And Then There Was...

... a new bathroom.

So here's the original bathroom in all it's glory. Yes, you're looking at faux black-marble-painted walls and a faux-black-marble-painted claw foot tub (who would do that to a claw foot tub?). The wallpaper below the wainscoting rail was a: textured, b: original, c: painted black. The floor? Black high gloss faux black marble peel-n-stick vinyl tile.

Needless to say, this was screaming "makeover".

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the top of the walls (did I mention they were 9ft?) had a punched-tin border, painted, yep you guessed it, black.

Step 1:

Strip the textured wallpaper and tin border. Word of advice for anyone with plaster walls. Please, please, please, for the love of the future contractor who will remodel your bathroom, do not wallpaper your walls. I repeat, do not wallpaper your plaster walls. Because you will cause your contractor to go insane while trying to remove it.

While we're at, nix the tin border and black walls too.

Steps 2, 3, 4:

Remove the units, tub, shower, vanity. But for the love of God, do not remove the toilet until absolutely necessary. This is an important step. Remember that, or you'll be running to the gas station every few hours.

Remove old flooring. Discover great big gaping hole under tiles. Weep.

Repair great big gaping hole and lay new underlayment. Curse old plumber.

Steps 5, 6:

Remove toilet. Weep again. See steps above...

Build unnecessary platform for the tub to sit on because the (current) plumber was too lazy to run the additional plumbing lines under the floor.

Here we also added 2 side frame walls for the shower enclosure because the client didn't want a right-handed shower. That's ok though, because my OCD ass wanted a perfectly symmetrical wall anyway, so the tub/shower got centered. Of course the bathroom is only so wide (but damn is it tall), so the frame walls and platform could only come out so far. And the back frame wall (was necessary because ya can't secure anything to plaster, let alone a shower enclosure) had to be built flat so as not to add 4 inches to the depth of the entire frame.

Steps 7, 8:

Install tub/shower unit. This was the only part I got help on. Not that the tub or shower was heavy or anything, but because it had to come in through a window, and like I was going to carry that thing out and around and through a freakin' window.

Drywall the enclosure. Used to green board (and then promptly discovered a better drywall to use), to enclose the frame walls. The client initially wanted tile around the top of the shower enclosure, so that got covered in cement board. Did I mention cement board weighs about 30-4olbs a piece? Conveniently the guys that helped me install the tub were no where around when I got to this part...

Steps 9, 10:

Mud drywall around the enclosure. Be sure to use the pink drywall compound only if you're secure in your masculinity, because trust me, you will hear the jokes...

Skim coat floor prior to laying tile. Be sure to do this step REALLY late at night after working a 14 hour day. That way, you'll be nice and tired and make a bunch of mistakes that you can fix in the morning after getting 4 hours of sleep. Its way fun, trust me!

Oh yeah, and to make it more fun? Do it in the dark.

(because the bathroom doesn't have an overhead light.)

Steps 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16:

Prime and paint walls, windows, and doors. Oh yeah, repair door frame before priming and painting it. Also, make note to measure door frame and width of tub for future installations so you can skip the whole "repair door frame" thing...

Lay tile. Kill your knees and back in the process.

Install vanity and toilet (yay!).

Build and install shelving units on either side of tub/shower.

Install and paint baseboard moulding and trim.

Install shower doors. Enlist the help of the owner with this step. That way, if the (really expensive) doors get screwed up during installation, you can blame it on him. ... Not that that happened or anything... cough.

Final step: Caulk EVERYTHING. And I mean everything. That way, when the shower starts leaking into the kitchen below (because it did. Twice.), you can blame it on the plumber, and not yourself. Well, unless you count the flood you caused when you punctured a pipe while laying the underlayment. But who's counting?

So there it is, the finished product!