Rehabber’s Rehab

As of today we have one working sink, one shower and one toilet, and they are all in different rooms of the house.  Pictures coming soon.

Here’s how it works.  You can take a shower upstairs, but there’s only 3 walls in the bathroom with the fourth covered in plastic.  Needless to say, it’s a bit drafty.  You can go to the bathroom, but you have to go to the basement, steer clear of the mess, and wearing shoes is a must, and the toilet is in a room Liz refers to as the dungeon.  Then you can wash your hands, do your dishes rinse your face, and clean out your painting tools in the utility sink.  One stop shopping, if you can find the basement light, which Liz still has no idea where it is.  I just leave it on all the time for her.

The plumber arrived and started taking out the old cobbled together lead pipes and backed up drains.  Not only were we adding new plumbing for the new shower, second vanity sink, kitchen sink and gas range, but we were also taking the opportunity to do some cleanup and upgrading. 

1. At the meter of the house the water main constricts to half inch pipe which reduces water pressure.  The lead pipes also reduce water pressure because they corrode and buildup over time.
2. We changed out the old sewer stack and replaced it with PVC and added a paralel vent so that if we ever added a second floor we could use the drain for upstairs bathroom rather than it serving as a vent as it commonly does.
3. We replaced alot of the old led pipe going to the utility sink, the washing machine, the water heater, and the broken water line to the exterior faucet.

The bathroom required laying a subfloor of concrete that was level with the existing floor so that the tub could be laid on a flat level surface.  And the wall that contained a lot of the plumbing was so cobbled together from years of plumbing work that it was no longer attached to the ceiling or floors.  You could shake the wall and it would move easily except at the corner and the wall.  This will certainly raise questions with the framing inspector if not the plumbing inspector, wo we had to shore up the framing with a new stud, and some artfully placed spreaders between the studs.

The plumbing requires a lot of coordinating.  In order to get the sinks in you have to have the cabinets and vanity in place, which requires walls to be drywalled and all the electrical and plumbing done.  To get the shower, we have take out the last shower, then quickly put up cement board that will support the tile so that the plumber can drill through and place the fixtures on.  Doing with out a shower is a no-go for this remodeling job because getting up at 4AM is hard enough without driving to the mother-in-law’s to shower.

The tub is going in Tuesday, which means we will take out the old one Monday night.  We picked up tile on Wednesday night.  We’re going with a slate pattern in the tub with white travertine tile on the floor and up to chair rail height on the walls.  We’ll then throw in a slate border on the walls and a travertine strip in the shower capping the walls with a travertine pencil tile.  Hopefully we can get the tile tub up Tuesday night and grouted Wednesday for a working shower sometime on Thursday.

Cross your fingers

thor