A scant five-and-a-half months after The Flood of Aught-Five (more on that here and here and here), we are finally doing something about the giant holes in our bathroom walls. The creation of said holes was apparently vital and necessary to the clean-up process, a process that ended before anyone could reasonably point out that mayhap, clean-up could include replacing the large chunks of wall that had been excised.
Anyway, we opted not to fill in the walls, but rather to rip them out completely. But why stop there? So we're also ripping out: the floor, the vanity, the medicine cabinet, the lights, the ceiling and feeble ceiling fan, the window that swings out onto the street and gives us no privacy whatsoever and the crappy tile that was laid down on plain old drywall instead of the cement backerboard a shower surround needs.
Yes, we are remodeling the bathroom. This is not one of those bright, cheery remodels as detailed in the annual "Cost Vs. Value" report. We are not doing something so modest as "Update an existing 5-by-7-foot bathroom that’s at least 25 years old. Replace all fixtures to include 30-by-60-inch porcelain-on-steel tub with 4-by-4 ceramic tile surround, new single-lever temperature and pressure-balanced shower control, standard white toilet, solid surface vanity counter with integral double sink, recessed medicine cabinet with light, ceramic tile floor, and vinyl wallpaper."
No, we are providing legions of Bay Area contractors -- the ones we solicited quotes from anyway -- with knee-slappers about the couple whose sink pipes actually went through the floor and whose tub was apparently unsupported by anything so mundane as a floor joist. I don't know if all contractors' introductory quote processes include pointing at pipes and snickering uncontrollably, or just ours. Oh, the merry laughing! How it rang out, right up to the moment where we read the contractor's quotes!
Would you like to know what my very favorite part of remodeling is?
It's not that we're already 12% over the quoted estimates owing to the discovery that our floor was apparently made of cornflakes and liberty bonds, and the subflooring will need to be replaced.
It's not that my toilet is now sitting in my tiny, unlandscaped back yard, adding to the ineffable air of refuse d'blanc that floats over God's little sixteenth-acre.
It's not that a city inspection showed that our toilet had been exactly .25" too close to the tub to meet city codes, and so its plumbing will need to be moved exactly .25".
It's not that having no working toilet and no working tub means I'm now getting up at 5 a.m. so I can go to the gym before work to exercise and shower. (That's actually been a great side effect, although it's killing me that all those people who are all, "Work out in the morning! It gives you energy!" were right.)
It's not learning that our tile is apparently made from the diamonds that were rejected by rap stars and professional athletes as being too big and showy, if the price per box is anything to go by.
It's that every time I venture outside to avail myself of the rented portajohn that's on the sidewalk outside, in front of our side door -- every time, without fail -- there are cars pulling up to all four of the stop signs at the intersection. I have drive-by oglers watching me unlatch the combination lock, then step inside to do my thing. And we have at least two more weeks of this. O, rapture unbounded!
Good luck - we redid our 1950's bathrooms a few years ago, and while I'm really pleased with the result, remodeling was a difficult time to endure!
Posted by: Lady M | 2006.05.22 at 19:49
Anytime you need to, you know - pee, you know where I live.
Posted by: marylynn | 2006.05.22 at 21:34
How horrible, Lisa! You have made me rethink the whole "let's buy an old place and remodel" idea. I am not sure I could ever overcome my phobia of portajohns.
Oh and please post photos of the after! Let us admire the fruits of your pain. :-)
Posted by: molly | 2006.05.23 at 05:05
This has made me very afraid. I need to renovate my bathroom, and I've been all la-la-it's-only-going-to-take-a-few-days-la-la, which I know is so wrong, but deluding myself is the only way I'll actually do this.
But the new bathroom will look nice.
Will you be posting photos of yours when it's finished?
Posted by: Alice | 2006.05.23 at 05:45
Oh, not to worry about pictures -- I've been snapping digital photos every day or two and I am hoping that this weekend, I will finally get everything uploaded into Flickr so you can all ooh and aah at the demolition. And, God willing, at the eventual reconstruction of the bathroom.
Posted by: Lisa | 2006.05.23 at 09:11
In our seventy-year-old house, we have one teeny tiny bathroom that sounds like it has many of the same problems as yours (we try not to think about what is actually holding the tub up) and we very much need to renovate.
I'm a nighttime pee person, though, and so far I haven't been able to deal with the concept of trekking out to a portajohn in the back yard three times a night.
Posted by: Anne | 2006.05.23 at 10:06
I must wonder about the diligence of the inspection that finds a pipe a quarter-inch out of alignment; I can only think that the inspector had a rancorous history with the plumbing company or something and it was payback time. Something. I've had inspectors in and out in 7 minutes, including an electrical inspector who eyeballed something he didn't like and said "You'll do something about that pretty soon, right?" The best of all was the gas inspector -- for whom we waited two days -- who refused outright to get into the crawlspace and simply sent the plumber _who did the work_ down to have a look for him. Verdict: passed.
Posted by: mike | 2006.05.26 at 17:30
HA.
Today's inspection hijinks: the electrical inspector wants the two separate lights in the bathroom (overhead/fan and sconces flanking the med. cabinet) in two separate circuits. So now we have to rewire the bathroom. I'm just glad it's a two-day job. of course, that's two more days using an outhouse, but at this point, I'm clutching my take-what-I-can-gets where I can get 'em.
I realize all these codes are rooted in something that transcends my primitive comprehension, but I'm beginning to wonder ...
Posted by: Lisa | 2006.05.26 at 18:07