Bathroom: Phase 1, Day 1

I want to start this post by saying that my uncle and cousin are rockstars. Superheros. The best family a woman could ask for. We did (eventually) meet all our goals: there is a new fan, a new toilet, and a new bathtub/shower combo. But holy shit: this was a job and a half (and the bathroom is too tight a space for three workers so. . . Tom and Jack did ALL the heavy lifting).

So: y'all recall where we were on the start of day one. Walls primed and nothing else close to what I want. First thing that had to happen was removing the toilet. That was, by far, the easiest thing we would do all day. And the second was removing the bathroom door - also very, very easy.

Next was the walk-in tub. This was unsurprisingly difficult. All the parts had to come out and or off. Despite the access panels on the front of the tub being really easy to remove, Jack spent quite some time stuck sitting in the tub removing faucets and the door, because there was no other way to do it.

Everything we could remove separately we did, but then it was time to move the bulk of the tub. This was when we learned a) how heavy the tub was and b) that the reason the door stop was poorly attached is because it was removed and reinstalled to get the tub in before. We carefully pried out the stop from the frame (this is the sticky-out not-quite-molding inside the door jamb runs alongside the edges of the door) and had millimeters to spare. 

Jack and Tom got it into the hallway, and then we realized it was too tight to turn it - it totally filled the hallway; Jack was trapped in the bathroom and Tom in my bedroom. 

So we scooted it back into the bathroom and opened the boiler closet, which gained us a LOT of space for maneuvering around. Jack and Tom got it turned around and into the garage eventually.

We learned that when the walk-in tub was installed, they left the surround from the previous tub and installed around it - and the tub controls and faucet. 

(We already knew they had just put a plastic hole cover thing over the hole in the drywall where the shower head had been). We removed the faucet and controls, and then Tom took a sawsall to the surround. 

At this point, we discovered something that would become a giant problem theme throughout this process all day long. On the left side stud at the edge of the tub, there's a second stud board right next to it. On the right hand side, there's a 2x6 attached with the long edge flat to the drywall. It was SO HARD to remove any drywall from the walls, because you couldn't get a saw in through. We (mostly Tom) had to use a box cutter to remove drywall, which was slow and awful.

 

We got the surround out, and broke for lunch. At this point, we'd done four hour of work and finished the demo. Jack went and picked up delicious delicious burritos, and Tom and I went to Home Depot to get the plumbing supplies we would need for the tub/shower install. 

After our lunch break, it was time to install the tub. The tub is exactly as wide as the bathroom (and slightly wider than the room with drywall). And I was no help at all - Tom and Jack are more-or-less equally strong and I am . . . not their equal. Plus, the bathroom is like, 59.5 inches wide and at 5'11" I am not that much smaller than Tom and Jack - you can't fit the three of us side-by-side in there.

I just provided moral support/spatial awareness thoughts. I would  guess that it took at least 90 minutes to get the tub in. Not even installed, just into the space. Tom had cut an access point into my bedroom wall, so I will be able to access the water controls for the bath without having to remove the surround walls. 

 

As the tub went in, I was in my room, keeping water-lines out of the way. I immediately saw that we had a problem - the drainpipe from the tub did not meet the sewer line.

The two were almost an inch and a half apart - which is both very far AND really close for any solutions. The drainline Tom and I had bought earlier seemed like it wouldn't work - by which I mean, we were so over-come with frustration we couldn't imagine our way into a solution. 

(Here's what I learned about concrete slab foundations - or at least mine: where the sewer drain comes for the tub, they have excavated out the concrete. It's just dirt around the sewer drain. So one of the things we tried for getting the drain lines to connect was to literally dig out dirt around the sewer so the fitting could go further down).

So off Tom and I went to Lowe's, where we couldn't find what we needed. So we turned around and went home, where Jack had been clearing off the wax ring from the toilet. Tom managed to get our original drain line to work, and while he worked on that, Jack and I installed the toilet. (and then Tom helped us install the toilet.) The toilet install was literally the only thing that went quickly, easily, and straightforward-ly. 

It was now around 6pm and we had a toilet and a bathtub. Jack lives an hour and a half away; Tom lives just under an hour away. But we really wanted to get the surround up before they left - and the plumbing set.

We started with the plumbing. Tom pulled all the copper piping out and as he was getting the tub rough-in set up, we discovered that we had purchased one wrong piece. So I hopped in the car and drove to Tractor Supply Co, which is by far the closest hardware-type store to me. But they were resetting their plumbing section, and the guys at checkout literally told me to go to Home Depot. So off I went to Home Depot, and had the least helpful interaction with a HD employee. I described what I needed, and his suggestion was to keep the piece I already had, buy a PEX connector, connect a bit of PEX to the connector, and connect the PEX to the existing copper pipe, crimping the pieces that need crimping.

I would like you to know that there is a one-piece solution that was literally 1/3 the cost of that guy's solution, and I found it on my own. (But I totally bought his solution, and one other possibility because it was already 7:30 pm and I did not want to have to go back out for anything.)  

When I got home, Tom and Jack had started the surround install while they waited for me. The surround arrived in 4 pieces - two for the back, and two sides. The two back pieces go in first, and  connect together at the built-in shelf. Probably the best way to do this would have been to just remove all the drywall around the shower back, above the sides, and about 6 inches along the sides. But in the planning process, none of us likes or enjoys hanging drywall and we definitely don't enjoy trying to get them textured to match everything else. So probably a bunch of the following problems could have been solved by being willing to do more drywalling than we had wanted to. Tom and Jack got the base of the back of the surround in no problem, but ended up having to take off at least more two inches off of the drywall across the top so we could get enough height to drop the top of the back in to connect it. (And the drywall removal honestly went pretty well - no weird boards in between anything). 

 

Next was the side without faucets. We ran into the same stupid double-studs behind the drywall issue, which was infuriating and slow, but once we got the drywall cleared high and wide enough, it clicked in really nicely. Eventually. 

At this point, it was getting pretty freaking late, and we were still short a surround wall. We decided (Tom decided) to get the plumbing holes cut into the surround and get the plumbing itself up on the wall. Tom soldered the things that needed soldering, we got everything in, and tested the plumbing. 

And discovered a leak where the water pipes connected to the rough-in. And we all threw our hands up and just said, Forget it. While Tom wrapped up with the plumbing, Jack and I re-hung the bathroom door. And Tom and Jack went home, and I sat in front of the TV for an hour. And here's where things stood at the end of day 1:

At some point, the process just became comical. Nothing went right. Everything went slightly awry; nothing worked on the first time - and usually not on the second or the third. We banned the words "straightforward," "easy," "quick," or anything that seemed like it might be a positive statement on timing. What felt like it should be a one, full day job, turned into two days. And the space was so tight that I could not assist at all with the heavy lifting - not that I would have been much additional help! But by the time we finished up - at around 10pm - it was much easier to see just how close we were to being done. (Or how far we were; either way!) And though I didn't have a working shower, I did have a working toilet. So day 1 was . . . mostly a success!