After having our mountain condo for a year and a half now, I figured it was about time to put some money into upgrading the bathrooms. They are all original from 1984. Needless to say, they looked a little dated. Also, the toilets couldn't flush crap... literally. Since I have less than zero skill when it comes to home remodeling, I figured I'd call in a pro. My buddy AJ lives out in North Carolina and does custom furniture, cabinets, and other construction projects for a living, so I decided to pull the friend card and see if I could get him to come out and help me with the project.
Initially, I wanted to do both bathrooms, but since we only had 4 days, we decided just to tackle the hardest one. The front bathroom in the condo had a large steam shower enclosure that the previous owner removed the door from, which makes the whole steam thing not work so well. My plan called for tearing out the old one and building a walking shower with a bench. At the same time, we'd tear out the carpet and replace it with tile, as well as re-tile the entry to the condo. Due to the aforementioned poop problem, both toilets were also to be replaced.
Most of the first day was demolition of the old stuff, which started out with us trying to be delicate and remove the tub as one piece, like it was installed. It ended with me wielding my brand new saws-all like the guy from Chainsaw Massacre and hacking the tube into four pieces. The #1 lesson for that day was to do the research about where the electrical is before sticking a saw through the wall. I ended up cutting all the way through the 3/4" metal conduit, but somehow the wires remained intact. Brian 1, Death by Electrocution 0.
Day two was mostly framing and the hanging of cement board, which is perhaps the most pain the the ass substance ever made. A.J. said to go cut a piece, and when I asked how, he said with a razor blade. I reminded him that it's CEMENT, but apparently that's the best way. From now on, if I can't cut it with a circular saw, I'm not building with it. That crap sucks.
Day three was a metric crap ton of tile cutting. Since we didn't have a proper work surface to put the tile saw on, I used one of the toilet boxes, which meant that I spent an entire day bent halfway over at the waist cutting tile. It wasn't until we left for dinner that I realized the tile saw was spitting watter into my crotch all day, so it basically looked like I pissed my pants.
By the end of our four days, the bathroom was complete, and I'm very happy with the results. I learned a ton in the process, and while I may never do a bathroom like that by myself, I certainly have the skills to do basic re-tiling.
Next week the glass place is going to come out to the condo to measure for the glass door, and after it's installed, I plan on sitting in there for at least an hour. Maybe by then I'll finally have all the grout cleaned out from underneath my fingernails.
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