Well that first bathroom was terrifying, but we heard from the neighbor that the other bathroom was demoed for about 6 months while work was being done on it. They took 6 months to complete one bathroom so they HAD to have gotten this one right.
Just as a reminder, here is what we started with.
This bathroom is large, but it was not really laid out the best. However, we thought we would keep this footprint but remove the tile on the floor and update the shower to match our style. The shower tile did not appear to be laid the best--it had uneven grout lines and some tiles were sticking out further than others. The shower floor was glass tile and horribly slippery when it got wet. If you know me at all, you know that I am clumsy on dry, smooth ground, so this was going to be treacherous if it was not fixed.
We began by removing the vanity from the room. But first--Joe cut the vanity top to fit in a nook on the other side of the room that was previously a strangely shaped closet. We will reuse that for a smaller vanity in that area later. We are not big fans of double sinks, we always end up just using one anyway. We have much bigger plans for this area... but that is for a different post.
We rented a jackhammer to get the tile off the ground. If you ever rent a jackhammer for this type of work, make sure to rent one that comes on a cart! It was pretty easy to roll around and using a smaller blade at tip picked this tile up smoothly! I actually ran it... for a bit.
Parkay. Parkay. Parkay.
Besides the theme of this house being hell, it has another theme running throughout it. Parkay. Underneath every surface we seem to keep finding parkay. Some of it is whole, but most of it is broken pieces that were just never taken up completely. We run into this often. The shower floor in this area was actually sitting on top of parkay flooring. That makes complete sense. Let's take an engineered floor, that isn't water resistant and will eventually rot away, and put a shower floor on top of it. Brilliant work, guy. Brilliant.
Well hello there, parkay!
Aside from the parkay though, you can see the tile is coming off the foundation easily.
Maybe a little too easily.
Let's not focus on that though, we will redirect our attention to removing the walls. The "pony wall" (short wall) needs to come out first.
Oh okay, I guess we will just remove the tile with our bare hands. Interestingly enough, while Joe was hand removing the tiles, a tile from the full wall at the top fell on his head. This should not happen.
Pro tip--butter backing your tile will prevent this from happening. Put thinset on the wall, and then put a thin layer on the back of your tile. This insures that the tile adheres to the wall correctly.
Alright, next stop, walls. Well now what the heck is this?!
There is a window behind the wall! The window has drywall sitting in it. If that window had failed in any way, imagine the mold that would have happened behind the wall that we did not even see! I am sure my allergies would have found it before anyone else did.
I guess Joe is going to be learning masonry with this project!
Plus this nice little wire randomly sticking out of the wall? I wonder if this one is hot too? Oh of course it is! It is running electrical to the lights outside!
Okay, okay, we have to finish the demo of this room. Let's remove the rest of the tile and just move on. There is nothing we can do about this now. My beautiful bathroom is now just an empty construction site.
It can only go up from here.... right? Let's only hope the drains are right because they are in the concrete.
But you know better.
Luckily, Joe is a plumber.
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