Day 1: Bathroom Remodel

The one 1960's room left in Gladys is the pink and white tiled bathroom.  While we have made some progress in modernizing it by putting in a new window, a new toilet, a new vanity and adding solid-core interior doors, we know that we still have much to change.

The "before" picture showing our 1960's
pink bathroom.  Thank God the floors are
terrazzo so we don't have to change them also!

The pink tub will be a chore to remove, but
out it must go.

We want to take down all of the tile and the "sculpted" (read "ugly") upper walls, remove the soffit, change the lights, and remove the rusting cast iron tub. We plan to drywall all of the walls, add a new Stirling tub and surround with Kohler fixtures, add a new granite vanity top, and add a Kohler sink and faucet.  We will complete the room with a new toilet paper holder, and towel bars.  Of course, if you know my husband, you know that those also will come from Kohler.

With the vanity removed, we covered the floor with paper
to save it from damage.

Anyone who remodels knows that prep is just as important as the job itself.  We started our work this morning at 7:30, and we spent the next hour and a half just prepping the area.  We removed the vanity to its temporary home in the Florida room.  The old countertop and sink now reside in the garage.  The closet and hallway door lean against the guest room wall for now, and the mirror is face-down on the guest room bed.  Everything in the closet is packed in tubs or bags secured under the long hallway table in the living room.  Whew!  That was just the clean-out.

Six mil plastic with red zippers attached allow
us to try to keep the dust in the bathroom while
still having access to the room from the hall.

We tried something new this remodeling job: we bought a kit to make a zippered door for the room.  So far it seems to be working well; we'll see how it holds out for the next week or so.  We knew that removing all of the tile and plaster would be dusty, and we were SO right!  Rick bought a grinder which does help to cut "bite-sized" chunked of wall loose, but chipping them down is still a glorious mess.

To help with the dust control, we opened the window and put a small fan in it to exhaust the dusty air in the room.  It must be working, because as you can see from the picture, the fan face left a dusty reminder of just where we located it.

The dusty circle on the screen shows where the fan stood.

We worked until noon to remove the part of the tile wall where the vanity once stood.  We will gain inches in the room since behind the tile we find a thick layer of plaster and wire mesh.  The blade on the grinder cuts in an inch and a half, and it never touches the wire mesh!  This will be a messy, heavy, difficult job.

The wall "before" ...

and after our first day of work.

We called for a dumpster for the debris, and the man at Waste Management for the city said that they would deliver it this afternoon.  Yeah, right.  I had just stepped out of the shower and was drying off as Rick entered the shower.  Suddenly I heard the city truck in our driveway.  Since neither of us was wearing much, we could not go outside to tell him where to place the dumpster, so, of course, it is so far away from our garage that we can barely get both the car and the truck in our driveway.  Sigh.  If the truck had been 10 minutes earlier or later, one of us would have been able to direct him.  Timing is everything.

I am glad that Rick has an appointment with the allergist this afternoon.  If not, I am sure that he would still be in the bathroom working.  As it is, we did enough for the first day.  Now that we have the dumpster, I will be able to transport the debris outside as Rick continues to tear down the walls.

This job is going to take some time, but the results will be a totally updated Gladys in the end. If I still have the energy to do so, I will post our second day's efforts tomorrow evening.