I can’t believe that in the last few days our bathroom has become just a shell of a room with a toilet. Never did I think we’d be doing this this soon, but here we are.
Rob and I spent a lot of time going back and forth on how much work we should be putting into the bathroom right now. Should we just fix the rotted flooring and replace the sink? Should we repaint? How far should we go was the question. Well, in the end we decided to go all the way with it. It seemed that every time we’d remove or uncover something there was another problem to be taken care of, so going for all of it was kind of our only option. Unless we wanted to leave walls open and various other little surprises waiting to be fixed.
As you know, from the previous bathroom post, we had quite project on our hands. Since the sink unit was already removed the first step was removing the wallpaper, the mirrors, and the panelling. The wallpaper was insanely easy, it was hardly glued on. Rob had a giant suction thing he used to take the mirrors off which made the process much easier. The panelling was being held on by a handful of nails. As we removed each piece of mirror, panelling and wallpaper we seemed to uncover a whole new project.
Behind the mirrors and panelling was tile. Metal tile. Metal tile made to look like porcelain. I’ve never seen tile like this before. Underneath that tile was a very thick, and very old layer of mortar. Behind the panelling was an old medicine cabinet. And behind the wallpaper was another painting, this time a lion (the other painting can be found here).
After removing all the junk from that side of the bathroom, we had to get the tub out tp get the panelling off those walls. Rob managed to do this while Max and I were out for a walk with the dogs. Once Rob pulled back the panelling we saw something horrible, A WALL OF THAT SHITTASTIC TILE. It was along the other wall too. AND! It only went 3/4 of the way down because the walls were left unfinished.
Rob got to work chipping away at the tile and when he was done we were left with two unfinished walls covered in old mortar. We had two options now: 1) chip and sand down the mortar, and finish the walls with drywall. 2) tear down both walls and put up new drywall.
After some research on Rob’s part (Way to research, Rob!) we decided to tear down the walls and put up new drywall. Chipping away and sanding down the old mortar would’ve taken way too long, and frankly, too much work. So Rob went for it.
Oh, the banging and crashing sounds. I was so afraid I’d see a crow bar and Rob’s arm come through the living room wall, but I didn’t. He did a fantastic job of taking down those walls. While he did a great job, he did not have the proper safety attire. Those are my sunglasses and bandana he’s sporting. We will be purchasing masks and goggles.
The very last part of the demolition was to remove the panelling from the beam. Once that was removed we saw that horrific tile again. And underneath that was just a mish-mash of poorly cut 2×4’s. We were beginning to think this wasn’t a structural beam after all. We then discussed removing the drop down ceiling that the beam was connected to. Rob made hole, shined a light inside and made the call that it was OK to tear down. It was at this point that I was afraid for the first time because OMG what if he was wrong and he takes this down and the whole house (OK, just the upstairs) comes crashing down on us while we’re sleeping. This is how my brain works.
Thank the gods he wasn’t wrong. That dropped ceiling was only an aesthetic thing, and that beam wasn’t even attached. It was simply sitting between a couple of 2×4’s.
Good gravy. I would really like to meet the person who put together this mess of a bathroom and ask them what the hell they were thinking.
We’ve got quite the project on our hands, but judging by how well this went I think we’ll handle the next part with great ease.
Baby, let's play house 