The Guest Bathroom Shower Disaster

 Early in September our pregnant daughter, Melody, her husband, Travis and their 2 year old daughter moved back down to California from Oregon. They moved in with us for a bit, and about a week later Travis was taking a shower in the guest bathroom upstairs, but it was raining down through a light fixture in the entry way, directly below the bathroom. After a bit of a panic, turning off the electricity and main water, we came to realize that the drain below the shower was compromised and needed to be replaced. YIPEEEEEE!!!! –That ugly bathroom was going to get a remodel!!

You've got to admit it. This was nasty!
I wish I had a before pic of the nasty vanity as well but I don't. Just refer back to the old kitchen cabinets and you'll get the idea.

The timing couldn’t be any worse. Our daughter was due to give birth in a couple of weeks and the holiday season was coming upon us. Here they are neatly taking down the wall tiles, lath and cement. --Old School. 

Randy and Travis worked diligently and neatly, while replacing some compromised wood due to water damage.

There's that broken drain pipe.

Meanwhile I get to go tub shopping. I want a bigger deeper tub that has those fancy champagne bubbles when you push a button! Off to the hardware/big box stores to do a little research. Those fancy tubs sure are expensive. --$1048.00.  Darn! I may have to go with just a deep soaking tub instead. After all we didn’t budget for this remodel so we have to count our pennies. I headed over to another store and picked out a deep soaking tub with jets that was on sale for around 600 dollars and I told the man I would be back with my husband and a trailer to haul it. The next day we returned only to find the Jacuzzi Primo Air Bath on sale for $404.10, in stock. Are my eyes deceiving me? Do they have it with a left drain in stock? Why yes they do! We are feeling very blessed at this point.

Now to go tile/granite shopping, but let me back track a bit. When we bought the house the guest bathroom had the tiniest vanity, not to mention ugly. I wish I had photos of the ugly vanity but I can’t seem to find one. One day, about 5 or 6 years ago, I was at the big box store and saw a vanity on sale for more than half off the price that would fit nicely in the guest bathroom. I go get hubby and we bought it, installed it and put in a nice natural stone backsplash. I also bought enough of the backsplash to go into the future tub surround when we would one day remodel. –Smart huh?—Not so quick. This vanity, I told myself would be the jumping off point for the style of the rest of the bathroom when we could get around to remodeling.
Now I need to find matching granite tiles to the granite vanity top for the tub surround, as well as some accent tiles -That was easy once I made a few calls. –Granite tiles ordered.

OK so here's why I backtracked: The old bathroom floor was vinyl over a ½ inch subfloor, which was nailed and glued on. We always knew that we would be putting in hardwood floors and even had the floor purchased, as we had already done the whole house. This is where I realized my mistake. When we put in the backsplash, we put it in directly above the vanity without realizing that the new floor would be raised up by about ¼ inch. --Once we removed the subfloor and added the ¾ inch hardwood. --Darn. Now we were going to have to remove the backsplash patch the wall and buy more tile and reinstall it ¼ inch higher. Thankfully I was still able to find and purchase the same tile.
As things were chugging away and Randy was hard at work installing the new tub and testing for leaks, he came down with some kind of stomach bug that lasted 4 days. No remodel during this time and we were down to one shower for 7 people in our home. As he got better and things started to resume, it became time to go to the hospital (Oct 6^th) and have a new granddaughter (who suffered some complications and was in the NICU for 3 days) while we were taking care of McKenna (2 year old) who came down with a nasty cold, then  Randy got it too. No remodel work to be done during that week. By the way, new granddaughter Mya is just fine now and we are very thankful.

We continued to slowly chug along making sure we were doing everything correctly and got all the tile installed, then the grout and VOILA! –We have a shower!

We continued to pry away more of the subfloor and add hardwood to half the bathroom floors but we began to run out of time.....

Now this is a second story bathroom with hardwood floors going in. We took a lot of precautions. Silicone was applied around the new tub inside and out.

And on the bottom of the hardwood floors.

The hardwood flooring came with a nice durable finish on the top, but not the tongue and groove. It's a bathroom. Water may get in the cracks, so we painted polyurethane on all the tongue and grooves for more added protection. Yes it was tedious but gave us piece of mind.

Once we moved away from the bath area, we used liquid nails on the remaining area to ensure stability. Still all the hardwood got polyurethane on the tongue and grooves. You can see in this pic that we haven't removed the subfloor where the toilet and vanity are. -Company is coming!! 

It was the week before Thanksgiving and company was on the way. (5 more people in our house for the next week!) Randy said we needed to stop the remodel just as soon as got the wainscot in on the half-done side, then we can just throw rugs down to cover the part of the floors that aren’t finished.

We are down to the wire. In this pic you cannot see the unfinished side but hey, at least we have a toilet and a vanity for our company.

My son's future Mother-in-Law took those pictures in Newport Beach when the tide went down. We thought they were a beautiful touch to our bathroom.

To continue with the soft ethereal look we opted to paint the ceiling Benjamin Moore Woodlawn Blue, and found this Schoolhouse Pendant which went perfectly with the other choices we had made. 

On Thanksgiving Day we had 17 people over our house for dinner. It was so much fun, but unfortunately one of our guests had the stomach flu (NoroVirus!) and it spread like wild fire to our family. First my stepdad Roger got it and when he felt well enough they left to go back home. Then McKenna got it and then gave it to Travis and me. We stayed quarantined but Randy was the next victim to fall prey to the violent stomach bug. Finally Daniel, our son, got it. For nearly 2-1/2 weeks someone was hugging the toilet and there was no removing that old toilet until all were well. We had to just be patient until the NoroVirus was no longer haunting us.

Finally about 1 week before Christmas we resumed the remodel. We took out the vanity and the backsplash and the toilet then patched the walls, removed the subfloor and began the rest of the hardwood floor installation, then some of the wainscot.

Removal of the old vinyl floor and subfloor, and a close look at how we can get a cleaner, better flange for the toilet. Allen the Plumber, from the Auburn Home Depot helped Randy figure out that part. He rocks!

We got the new backsplash up and moved the vanity back in on Christmas Eve. –But No toilet. On December 26 we completed the wainscot and the 27^th finally got the toilet in. Let’s pop open a bottle of wine! We are relieved and very happy with the end results. Now we need a vacation.

I love this toilet. You cannot see the poop chute snaking on the side. It is American Standard EverClean.

I love this bathroom!



As a Footnote: Earlier during the remodel, I needed to skimcoat the walls. The walls in this house are heavily textured and we wanted a smoother finish in the bathroom, not to mention is it hard to match up when patching. My favorite finish is called "Imperfect Smooth" I have used this finish throughout the house as we remodel. It is very expensive to have professionally done so I figure I might as well learn this method. It is easy but tedious. Here's how:

The heavily textured walls that are hard to match up.



Apply wall texture in a thin layer and spread evenly, leaving some holes for the "imperfect smooth" look.

Continue to spread it out evenly over all the walls.



Use a smooth wide putty knife and keep it clean as you go.



Let it dry completely.

Continue with your second coat, evenly and leaving random rough holes for that imperfect look.Let dry and sand with 80 grit paper until fairly smooth, but still exposing the imperfections purposefully left behind. C

This is what it looks like when you're done sanding. Ha-Ha! Are you scared to try it now? -Fear not.