Squeals of happy showering!

Finally, after over a year, my bathroom "remodel" is done and we're using our shower again, rather than the kids'.

It was a long haul.

It started out to just replace the bathroom fan. Then we found out that the morons who remodelled the house had put siding over the existing fan vent when they did the house (the master bath was the only room in the house that they did not touch). Thus mold in the wall, a bit behind the shower but also next to. Sob.

We took down shower doors and the shower backer (Corian). We found out that the morons who built the house had not done things to code -even 1994 code- behind the walls. For example, the "weep holes" that are supposed to drain moisture did not. Nothing we could see from the outside, but apparent when we removed the Corian. There was no mold there, surprisingly, but some damage. Some also from where they'd incorrectly installed the shower handle. Again, no mold, but damage. So it was pretty clear that the whole shower area needed a down-to-studs remodel.

In retrospect, we should have replaced the shower pan as that point. It's great, and we didn't dislike the shower. However, replacing it would mean we'd have to re-tile the whole floor. And that might mean removing and perhaps damaging our toilet, which we do like a lot and did not want to replace.

We needed to replace the backer boards around the shower. We'd hated the wallpaper the original owners (who never lived in the place...) had put up, so we decided we'd take that down too. We'd wanted to do it for a while, but the thought of stripping wallpaper is shudder-worthy.

We did consider a full remodel, but the toilet thing and the fact that we truly did not want to deal with new cabinets, and granite and whatever held us back. Not that either of us is overly fond of the Corian, but we just did not want to deal.

Here's an idea of bathroom before we started... You can see some of the paint samples and where I'd started checking how difficult it was going to be to remove the wallpaper. PITA. We ended up renting a steamer, which was the best thing.





During demolition we also found out that the morons who built the place used construction adhesive to attach the Corian. Since we didn't want to replace it, getting the Corian off the walls was a major PITA, involving shims and patient tapping. It took a lot longer than it should have.

The main project bits were after demolition were:

-- replace the ceiling fan and vent it outside. Left hole in ceiling.
-- replace the backerboard
-- repair the areas on the wall with mold, which weren't inside the shower area
-- replace the area near where the cat's litter box had been
-- replace the hole in the ceiling from the fan vent repair
-- remove the whole house audio speaker, which no longer worked, and repair the hole that left
-- new electric switch boxes and faceplates
-- texture the walls <-- we hired this out
-- repaint
-- clean the construction adhesive off the Corian
-- rehang the Corian
-- re-assemble the shower doors and faucet
-- put back all the door trim (had to remove the door to make Corian transport easier)
-- put up towel racks etc
-- new baseboard moulding.

We just have the moulding left to do. We hesitated as to if we should use maple like the rest of the house, or white.

During the year plus it took us (15 months, ugh), we also:

-- went on 5 (short) camping trips
-- went to Iceland
-- hosted Perry's graduation, Thanksgiving, Christmas, as well a big birthday party for dh. A few other events, but these were the mutli-day-whole-weekend-committed ones.
-- replaced or moved all the skylights in the house, including one in the bathroom
-- dh made three 2-3 week-long emergency trips to Albququerque, and a week trip to South Carolina.

This in addition to other weekend commitments like regattas, dh's train volunteering, yard work, the occasional hike, working to settle his dad's estate, yard work etc. Again in retrospect, we should have planned for some intensive work for a week, rather than attempting to do things on weekends.

And Perry, that little rotter, went off to college. While the Corian wasn't heavy, it was big and it was very hard for me to carry with dh.

What's really good: we replaced the backerboard with something that should be a lot better, some nasty fiberglass stuff. It was a bear to work with, and difficult to source, but it should prevent damage. Dh also re-installed everything according to code, with silicone seals on the correct side of the shower doors this time.

Small flex, as Linnea would say. We hired someone to do the spray on texture on the walls. Dh had done all the drywall repairs, and the guy who did the texture, who also does drywall obviously, was impressed with dh's work.

We've been so close these past 6 weeks. Then, and this is why a full remodel with new shower might have been easier, we went to find replacement for all the "wear" parts of the shower door, seals, sweeps, guides? And found that they'd all been custom made for the manufacturer in the mid-90s and shower door tech has changed (people don't do curved doors, and they ones they do have have a smaller radius than ours, and are more 'all in one' installations). We ended up finding a replacement that is almost ok for the door guild, no replacement yet for the seals, though we have some ideas of what might work, and we're still working on the sweep. Ugh.

Anyhow, it's all done except for the baseboard. We were able to take a shower in our own bathroom for the first time in waaaaay too long.





Yes, there are many plants in my bathroom. Many of them used to be around the house, with only the only bathroom refugees the ones that cats tended to eat, and the bathroom fern, which has always been in our bathroom. But then the younger cats (read: TWISP) started knocking plants on the floor. I lost several African violets pots to them, though thank goodness the plants were salvageable.So more and more plants have congregated onto the bathroom counter and into the second sink. We never really used it much anyhow, sigh.

The walls look almost grey in that photo, but they're a very pale almost ice blue.

I need to get the stuff up on the walls that I want on the walls, namely my raven and a few prints. I'm looking to purchase a good photo of the Aurora Borealis for the wall by the plants as well. Long term, new towels, and the kids can have these. They weren't the shade of blue I was expecting. This blue is called "blueberry" and showed up in the catalog as blue-tinged-with-purple, which I wanted, rather than this ugly south seas like blue.

Anyhow. This got long.