the fact that you’ll be spending all of your available free time over the next few days applying and sanding drywall mud. I learned to accept that sad fact during the kitchen remodel last summer.

When all the new sheetrock was hung, I put on the corner bead and taped the joints. Unfortunately, I only had enough mud on hand to do about a third of the project. Since it was 11:00 pm, I decided to just call it a night. The tile guys come on Thursday morning to lay the tile. They grout on Friday morning and then the plumber comes back to install our new shower fixtures. Most importantly, the new toilet goes in on Friday afternoon. It’s only been a couple of days, but I’m already sick of roughing it. I could never make it in the third world.

To recap, here’s where we are in regards to the plan:

• Remove everything that’s not necessary or nailed down
• Scrape the walls and ceiling
• Skim coat the walls
• Patch the ceiling
• Remove the old tile (down to the studs)
• Remove the sink and vanity
• Prime and install the new beadboard
• Remove the toilet
• Tile work done
• Install a new toilet
• Prime the walls and ceiling
• Paint the walls and ceiling
• Buy and install a new sink
• Return everything to the room
• Bathtub refinished

UPDATE: Bathroom Remodel 5: Tile

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