The Bathroom Remodel

It’s been a long time since I have written last. Before Miriam went to Iowa to visit her parents 3 weeks ago we noticed our tile below the window in our bathroom was separating from the wall; so we decided it was a great time to remodel the shower area of our bathroom. After much work we were able to find a neighbor who would tile the room for us and we were off to the races. Miriam left at 7:30 am on Wednesday morning and after much thinking, I decided I could actually do this and I began Thursday morning before work (Click here for the link to bathroom progress pics). I soon realized it was a good thing we were doing this. The outside wall tile came off with little problem (As a matter of fact, I barely had to touch the tiles and they fell off with ease) and there was a great deal of mold behind the wall. It was great fun ripping off the sheet rock and tile. It opened up an area of dead space to the right of the bathroom that I found to be uninsulated, letting huge amounts of hot or cold air into the house. This added to the work load as I now had to insulate this space, but it also allowed me to add a light over the shower and the stairs that lead down to the basement. Thursday and Friday nights I worked until 10 or so and was able to get quite a bit torn out. Saturday and Sunday were interesting days. I think home depot has a time warp around it, as I lost at least 2 to 3 hours both days procuring the tools and items I needed to finish the job. So Sunday was the longest day. I was under a time crunch as I had committed to my tiler that I would have the room ready Monday morning and as evening was approaching, it was apparent I was not working quickly enough. I don’t think I really cared at that point as I was tired and starting to work on my second wind. Well, 2 am rolls around and I am still not close enough to quit so I said the heck with it, I am not going to get that much sleep anyway so I might as well stay up all night and finish the job. Needless to say I finished at 8am Monday morning, but wait…..I couldn’t put in the new tub because it was too heavy and awkward to do by my self so I had to wait for the tiler to help me put in the tub. Well that didn’t go exactly as planned. We got the tub in place and it turns out that American Standard changed the tub since they wrote the directions. The stringer (the back support brace) had to be moved down from where they said it should be by about 3/4 of an inch. In process of leveling the tub, I forgot to remove the blanket, which I had placed on the floor to protect the tub, so as soon as I finished leveling, I removed the blanket and the tub was out of level. Well… I did this twice. Do you think I would have learned from my mistake the first time…..NO! Well, after sleeping 7 hrs on Monday I finished the bathroom around 11pm and the tilers could do their job. It was a lot of work but in the end I am very satisfied with the work I accomplished.