So I officially started on a complete gut and rebuild of our guest bathroom. It was old/dated, (house was built in 1972, but I think they did a remodel in the 80s) and already needed repairs, so we just decided to go full steam ahead and remodel the entire thing. I'm doing all the work myself.
In this thread, I will post weekly updates. I don't have time to embed all the pics, so I'm just going to post a link to an album with the the progress pics for that week. I definitely don't have time to annotate or post commentary on all the pics, but I think y'all can figure out what's going on in each one based on the video introduction/walk through. If something is unclear or you have specific questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.
At this point that shower is still useable until I demo walls. I wanted to get primer on the drywall ceiling to "seal" it from moisture/humidity caused by a shower, in case we need to use it.
I realize there will be more taping and mud work on the inside corners when the new walls are tied into the ceiling, but I'm not worried about that. I'll just mud the corners in and sand/re-prime at that point. I just wanted to get the bare drywall sealed, and applying that primer now was a minimal amount of time to do.
At this point that shower is still useable until I demo walls. I wanted to get primer on the drywall ceiling to "seal" it from moisture/humidity caused by a shower, in case we need to use it.
I realize there will be more taping and mud work on the inside corners when the new walls are tied into the ceiling, but I'm not worried about that. I'll just mud the corners in and sand/re-prime at that point. I just wanted to get the bare drywall sealed, and applying that primer now was a minimal amount of time to do.
For future reference, that MR board would have been fine for that short period of time.
What kind of ceiling lights did you buy? Those look great and I need to replace mine in my master bathroom.
I used these, which are 3", because i didn't want to completely over power the space with light, but depending on how big your bathroom is, you can get similar looking ones in 4", 5," and 6", which all have brighter lumen ratings respectively.
Slim Baffle 3 in. Color Selectable Canless LED Recessed Kit
Here is week two progress. Much slower than last week, but sometimes family stuff takes priority.
Got the rest of the vanity cabinet demoed, wall mounted light fixture located and roughed in, furr down hole patched, and played with the drain pipe a little bit. Yes I'm going to offset the drain/vent in the wall so that it stubs out in the middle of the cabinet like it should. The back wall of the furr down patch is only held in place temporarily with two screws right now because I need to access that area to run the new plumbing. Got my demo trashcan emptied on Friday, so more wall demo will take place this week. Also got some new tools.
That's a hell of a lot of work to move the drain offset. You better be moving the water lines too.
And big spender on the tools. I'm going to need a pex expander in the near future as well, but hoping to buy some other DIY'ers seconds instead of having to buy new.
Yes, all of the galvanized drops in the wall (sink, shower, and toilet) are coming out and getting replaced with pex. For now They will just tie into the old galvanized piping overhead in the attic, but next project after finishing this bathroom is ripping out ALL of the overhead galvanized in the attic and re piping it all in pex.
Also, I'm not going to dig up and move the drain stub up. Just going to offset over in the wall.
Well week 3 had a pretty sucky setback while trying to address the drain pipe for the sink. See the first two pictures. My plan was cut off the galvanized arm at the pink line, then heat the cast iron hubs for several minutes with my torch to soften up the lead, and allow me to rotate that entire fitting 90*. That would then offset the drain toward the center of the wall where I wanted it. So after heating the hubs for a while I gave the arm two tiny taps with a hammer to see if it would move at all, and SNAP. The cast iron broke off right where it stubs up out of the concrete (pink circle in second pic). Ok well I guess I'm rebuilding the whole drain/vent stack now...
So then I had to go on the roof and cover the roof jack where that vent comes out, cut the whole vent pipe out from in the attic, pull the vent pipe up out of the wall, and pull out the whole cast iron drain. That was one evening. Then I spent the next two evenings and 2.5 Bosch concrete bits chipping out concrete around the drain pipe to expose enough pipe to get a coupling/adapter on it. That royally sucked in case anyone wants to know. 48 year old concrete is really hard. Once I had the adapter on the cast iron drain pipe, I could transition to PVC from there up, and offset the drain line in the wall as needed. I still need to run the new vent pipe up the wall and out the roof jack, but that's not a big deal.
Also got some more demo done. All of the drywall in the shower/toilet room is gone, and 2 of the 3 shower walls are gone. Had to stop there because demo trash can is full.
Hoping to get some plumbing supplies in this week and start running some new plumbing.
Ouch on the cast iron! It wouldn't surprise me if you were looking at two layers of floor tile there. The countertop and shower were original to the house.
Did you end up putting the in-sure spliced wires from the first set of pictures in a junction box?
Did you end up putting the in-sure spliced wires from the first set of pictures in a junction box?
I assume you're talking about picture #11 in the first set, and yes. That was an "in progress" picture, and in that pic you can see all of the wires are coming into a blue junction box. When I was all done I folded them up nicely in the box and put a lid on it.
The old shower walls were in order of installation... Studs 1/2" drywall Metal lath and about 1/2" to 3/4" of mortar Tile
What I'm planning to install: 1/2" concrete backer board Redguard painted on Wall mount tile mortar/mastic that will probably trowel down to about 3/8" Tile
The problem is the studs are set back 1/2" from the edge of the tub, and I'm not planning on doing a super thick mortar bed like they did previously, so I have a 1/2" gap I need to eat up. If I mount the concrete backer board to the studs as is, it will just barely touch the outside edge/lip of the tub, and then the tile will be barely inside the edge of the tub.
If I want to put an extra 1/2" of something to make the tile inside of the outer tub lip more, what should I use? Do I need to put two layers of concrete backer? Can I do a layer of MR drywall, and then the concrete backer over that?
I know this sounds confusing, but I'll try to get some pics/video to explain better.
Don't waste putting 2 layers of backer board as greenboard would be cheaper and easier to use. However, If it were me, I'd just use some 1/4" thick strips of wood tacked on to the studs as spacers and then the backer board...easiest and cheapest fix. Something like this that you can get from Lowe's or HD.
All you want is to have enough clearance for the tile to be installed over the tub lip as you'll then caulk this when done.
Put a level on all the studs around the tub. Depending on the age of the house and the quality of the construction, some may be slightly out of plumb or a little bowed.
Sister some studs along side the existing ones and you can bring it out to exactly where you need it and make sure it is straight and plumb.
Those are both excellent ideas. If my studs are straight and level, I'll just put some wood strips like pictured above across the existing studs. If the studs aren't plumb and level, I'll add new studs and bring them 1/2" in to touch the lip of the tub.
Well week 4 was full of more fun surprises. Here's a recap.
- Lots of plumbing supplies arrived. Shower valve rough-in box and trim kit showed up. Due to my line of work, I have lots of industry contacts in different sectors of MEP. One of those contacts happens to be a rep for Uponor, and he hooked me up fat on a load of ProPex material and fittings. This should be enough to do all of the plumbing I need for this bathroom, plus re-pipe all of my overhead plumbing in the attic and get rid of all the gross galvanized pipe up there. Everything on the shipping list in that pic I got for FREE.99, so that was pretty kickass. (I forgot to put valves on my list I sent to him and didn't want to bug him again, so I did end up buying $376 worth of valves.)
-The waterproofing on the old shower walls must not have been up to par, because there were 3 studs on the plumbing wall that had significant water damage/rot at the bottom. So much so, they were not structurally sound. There was also some water damaged drywall on the back side of the tub plumbing wall, which is my daughters room. So I cut out and replaced 3 studs, and patched drywall in my daughters room. Will tape/float/texture/paint the patches eventually.
- Finally ran the new PVC vent pipe up the wall, through the attic, and out the existing roof jack.
-Went to shutoff the water to my whole house so I could start working on some new plumbing, and that's when the fun really began. Pictured is the rusty old gate valve that was the shutoff to my whole house. I turned it clockwise to shutoff, it shutoff all the way and then SNAP. The stem broke inside the valve, and the valve is closed, so now my house has no water until I fix it. Cool... I just got a load of new PEX stuff, let's put it to work..... So I had to go out to the meter and shut off the water there. God knows then the last time that valve was used, because it did NOT want to budge. I couldn't get a firm enough grip with pliers, and put torque on it. So I ended up clamping a pair of vise grips on the valve and then beating on the vise grips with a mini sledge to get it to close. No lie, this probably took me 20 minutes, and even then, I didn't get it closed all the way. I only got it probably 3/4, maybe 7/8 of the way closed and then said F IT that's good enough. So I cut out the old gate valve with water still flowing out of the pipe, threaded on brass PEX adapters, and put in a nice new 1/4 turn ball valve. Sweet, now I have a functioning shutoff valve to my house again.
-Now that I can easily shut off the water to my house I started piping in some plumbing with all the new PEX. The hot and cold supply to sink is all done. The reason it U turns after transitioning from galvanized to PEX is because I have it go up into the attic, make a big service loop, put shutoff valves on each line, and then come back through the top plate and down the wall to supply the fixture. This is so when I re-pipe all my overhead later, I can just cut the PEX from where it ties into the galvanized and I will have enough slack in the line to easily tie right into the new PEX main.
- I also started on piping the shower. Did the same thing there with big service loops and a shutoff valve on both the hot and cold drops, so all of the connections in the attic are done. I got the shower valve box all made up and ready for quick install. Just need to install a piece of blocking in between the studs for the shower valve to mount to, then cut the hot and cold lines coming down out of the attic, and connect them to the shower valve inlets.
-I scored a nice quartz countertop from a buddy of mine that's a home builder that will become my vanity top. So I'll just need to pay for labor to cut it to length and cut sink/faucet holes.
Regarding your long PEX drops from the attic to the tub, I highly recommend that you either secure them to the studs or put insulation sleeving over them to prevent banging sounds when the water is shut off or turned on...I discovered this issue when I replumbed my first house many years ago.
I also drilled 3/4" holes thru the top plates and installed a 3/4" PEX sleeve approximately 5-6' long over the 1/2" PEX lines to protect the 1/2' lines from possibly wearing thru should the PEX lines expand and contract over time.
Regarding your logg PEX drops from the attic to the tub, I highly recommend that you either secure them to the studs or put insulation sleeving over them to prevent banging sounds when the water is shut off or turned on...I discovered this issue when I replumbed my first house many years ago.
Thanks for the tip. I have some plastic clips for pex pipe that I will use to secure the long runs to the studs and keep them from banging around in there.
Week 5 doesn't look like a lot of progress, but it definitely felt like progress. I can now say that two big milestones are checked off. All demo is DONE, and all plumbing in the walls and attic is DONE. That felt pretty good. Here's a run down of what you will see in the pictures for this week.
- Shower plumbing done. I moved the location of the shower head up about ~10" from where it was before to accommodate people that are not midgets. (Note: the galvanized nipple I have in the drop-ear 90 is temporary and just there so I can properly locate the holes in the backer board and tile. It will get replaced with a nicer chrome one when I trim out the shower)
- Got the last shower wall demoed.
- During the course of demoing the shower wall I made my first self inflicted boo boo of the project. Dropped my mini sledge on the corner of the tub and chipped off a big piece of finish. It's approximately 1" wide by 5" long. I am already in contact with a tub refinishing guy that quoted me $200 to fix the chip, or $500 to refinish the whole thing. I am leaning towards doing the whole thing so the tub looks nice and new and matches the rest of the new bathroom. Didn't want to spend the money to refinish the tub originally, but I'm secretly glad I chipped it so now I have to.
- Finished the plumbing on the toilet wall. This includes a cold drop for the toilet, as well as a hot and cold for the sink on the other side of the wall. This also concluded all plumbing in walls and attic for this bathroom renovation. Yay! (Again, every drop is individually connected overhead and has its own shutoff valve, so this is more work than it looks like)
- Not pictured: installed new angle stops on the copper stub outs for the sink on the other aide of the wall, and finished connections to the sink with new supply lines as well.
- Closed up the drywall at the furr down for the last time now that plumbing on that wall is done. I wanted to close the hole at the bottom also, but need to get more drywall.
- Demoed the floor tile. This went much easier than I expected. This concluded all of the demo for this project. Yay! (Yes I will be pulling the toilet so I can install the new drywall in that room and new floor tile, just didn't get to it yet. Will probably do that tonight)
- In effort to minimize sound transmission from the shower, I am going to fully insulate all of the walls in this room. I had one roll of pink stuff so I got started putting that in.
- Bonus pic: while tying into the old galvanized plumbing in the attic, I took a picture inside of a tee, to show how much build up there is inside some places of these pipes. That is a 1/2" diameter hole, and it's probably 50% blocked with scale buildup inside the tee. This crap is why I cannot wait to rip out ALL of the galvanized, and will be doing so promptly after finishing this bathroom.
Overall a pretty good week, and all updates from here out will look like forward progress and actually building a bathroom!
So at $500 for a refinish, why not get a new tub? You can get a deeper tub like a Kohler Archer for around $600. Just depends on what your uses are, kids vs adults taking baths. I recommend refinishing, properly, when you aren't replacing the surround and such but in this case a new tub is worth it. Buts it's the cost of the tub and labor to replace, which could be more if you're not replacing yourself obviously.
That's a fair question, and the short answer is I just don't want to do the work of replacing it, haha. It's pretty big (obviously), and it's a cast iron tub which means HEAVY. I don't want to try and wrestle that thing out of my house in one piece, and don't want to take the time to cut it into pieces to get it out. I'm completely ok with keeping it there and just making it look new, for less than the cost of replacing it, and WAYYY less work from me.
Week 6 didn't show as much progress as I would have liked, but I had some spring yardwork I needed to start on, and also had to catch up on some of my woodworking that I've been neglecting (shameless plug here for my cutting boards https://texags.com/forums/50/topics/3023523 . I also do all kinds of other fine woodworking, not just cutting boards. Cigar trays, chess boards, tables, etc. Feel free to ask me about it).
Picture recap:
- Got two shower niches/cubbies framed out. This took way longer than it should have because I redid them twice, lol. Changed sizes and then locations, finally 3rd time was the charm, and both wife and I are happy. Also had to make sure they were centered, level, in line with each other, etc., so lots of time spent on something relatively simple looking. They should each hold 4 shampoo/soap bottles side by side when done.
-The back wall of the tub was touching the studs and didn't need any furring strips, so I went ahead and started the cement backer board on that wall and got the cubbies cut out.
- I needed to pull the toilet to start installing drywall. Got it removed no problem, set it down in the bathtub (I thought gently), and CLUNK, a giant piece falls off the bottom of the bowl into the bathtub. I was seriously like WTF!!?!?!?. I'm not sure if maybe it was already cracked and I didn't notice, or what. But I was not expecting that. Ok guess I'm buying a new toilet now. What's another $200 anyways? Threw it in the trash and broke it to pieces.
-Installed all the drywall in the room. All walls got insulated before covering.
-Started on the plywood furring on the left and right sides of the shower walls. I needed a continuous vertical surface to mount the Schluter strips to, hence the vertical pieces there spanning one stud bay. The last stud bay on each side between the vertical plywood and the back wall will get 4" wide horizontal strips. Already got the strips cut, just didn't get to putting them up.
-Not pictured, but the 1" wide Schluter trim strips I ordered came in. So after I finish the plywood furring, I can mount the cement backer board on the left and right sides.
- Started cutting some backer board pieces to fit out the cubbies.
