It seems that every time we decide to focus on a particular part of the bathroom model at a time, it turns out that other parts must be done first. We are trying to keep as much of the bathroom functional possible for when we have guests, which has been relatively frequent. So, we are trying to do the tile around the bathtub while keeping the sink and the toilet functional. It seems that this will be possible, but not easy. A month or two ago, we thought we were about ready to put up the cement board to do the tile. Then we realized we should install new fixtures in the tub before putting up the cement board (see previous post). Once that was done we seemed ready to put up the cement board. As I began thinking about it though, I realized that we would have to put up new drywall where it butts up against the cement board before putting the tile up, since we have been told that the tile should overlap onto the drywall a bit. Fine. Then I started thinking about it a bit more, and realized that if I put up a small piece of drywall between the tub and the existing vanity, then we would have to put a seal there. That is no good. So maybe we do have to take the vanity out! Wait. I have an idea. Why not just cut off a few inches of the vanity? That is what I decided to do.
While visiting my friend Sean last week in St. Louis, we were talking about home improvement, and I inquired if he had a reciprocating saw, otherwise known as a Saws-all. It turns out he does, and he let me borrow it. I put it to good work. I got to work about 8:00 in the morning, after having started fires in both the woodstove and the cookstove (high of about 15 yesterday and today). I started off removing remaining bits of nails from the old drywall from the studs, cleaned the plastic moisture barrier with some 409, and got ready to hang the first piece of cement board. The cement board we bought comes in 3′ x 5′ sheets, very convenient, since standard bathtubs are 5′ long. However, as I keep learning over and over again, sometimes things don’t quite fit. The cement board was too long. I had to cut about an inch off. And that of course is a real pain, but I cut it off, and then I hung it with the fancy cement board screws that we had bought. Fairly easy. At this point I decided to re-measure how high up the cement board would go. 3′ times 2 is 6 feet or 72 inches. I had cut the old drywall about 71 inches high. So, instead of taking 1 inch off the cement board, I took another inch off the drywall. I decided to try out the saws-all for this task, and it performed very nicely.
Once I had gotten going with the saws-all, I decided to try to take off some of the vanity. I started cutting through the countertop along one of the grout lines in the tile. This worked somewhat, but not very well, and I quickly dulled the heck out of the blade. I discovered it was much easier to chip off the mosaic tile with a chisel and hammer. Then I used the circular saw to cut through the plywood counter top. After a bunch of fiddling around, I finally figured out how to remove the drawers from the cabinet, and was able to salvage them and the metal tracks as well. Maybe we will use those elsewhere in the bathroom. I then continued for several hours sawing and hammering and chiseling, until I slowly started to get to the bottom of the cabinet. At that point I was getting hungry, so I had a little lunch, and talked with Dave and Ellen a while, who gave me some more tips on the bathroom project, including the fact that the PVC pipe in the cabinet that seemed to go to nothing did in fact go to nothing, so I cut it off (with the Saws-all). Shortly after lunch I was trying to cut through the bottom of the cabinet, and the second saw blade broke. I headed out to Pell’s, where they once again had everything I needed. I got five blades in total, including a pair of “demolition” blades. The demolition blade had no problem going through the metal of the floor heater under the old vanity which no longer works. I finally got through all the cabinet and removed all the nails from the studs, so I was about ready to hang the drywall.
Before hanging the drywall though, I had to put in a few more 2″x4″s as backing pieces for the drywall and cement board. The cement board was going to come out 30″ from the back of the tub, but the nearest stud was about 33″, so I cut a stud to about 84″ (since the ceiling is sloped), stuck it in, then attached it to the other stud with a few short pieces of 2″x4″. I also put in some cross pieces around the tub for the top of the backerboard / bottom of the drywall.
By the time I had gotten all the 2″x4″s cut to the desired length, I was hungry again, so I had a little dinner. After dinner I decided to keep working for a couple hours more. I cut the drywall to the desired length, and then discovered 2 more slight differences when going to hang it — (1) I needed to cut out about 1/2″ more of the old drywall, and (2) I was going to have to remove a couple rows of the mosaic tile on the floor to get the drywall to fit right. After doing these 2 tasks, I was able to successfully hang the drywall (though I will have to save a couple screws for while the old vanity is out). And, around 8:30 p.m. I decided to see if all of my work with the vanity and drywall in order to correctly put up the cement board actually worked. Much to my delight, it did. I still have a good 2-3 hours left to finish hanging the cementboard. Then I’ll need a couple hours to tape and mud it, and then we can finally start tiling!
Jobs that initially appear to be easy always have some issue down the road. Nice job pulling through and using a bit of ingenuity to save yourself some time and work.