I went back through old pictures to find some of the bathroom pre-remodel and figured out that we've been functioning without the bathroom for a really long time. Here's an overview of the time line:
- July 2005 - Moved into our lovely house built in the 70s and stuck in the 70s. We knew from house inspection that shower pan leaked, so that was on the list of things to fix (along with a million other things).
- August 2005 - Still optimistic that we were going to remodel the bathroom in the near future, we went ahead and started demolition: removing shower doors, wallpaper, ugly wooden soffit, and curtains.
- September 2005 - Reality sets in. Got 3 bids for the bathroom and realized that the project was going to a rather substantial investment. At the time, both bathrooms needed serious help and given that the hall bath needed less work and that people actually see the hall bathroom, we decided to move forward with the hall bath as a DIY project.
- October 2005 - The hall bathroom remodel included removing the old tile floor and scraping the popcorn ceiling so we decided to go ahead and do the same in the master bath (why not?).
- November 2005 - February 2008 - Ummm ... nothing. Door to the bathroom is shut and Charlie's crate is right in front of the door. I give people tours of the house without even mentioning the fact that we have a master bath :)
- March 2008 - Thanks to Uncle Sam and taxes, we were able to consider doing the bathroom remodel, this time with a more realistic expectation of cost! After getting a couple estimates and making trips all over town for tile, a vanity, paint, lighting, etc. we were finally ready. While, we did have a contractor do a lot of the work, there was still a good amount of work that Dominic had to do.
- Electrical work -- He ran all the wiring for the bathroom, adding a vent and another outlet.
- Finish demolition -- He tore out what was left in the bathroom, the vanity and toilet.
- Woodwork -- Priming and painting new baseboards.
- Walls - The walls and ceiling needed some serious TLC. In March, Dominic patched and sanded and patched and sanded ...
- April 2008 - Major remodel work started on the 31st of March and finished on the 10th of April.
- 31 March -- Old shower tile removed (but old sheetrock still in place).
- 1 April -- Old shower sheetrock removed and old drain jackhammered. I don't have a picture of this, but we came home to see the shower area was down to the wall studs and a pile of busted up concrete where the drain used to be!
- 3 April -- New waterproof sheetrock in place, plumbing work complete, and new drain pan installed.
- 4 April -- Some shower will tile installed. Not much, but enough to give us an idea of how it was going to look.
- 5-6 April (weekend work by Dominic) -- More patching and sanding, priming the walls and ceiling, and painting the walls and ceiling (this was late Sunday night).
- 8 April -- Shower tile in except floor and bathroom floor tile in. They actually called toward the end of the day because they were 3 tiles short so we had to frantically get 3 sample tiles from the tile place!
- 9 April -- Shower floor tile in and grouting complete!
- 10 April -- Slate tile sealed, shower fixtures and floorboards installed.
- 11 April -- Toilet installed, but doesn't flush ... ugh. Got shower measured for doors.
- 12-13 April (weekend work by Dominic) -- un-install faulty toilet, return, buy new toilet, touch up paint (walls and woodwork), hang towel hooks and picture.
- 14 April -- The new toilet is supposed to go in today. After that, we're still waiting on a few things, namely the vanity to arrive, and the shower doors, but we are so close!
I'm not going to lie, there is definitely something to be said for paying someone else to do remodeling work. To date, we've done nearly every remodel project in our house ourselves (with family and friends help), so the master bathroom was the first project where we decided to have someone else do most of the work. And it was kind of nice to come home everyday over the past 2 weeks and see what had been accomplished with no effort on our part. Kind of fun! Honestly, though, Dominic has done a good bit of work in there, so really it's just me that has gotten out of doing much for this project, minus giving my opinion of course!
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