Another stupid build thread from t25torx.

Yep it's ANOTHER build thread by me. This one is quite different than my usual Wheeler Dealer fair, though I suppose it has the same basis. To take something and improve it before selling it on. Except this time it's not anything with an engine. It's my house, specifically the guest bathroom this round. Enyar posed a question about drop ceilings and bathrooms a while back in this thread. Well I've finally gotten to the point of giving him the show and tell on what it's all about.

I'm trying to maximize our return on this house when we go to sell in a couple months and these bathrooms are just eyesores from the 80's.

I mean. just look at it.

Lovely tile and wallpaper.

Ah the almond colored porcelain throne, with matching almond tub.

And here's that wonderfull drop ceiling that Enyar was wondering about. You can see that it brings the ceiling height to just over the door height of 80 inches. Makes for a real claustrophobic room.

So I started by removing the door. I love this lock arrangement. Has a keyed entry to the bathroom, who does that? Guess they were serious about keeping people from walking in on you.

Next down was the mirror. A couple philips heads and the retainers were gone along with the glass.

Then the vanity was next. I turned the water off at the wall and removed the sink and faucet. Then I removed the whole vanity, busted it up and burned it outside.

Vanity is gone and the throne is next.

And gone. I stuffed a plastic bag filled with old towels in the hole to plug it up.

Started chipping away at the tile and wasn't getting very far. So I started on the wall tile instead.

All gone!

So it was back to the floor after this, I had taken a lunch break and looked up vids on how to remove tile easily and ran across one where they said the beat the tile with a heavy hammer before using the tile scraper. So I beat the everloving piss out of this floor, and it freaking worked. It made this into a 15 minute job from what I thought was going to take all day.

Kept scraping till I had this.

After this was all done, I removed the baseboard and crown moulding. Then it was time to make a list for Home Depot. That's it for today. i'm bushed.

Fun, Fun, Fun! Any plans that differ from a 1:1 replacement?

I just went through this whole process last year. I ended up taking the tub surround down to the studs, and installing new cement board to get a fresh smooth (ish) surface for the new tile. Also replaced the fixtures and installed better insulation while it was apart. So much work for someone else to enjoy. Looking back I think...why didnt I do this sooner, so I got a chance to enjoy results?

Now would be a great time to install glass block instead of that window. as well as install new shower faucet/head.

TGMF wrote: So much work for someone else to enjoy. Looking back I think...why didnt I do this sooner, so I got a chance to enjoy results?

OMG this so much. Both my last houses were improved so much right before I sold them. Why didn't I do it and then enjoy it for years? The first one I almost completely remodeled after I moved out. It was beautiful, so much better than when I lived there. Oh well. My current one I'm doing up front!!

Well if we can ever decide on a house and stick with it. This is our 2nd house in 3 years. I'm hoping once we move back to TN we'll take our time picking a house and this will be the last one for quite some time. I could have probably sold this place without doing anything but a good paint job and a thorough cleaning, but the return would be minimal. Judging by what has sold with similar reno work I can get about 50-60k more in this area once I am done, you know till the market tanks right before I go to sell.

Man...this almost convinces me that I could demo our main bathroom myself.

It's the putting it back together than would be the concern!

^^^just doing the demo yourself still saves you thousands. Tear it apart. Its amazing what you can actually do yourself. You tube videos when yu get stuck. Home renovation like the above isn't that hard. Farm out important stuff like electrical and plumbing if need be, but sheet rock, tile, and installing cabinets is easy once you get it.

Are you going to pull the ceiling? Had a kitchen in a house we bought once that looked just like that. All the rest of the house had 9' ceilings. Dropped one of the lights and you could see where they ran a 2x6 ledger board and then joists across to lower the ceiling. They had lowered it 1 1/2' looked so much better when that was removed and patched up the existing ceiling.

Day 3 update.

Went to Home Depot and spent a little over a grand on stuff. When looking at it in the bed of my truck it doesn't seem like this should be that expensive.

Well, no time like the present. Time for all this drywall to come down.

All the drywall is out. Revealing some wonderful shortcuts due to the low ceiling I had to fix. I hate whoever built this house.

Like this. instead of running this up through the wall cap they went around it thanks to the low ceiling.

They did the same damn thing with the electrical. Instead of doing it right and drilling a hole for these wires, they just ran them around the stud. This was the same way for any wire they ran into this room.

Got the new vent fan mounted. I just couldn't see not adding one, I don't see how it didn't have one to begin with.

I notched the header 2x4's to tuck be able to tuck the wires in behind the drywall. I'm not looking to rewire the whole damn house so this will have to do. Took me a little while to get all that done and it was 8pm and time to stop for the day.

I picked up this morning by hitting up Home Depot again for a few things I missed. I hate how hard it is to find certain things there, like screws for cement board. One would think they would be in the isle with all the other thousand different screws.. nope. They're over with the thinset, and tile tools. wtf.

Anyways back to the project.

Time to cut this header panel and this PVC vent pipe and flip it around. I had bought a small extension I was going to use to raise the elbow section over the header, but I ended up cutting it just right to be able to flip it 180 degrees and just cement it back into place. I couldn't have planned it any better.

With that finally done it was time to cut a hole in my roof!

I cut this with a hole saw so I could get the center of where the vent needed to go, I also ran my extension cord up through it rather than drag it all outside where I have no outlet nearby. Then I climbed up on the roof, cut an even bigger hole with my jigsaw and put the vent into place, then sealed everything up with roof sealant. No pictures of that though, too busy not falling off roofs.

With that done it was time to wire up the switch and also ad a CGFI outlet to replace the old standard unit.

And it works.

Taking a lunch break now and will get back it. I have to rough in the new shower valve at this point and then I can finally start getting this drywall and cement board up.

FWIW, I wish that I had torn out everything down to the studs when I did my last bathroom remodel. Keeping the old tub and tub/shower faucet parts cheapened the look of our reno work, and trying to get a nice surface on the old, beat up drywall was lots more work than starting from scratch.

Got the shower roughed in. I hate sweating pipes but miraculously I got it all put together the first time with no leaks, maybe I'm actually getting better at this.

Even has hot and cold water

Forgot to get a shot of the new fan/light switch combo. Tested out the fan and it works pretty good, nice a quiet also.

So I think I'm finally at a point where I can start hanging drywall. So I'll start that process tomorrow morning and see where the day takes me with that. Having never hung or really done anything beyond patching small holes I'm a little nervous about this part.

Awesome work. I always want to chronicle something like this. I often have intentions to take pictures and write up my work. What usually happens is I get so pissed off and frustrated actually doing the work that I saw berk it.

Mad props for actually soldering them pipes, yo. I wusses out and went with shark bites.

Day 4 went slow. The pros make putting up drywall look like the easiest thing in the world. I am no pro. But I did get almost all of it done today. I still need to patch the holes from the towel rack, toilet paper holder, and the hole I had to cut for moving the vent pipe. I should be ready to remove wallpaper and start mudding tomorrow.

Test fitting the fan grill.

Once the drywall was up it was time to put the cement board up. Went pretty smooth.

I did a little work over the weekend. Got the wallpaper removed Friday and then mudded and sanded everything Saturday and Sunday. Having to take a couple steps back now though. I had planned on refinishing the tub but after reading a lot of reviews and stuff it seems that refinishing is very hit or miss and the chemicals required to etch the porcelain are super caustic and hard to get a hold of in a short time span. So I yanked the tub and will be just getting a new steel one in white.

Sanded joints.

Stupid old almond colored tub removed.

Great. I can only hope the new tub is pretty close to matching the drain. Other wise it's time to break out the sledge again.

Tub completely removed and waiting for the new one.

Going to check out the local Habitat for Humanity store and see if they have any units that match the old deminsions.

I would be surprised if just about everything doesn't match up. But I might be naive.

Was there any trick to getting the tub out? I've got a similar project coming soon with an almost identical room layout.

I had my tub reglazed by a local company, 400$ and I didn't have to buy, learn to use or be exposed to any of the toxic chemicals they use. It turned out great. Cant comment on longevity of the surface as I remodeled to sell same as you though they backed it with a 3 year warranty. Would have been a much better choice than screwing with the drain in my opinion....but to late now.

I too am curious about how to remove a tub, and how to install a new one....needed bracing, how its attached to the wall and such.

Okay to remove the tub, if it's a steel unit like mine was, it's actually pretty easy. Just remove the drain, and stopper valve. Then check along the the lip for any nails or fasteners holding it in. You'll need to remove the wallboard along the back and non-drain ends to be able to have room to lift it out. Starting at the end opposite the drain just lift up tilting that end up while also pulling it away from the drain, if you do it right, you should be able to tilt and lift it so that it's standing straight up, then just cart away with a handtruck.

So I should go buy a lottery ticket. I stopped by the local Habitat for Humanity Re-Home store to see if they had any used tubs there from other demo jobs. Well after looking over the small selection I didn't see anything that would work, all were left draining and I needed a right draining unit. Then I happened to spot a tub under a couple other fiberglass units, it was white, and had the correct drain location. So I pulled it out from under the other units and started measuring. 15 inches tall; check. 30 inches wide; check. 60 inches long; check. Cool just the size I needed. It was dirty but looked salvageable. The price, a cool 50 bucks, today was apparently 50% off bathroom fixtures. Huzzah!

So here she is all unloaded and ready for a good cleaning.

Here's the worst damage. Thankfully this will be covered up with the wallboard and tiles once I am done.

I'll need to cleanup this calk with a scraper blade.

All cleaned up and set into place.

Lets check the drain and overflow.

Hot damn will you look at that, I'd rather be lucky than good as my dad always said.

Lets check the overflow. Needs a little adjustment up, but that's easy, just a quick tap and it's right on the money.

Before adjustment.

After.

Well gotta get back to it. The first coat of ceiling paint is dry and ready for the 2nd and final coat.

so, nothing really holds the tub in place after the wall boards are removed? no structure under the tub to build for support? Would have guessed otherwise. Good to know for upcoming demo at my new place!

In reply to TGMF:

so there's a piece of foam directly under the tub, and in my case there were a couple 2x4's on the back wall supporting the lip of the tub, but that's it. The tub has it's own metal supports to the front.

Day two of tiling. Almost there. Two sides down, one to go. I went ahead and plunked down the $50 for a wet saw at Harbor Frieght, and so far it's been worth it. The back wall was a pain with the window and all the little trim stuff. Took me a day and part of another to get it done. The side wall I planned out a little better and it went down pretty fast. The last wall should go pretty fast also.

After all the walls are done I will grout with white non-sanded grout and then do a little tub and tile caulk around the edges to pretty it up. I'll have to touch up the ceiling paint in a couple spots also.

Made some more progress yesterday and today. Got the last tile wall set. Should be ready to grout this afternoon. Had to make a unexpected trip to HD after I ran 10 tiles short, not sure where my math went wrong there. I also painted the walls today. So now I can install the floor tiles next. Wish me luck there.

This is looking great and has been very inspiring. Looks like I'll be creating my own kitchen remodel build thread soon, thanks in small part to you and this thread.

Got some progress pics. The walls got grouted on Friday, and I cut and dry fitted the floor tiles Saturday. Yesterday was a slackers day of rest. I'll be back to it today with hanging wallpaper and setting the floor tiles.

Grout really does make a huge difference in the way these tiles look. Still need to just wipe it all off one more time with a dry cloth to get the dried film off them.

And here's a teaser shot of the flooring.

Starting to close in on wrapping this one up. The last major thing being the floor tiles.

Got the wallpaper up, I think I hate wallpapering more than tiling. It looks good in pictures but I can see the edge where the rows are lined up, I think i'm just too much of a perfectionist. Also got the floor down so I can't do anything in there for 24 hours. I need to notch the new door for the hinges and the linen closet door also tomorrow while I wait. Maybe knock this popcorn ceiling off the small hallway outside the bathroom.

Wallpaper is blue with a silver pattern, getting the pattern to line up was a bish.