Old vanity with man-made counter top

Old acrylic tub

Working on removing the tub surround

Tub surround totally out

Old lights and medicine cabinet

Tub surround partially out

Messy work area

Tub surround out

Sink supply lines seem a bit corroded, but I think they should be ok

Leftover linoleum tile underneath the cement board

water damaged plywood

ready for new tub

Plumbing done and subfloor repaired

water damage in plywood near the tub

New Delta universal rough fixture

Going to reuse the old tub drain assembly

Close-up of Delta universal rough fixture

Complete plumbing picture

I finally started remodeling our main bathroom several weeks ago. The first stage was demolition. Unfortunately, I forgot to take many before pictures, but that is life. I started off by removing the toilet. I got as much water out of it as possible through flushing, bucket, and towel. I took off the tank, and it is now downstairs. We like the toilet, so we will reuse it.

The next step was to remove the vanity, which was pretty straight forward. I took out the screws securing it to the wall, and disconnected the plumbing. There was one or two screws which were completely stripped, which I ended up cutting with my saws-all. Clare was kind enough to help me carry the vanity downstairs as well. I’m thinking of making it into a play bathroom for Spencer, since he really loves opening drawers and cabinets. So it is now filled with harmless everyday objects like cookie tins and egg cartons. I thought of filling it with toys, but it frequently seems that Spencer wants to play with “adult” stuff, not toys.

Once the vanity and toilet were removed, I was able to get most of the floor tile off. I pounded on the tile with an engineer’s hammer to break up the tiles. They came off fairly easy – much more easily than the floor tiles in the Spencer bathroom. It seems like there was not really much mortar on the tiles, so they probably weren’t installed very well.

I used a hammer and chisel and a pry bar to get off the tile around the tub surround. That was quite a bit of work, but it wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t exactly sure how it was attached. It turns out that it is attached to the walls with screws. I used an engineer hammer to get the tiles out, which worked really well. The added weight (compared to a claw hammer) really makes it more powerful. Once I got all the tiles off and removed the screws, I simply yanked on the surround to get it unstuck. I then did the same for the tub, and Clare helped me carry the tub out. It is currently in our yard. Last year our city had a throw away big stuff for free day. I’m hoping they do that again this year.

Once the tub was out, I could start removing the cement board. I considered trying to reuse it, but I didn’t think I would be able to get all the old mortar off it. I used the hammer and pry bar to get it up, and then had to remove the screws holding it down. It did not have any mortar between the cement board and the plywood, as I have been told to do. This is more evidence of shoddy construction, but it did make it easier to remove. Once I got the cement board up, I discovered some old linoleum tile underneath it. I worked a fair amount to get more of the tile off. I got all of the top layer off everywhere, but did end up leaving a bit of the adhesive layer in some parts.

After getting the cement board up and the tub out, I realized that part of the subfloor was rotten. This was not too much of a surprise, since we had noticed some leaks when we moved in. I had bought some extra plywood just in case this might happen. As it turns out, there was only a fairly small section which was rotten, and I was able to use a scrap piece of plywood to fix it. I cut a piece large enough so that I could screw it into three floor joists, to make sure it was plenty secure. The floor joists themselves seem to be in good condition.

The next step was to install the new fixture for the bath. We ended up going with a Delta Lewison. I really like how some of the Delta faucets have separate temperature and volume controls. We also had pretty good experience with Delta back in Indiana. I thought that the plumbing wouldn’t be too hard, since I already had some experience, but I was wrong. I guess maybe the third time it gets easier. I bought the couplings, elbows and connectors I needed, and decided to try to do some of the sweating before cutting off the old fixture. I think I have learned that this is not really worth it. I learned several more things from this experience:

1. Solder can get old. The 30+ year old solder I had from the Spencer house did not melt very easily. New solder helped a bunch
2. Solder both ends of a coupling at the same time. I tried soldering just one end, and some extra solder dripped down the coupling, make the other end unusable
3. Dry fit first before applying any solder paste. I accidentally used one 7″ piece and one 6″ piece of pipe, when I had been intending to use two 7″ pieces
4. Tighten any threaded joints with two wrenches. I initially used only one wrench, holding on to the mixing valve with the other hand. It ended up leaking, and I had to redo the whole thing

It took a bit longer than expected, but I did finally get the plumbing all done. I raised the level of the shower head by about 6″, so that it should be a bit nicer for tall people to shower.

The next step is to get the tub in and the floor tile.

Once I had the cabinets assembled and installed on the side of the kitchen opposite the sink, I was ready to tackle the sink side. This meant we would be without a sink for awhile, which meant we couldn’t cook very much. Per Clare’s suggestion, I tried to cook up a bunch of leftovers beforehand, but since the project took almost twice as long as I had planned, we ended up eating out quite a bit anyways.

Lots of mice poop under the old cabinets

The first step was to remove the old kitchen cabinets. I started by disconnecting all the plumbing and shutting off the water to the sink. Then I removed the sink. This involved cutting the silicone with a utility knife, and gradually prying the sink out with a pry bar and a chisel. Then I moved out the dishwasher. Then I began removing the counter top. The counter top was attached with screws from underneath, so I took out all those screws with my handy cordless drill. Once all the screws were out, I used the reciprocating saw to cut the counter top into several pieces. I had to yank the counter top off a bit, since it was also stuck to the wall a bit with some caulk.

Dirt under the sink cabinet

Once I had the counter top off, I began removing the cabinets, which were screwed into the studs. They came out rather easily. As I removed each cabinet, I found the floor underneath to be extremely dirty, and littered with mouse poop. We knew that there had been some mouse issues since the house was vacant for a year since we bought it. We haven’t seen any since we moved in though. At this point I also noticed the extent of the leaking from the sink. There was some sort of makeshift plywood being used for the bottom of the sink cabinet. When I took it out, the plies were completely separated since they had gotten so wet!

Separated plywood

Once I had all the cabinets out and had swept up all the mouse poop and dirt, then I began to ponder all the extra drain pipes. There was this large black drain pipe underneath the sink, and it wasn’t clear what it was for. Ellen thought it was for the dishwasher, which was possible, though it didn’t quite make sense, since when we hooked up the new dishwasher we attached the drain to the garbage disposal. Clare thought it might be a vent, which would also be odd, since the vent should go to the outside.

Mystery black pipe on the right

At this point I decided to wait on the drain mystery for awhile, and work some more on assembling the cabinets. The corner cabinet with the lazy susan was quite difficult to assemble. Most of the cabinets came with instructions that had both text and pictures, but the corner cabinet instructions had only pictures. It came with quite a few different kinds of screws, and there was no indication on the directions which screws went where, or when I should screw things in. In particular, the shelves were screwed in, which was different from all the other cabinets, where the bottom was attached with cams, and the shelves simply rest on small pegs.

Another mystery pipe and some damaged drywall

The corner cabinet got a bit damaged in shipping

The other difference with the corner cabinet was that it had gotten a bit damaged in shipping. I decided not to worry about it though, since I did not want to wait for a replacement to be shipped. I suppose I could have assembled all the cabinets to begin with, and then I would have discovered it early enough to get something shipped, but I didn’t.

Perhaps the trickiest part of the corner cabinet was assembling the face frame. All the other face frames were totally assembled, but since the corner cabinet face frame makes an L, it came in two pieces so it could be shipped in a flat box. I used my clamp to hold the two pieces together while I attached them with screws. I ended up having to start over at least once because I didn’t get them flush. Then I had the mystery of attaching the doors. These doors have some very special hinges, and not very good instructions. I ended up taking out the old corner cabinet to look at it, which helped quite a bit.

I also used the clamps to put together the face frame of the corner lazy susan cabinet, which was most difficult to assemble

We decided to buy the lazy susan for the corner cabinet, which I am fairly happy with, even though it does result in some wasted space. The lazy susan was different than I had expected. I had expected two shelves attached by a pole, which seems to be common. Instead, there were two separate lazy susans which get screwed directly into the shelves. I think this design is actually much sturdier, and allows the two lazy susans to turn separately. There was a hole pre-drilled in the top of the lazy susan. To install it, you turn the lazy susan until this hole lines up with one of the four holes in the base. Then you drop a screw in the hole and screw it in. Then you turn it 1/4 turn, and repeat. They are very secure, and they turn very nicely.

Attaching the lazy susan

The corner cabinet almost assembled, with one lazy susan in

When Clare got home from work on Thursday, I asked her to help me do some troubleshooting. I went downstairs, and had Clare pour some water down the mystery pipe. I could hear it going down the drain pipe, so it seemed to be a drain. Then I also had her shake it a bit, and through this I discovered some additional drain pipe down stairs which had been cut off. It seems that there used to be some sort of make-shift bathroom down there. Finally we discovered that the mystery black pipe was connected to the drain pipe for the sink. Then the question was whether or not the two curved white pipes coming out of the floor were connected. The next day I looked up on the roof, and there was only one vent coming out. I also removed some drywall, and found that the drain for the sink (on the left) connected to the drain for downstairs (on the right), and that both were then vented through the same pipe. Mystery solved.

Now that I had torn out some of the drywall, I had to patch it. We had brought a few small pieces of drywall from Spencer for some other miscellaneous wall patching that we needed to do, but it wasn’t big enough. Once again, Dave and Ellen had the perfect solution — go to Lowe’s, buy a sheet of drywall, then cut it in the parking lot so it would fit into my car. Friday turned out to be a very nice day — about 50 degrees and sunny. I brought my tape measure, chalk line, and utility knife and went off to Lowe’s. While I was there I also picked up a few other things, including some great stuff. When I got home I began patching the drywall, which for me always requires lots of cutting of 1/4″ to 1/2″ pieces of drywall until it fits nicely. So that took a couple hours. After mudding and taping, I squirted some great stuff around the pipes to better seal them off. I also put some great stuff around the vent pipes for the furnace in the basement, which had some pretty big gaps. That stuff really is great.

Old cabinets out, Floor cleaned up, drain mysteries solved, and drywall repaired.

Saturday my plan was to install all the cabinets on the sink side, cut the plywood and cement board, and secure the cement board. Then I could tile on Sunday. Well, it ended up taking about half the day to get the sink cabinet in. I wanted to make it look as nice as possible, so I cut out the hole in the back for the pipes pretty tight, but the heating vent being under the sink meant that we had to tilt the sink cabinet to get it in, which meant that I ended up having to cut the hole larger and larger. I had initially cut the hole in the back in the garage, but as I cut out a little more and more I simply did this in the kitchen. For part of this I used the jigsaw, and for part I used the reciprocating saw.

I put some great stuff around the pipes where there were still some gaps

The heating vent under the sink cabinet turned out to be very difficult to work around

The trickiest part about the heating vent under the sink was with the toekick. I cut out part of the toekick for the vent to go in, but I cut it out so that the edge of the vent would overlap a little, and look nice. Unfortunately though, there was simply no way to get the cabinet in with the toekick attached, and there was no way to get it on afterwards either. I went through about 5 different “ingenious” ideas, none of which worked. In the end I ended up taking the vent cover off to get the cabinet in, and then put the vent cover back in afterwards. I had thought that I could then put the screws back into the vent cover by drilling some holes in the bottom of the cabinet, but then later realized that the holes were covered up by the toekick. So the vent cover is now simply sitting there, but it doesn’t seem to be falling off. That was a frustrating day.

In order to avoid using a full sheet of plywood for the corner I cut a 3″ strip from some scrap for the very end.

While I was cutting the hole in the back of the sink cabinet bigger bit by bit, I ran into another issue. The outlet under the sink seemed broken! The top half worked, but not the bottom half. I thought that I might have nicked the wire to the outlet under the sink when doing the drywall repair, or maybe it was just a coincidence. At any rate, I called Dave, the electrical expert, and he suggested simply to put in a new one. So I went to Ace and got a new outlet, and figured out how to put it in. There was one hitch. There were 6 wires, and only 5 places to put them. The old outlet had slots in the back for the wires as well as screws on the side. All of the slots were filled, plus the ground, plus one black wire on the side.

We used the old sink, since we like it and it is in good shape

The new outlet only had screws on the side. So I first started by attaching 5 wires. The white wires went on the left side, and one black and one red on the right side, and the ground on the bottom. I turned the breaker back on, and the outlet worked, but as I suspected, the outlet next to it did not, because I had one black wire left over. So then I called Dave again, and he suggested keeping the breaker on, and trying to touch the extra wire to each screw, making sure to not touch any exposed wire. I tried the screw with the black wire first, and that did the trick. So I turned the breaker back off, doubled up the black wires, and we were good to go.

New cabinets in. Sink fits hole in plywood

By the time I got the sink installed it was after 8 p.m. I wanted to cut the plywood, but Clare convinced me to knock off. That was a good idea, since it ended up taking 4 or 5 hours on Sunday to cut the plywood and the cement board. Much of the time was spent on cutting the hole for the sink in the cement board. This involves scoring each side quite deeply, then tapping a hammer around the edges of the hole until it comes out. At some point I started cheating, and was using the reciprocating saw, which worked for awhile, until a part broke off. So then I remembered my past advice to myself about not cutting corners and simply used the hammer tapping method, which is tedious, but it does work.

Cutting the hole around the sink in the cement board is very tedious

After cutting the plywood, and then again after cutting the cement board, I tested putting the sink in the hole to make sure it fit, which it did.

The cement board cracked in one place by the sink.

Once I had all the cement board cut, then I attached the plywood to the cabinets with wood screws. Then I secured the cement board to the plywood on both sides of the kitchen with thin-set mortar, followed by special hardi-backer screws and roofing nails. I used the screws around the edges, and the nails in the middle. I also taped the joints of the cement board, and put a very thin layer of thin-set on them. My previous attempts at this had always resulted in a bump between the sections of cement board, but this time I finally got it right. After I finished attaching the cement board, Clare and I had lunch at the Yak and Yeti, and then relaxed for a bit. Tiling had now been moved to Monday, which will be documented in part three.

Cement board cut. It took me at least an hour just to cut the hole for the sink

We both arrived Friday night around 8:30. We stopped by the house on the way back to Clare’s apartment so that Ellen could get a look at it. It was a very comfortable temperature, since Clare had gotten the new furnace installed on Tuesday. After looking around for awhile and discussing what we wanted to tackle, we headed back to Clare’s apartment, chatted a bit, then went to bed.

Saturday we slept in until about 7:45 or so, since Clare and Rob were both kind of sick. After some coffee and breakfast we headed over to the house with our supplies, and got to work. We had several tasks planned:

1. Install stove and dishwasher
2. Fix plumbing
3. Change locks
4. Clean
5. Paint family room

We did not end up getting to the last item at all. As it turns out, there were something wrong with every plumbing fixture in the house. Rob tackled the kitchen sink while Ellen worked on the bathrooms. The kitchen sink seemed to be leaking from the supply lines. After turning off the water, Rob re-taped the supply hoses, and then put them back on, and it seemed like they stopped leaking. Meanwhile Ellen snaked out both bathroom sinks, and then put in new traps as the old ones were quite clogged. Clare got to work on the door locks.

As we worked, we kept noticing new things to be done, and by 11:00 a.m. we had a pretty long list of stuff to buy. So Rob and Ellen went to Lowe’s to acquire stuff. They ended up spending almost 2 hours just at Lowe’s. On the way back they stopped at Chipotle to get some lunch, which was eaten while sitting on the fireplace, the only seat in the house so far.

While Ellen and Rob had been shopping, the stove had been delivered. After lunch Rob continued to work on the kitchen sink, while Ellen cleaned up the area by the stove, and Clare continued on the locks. Then Ellen and Rob hooked up the new gas stove. It even has a convection oven! (not true convection, with an additional heating element, but some convection nonetheless) Sometime in the afternoon, Rob decided to test the sprayer on the sink. No water came out at all. And shortly after this, it started leaking again. So we were able to get the dishwasher hooked up, but eventually decided to buy a new kitchen faucet. So around 7:00 we made another trip to Lowe’s, this time all 3 of us. We returned a few items we had not needed from the previous trip, and picked up a new faucet, plus some wood filler (for the lock project) and a few other miscellaneous items.

After the second Lowe’s trip, Clare ordered pizza and went to pick it up while Ellen and Rob installed the new faucet. It only took about 20 minutes to install, and there were no leaks. And best of all, we got a nice Moen faucet that has a sprayer built into the spigot for almost half off. We can’t resist a good deal.

We took the pizza back to Clare’s apartment, and enjoyed it with some PBR. There’s nothing like PBR after a hard day’s work.

Sunday morning we woke up about the same time, and left the apartment right about 9:00 to pick up the U-Haul that Clare had rented to move her stuff from the apartment to the house. Clare got the U-Haul while Rob dropped Ellen off at the house so she could do some more cleaning there while Rob was helping Clare move.

Rob helped Clare pack things up until about 10:00, when her friend Nick and his friend Nate came over to help move. Within about an hour, we had packed up the truck with the couch, tables, bed, and other big items, most of which Clare had bought from Craigslist in May. By about 11:45 we had unloaded everything in the house, and went across the street to the Thai restaurant for lunch. We are happy to be in a location where we can walk to 2 different grocery stores, our bank, and several good restaurants (Chipotle, Thai, and Middle Eastern).

After lunch, Nick and Nate took off, and we got back to work. Clare and Rob (especially Rob) had been pondering what sort of ladder to buy for painting. They had almost decided on a multi-purpose ladder, which could be used as an extension ladder and a step ladder, but Rob had misgivings about the fact that it didn’t have a paint tray, and that it didn’t seem comfortable to stand on for long periods of time. However, they couldn’t fit a big ladder in their car. Ellen and Rob almost bought a car-top carrier on Saturday to bring a ladder home, but Lowe’s didn’t sell any. Finally Saturday night it dawned on us that we could use the U-Haul! So after lunch Clare and Rob went to Lowe’s again, this time in the U-Haul. We bought both a 24 foot extension ladder and an 8 foot step ladder. Hopefully that should be tall enough for our cathedral ceiling family room. We also bought a new exterior door for the side of the garage, since the previous tenants had a really cheap door there that didn’t seal well at all, and was probably intended to be an interior door.

After taking back the truck, Rob cleaned out the gutters, which were absolutely stuffed. Next year we will have to get new gutters and fascia for the house. While Rob worked on the gutters, Ellen worked on putting in new valves in the bathtub and shower, both of which were leaking, and Clare worked on getting herself situated in her temporary living space. We set up her bed in the dining room, since we haven’t gotten the carpet replaced yet. That should happen in the next 2 weeks sometime. Clare also worked on hanging blinds in the living room / dining room / temporary bedroom.

After much fiddling around by both Ellen and Rob with the bathtub and shower plumbing, it was starting to look like we were not going to get it to stop leaking, but finally Rob discovered that it was simply that the new valves needed to be tightened themselves. So by the end of Sunday we had finally figured out all the plumbing problems, and we were able to shower in the morning before Clare took Ellen and Rob to the airport. All in all, it was a very productive weekend. We are looking forward to the second weekend, during which we hope to get the painting done.

The bathroom is still a work in progress, getting closer to completion all the time. A week or so ago I set out to put up the last piece of drywall. This was possible once the washer faucets had been turned into the utility room, but there was one last project I wanted to complete. Our house did not have a spigot outside. I don’t find the need for water outside that often, but occasionally I do. Last summer I simply ran a hose through the window. But this required opening the window, and potentially letting in insects. I asked Dave and Ellen at some point why they didn’t have a spigot, and as always, they had a very sensible answer: they had a spigot on the cabin, and had problems with the pipe freezing. I had a solution to this though. I would have a shutoff inside the house, so I could shut off the water in the winter.

Hose in the wall

In fact, I decided to use the same shutoff I had been using last year. I had been hooking up the hose to the cold water faucet to the washer, which required disconnecting the washer hose. I had gotten tired of this, so I bought a Y-joint. I decided to simply run a hose from this Y through the wall and to the outside. Like most of my projects, it started with a trip to Pell’s hardware store. I got a 5′ washer hose (a steel reinforced one so it should last quite a long time). I also bought a 1 1/2″ wood drill bit to drill holes in the studs so I could run the hose through the wall. I decided to put the spigot right above the dryer vent, since there was already an additional board there. So I simply drilled a hole through the wood there, and then started feeding the hose through the wall. I then drilled holes in the studs to pass the hose through there as well.

Spigot is installed

Once I had the hose all hooked up (it was just long enough), I turned the water on and gave it a try. It seemed to work fine, so I finished by driving a couple screws into the wood in the notches in the faucet. Unfortunately, it was leaking, but I didn’t realize this until two days later. As it turns out, you can already see in the photo of the spigot that the wood looks wet. When I went to use the hose several days later, it was quite wet. Of course I discovered this right before going to bed, so I had all night to worry about it. The next morning I checked it and it was getting worse. I feared that I might have punctured the hose somehow. So I unscrewed the spigot from the wood, and checked the connections. It turns out that I had simply not tightened the connections enough. I had used 1 wrench, but not 2. I got them nice and tight, and let it sit for several hours. After waiting awhile it seemed that the wood block was drying out, so I drilled in some new screws in new holes. I can’t believe that I went so long without a spigot!

Saturday afternoon my dad helped me get the blades off the riding lawn mower. I had already tried it once before by putting it up on cinder blocks and crawling underneath it, but I couldn’t get enough leverage. Our neighbor Vic Greenwell, who was the original owner of the mower, said that he had put the mower up on its back wheels and rested it against a wall. So we tried that. I ended up kind of holding it up instead of leaning it against the wall, and wedged a 2×4 in by the blade while my dad used the wrench to get the blades off. Now I just need to find the right replacement blades. (Walmart in town didn’t have the right ones)

Sunday morning we were thinking of what to do, since the winery didn’t open until 1 p.m. I convinced my dad to help me turn around the pipes to the washing machine. The washing machine pipes used to turn into the bathroom slightly, which is where the washing machine used to be. We moved the washing machine next door, and wanted to turn the pipes around so we can finish the drywall in the bathroom. I said it would only take an hour or so, and I was sort of right. After an hour, we had successfully cut the pipes, and sweated a coupling onto each pipe with the faucets now angled slightly into the utility room. To do so, we had to turn the house water off and drain the pipes. But we couldn’t get all the water out of the pipes, so we used the bread trick. Shove some bread down the pipe a little ways so the water doesn’t come all the way to the top of the pipe. If there is water where you are trying to sweat, the copper won’t get hot enough to melt the solder.

The bread trick worked just fine, except for the final part of turning the water back on and the bread coming out. After a minute or so the bread came out of the hot water pipe, but not the cold water pipe. I decided the best thing to do would be to wait awhile. We waited an hour or so. No luck. We went to the winery tour and tasted some nice wine. When we got back 4 hours later, we tried again. No luck. We started brainstorming different ideas. We tried sticking a coat hanger in it, but couldn’t get it past the first bend in the faucet. We tried backflushing it by hooking up the hot water to the cold water through a laundry hose. All no luck. I decided to wait longer.

Monday. No luck. I was starting to think it would never come out and I would have to re-cut and sweat the pipe, so I asked Clare to buy some more couplings. I also decided to ask Rich Dibble, Dave’s brother, who taught us the trick in the first place. He gave some similar suggestions. Dave suggested trying to put some acid in the pipe or something. Tonight I decided to fix it once and for all. I tried turning the water on and off a couple times, and tried back-flushing it. I also tried putting some vinegar in the pipe through the hose. None of this seemed to help. On Sunday my dad had mentioned that he thought that the faucet might not be working. I had disregarded this possibility as having an extremely low probability, since it had been working fine right before we started the project. He suspected that the faucet was not opening correctly. It turns out he was on the right track. I did not want to take the faucet apart on Sunday evening, because I feared that we might end up with a leaky faucet or worse yet a faucet that wouldn’t stop at all, and we would have to turn the water off to the whole house, instead of simply not having a washer for a few days. Today however, I decided to try taking off the faucet. I had the water turned on as I started taking it off, and this weird brown goo started coming out. I quickly turned off the water to the house, then continued taking the faucet off of the pipe, and grabbed a bucket. Finally the bread came out. It had been clogged up in the faucet. I got out the coat hanger and cleaned out some of the bread, then hooked it back up and flushed it out with the water back on. I did one more cycle of turning the water off and on, and put some teflon tape on the faucet. Then I hooked the washer back up and re-leveled it, and it seems to be working fine. I am happy that it worked out, but feel a little stupid that I didn’t try taking off the faucet on Sunday. Oh well. What is that saying about things ending well?