bathroom

We cleaned out the bathroom. I mean, REALLY cleaned. These pictures will show the whole process so far. I am going to start at present and work my way back, mostly. The top photo here shows the amazing first night I took a bath in our new tub, the one below it shows the new toilet (from the Restore) installed. This top picture was a snapshot of bliss.

Candles and Epsom salts in a hot bath after a lot of hard work.

The tub, I think I already mentioned in another post, we got free off of craigslist. The man had already sold two and just wanted to get rid of the third. Phoenix got to be the first to try out the jets. Jets might take a little more energy, but they can be used only when needed/wanted. We will eventually build a frame around the tub. There will be shelves on the left and I am debating the sink. A friend of mine has a toilet that has the sink on the lid of the tank. When you flush fresh water comes from a faucet above. This used water then fills up the toilet tank. Otherwise we could just to a gray water tank hooked in to feed the toilet.

This shows the previous step of the process. I had washed, cleaned and painted the area the new tub would fit into. It felt good to see the tub placed in the room.

The black places on the floor had some tile I had to break out. Next to the wall was a small cement reservoir for draining the tub. ? . We had the water from the tub (underneath) come out onto the floor a few times and this finding made the cause very clear. There was no drain pipe run from the tub into the floor. If you tried to drain more than about 3 gallons it overflowed if you tried to drain it all at once (which we usually didn't because we thought the drain was broken). Jerome placed a pipe into it after I demolished the reservoir with a sledgehammer (fun!). I don't, however, have a before demolition picture of it.

The old bathtub was cast-iron. This puppy was heavy. We had to wait a few days to gain up some strength (sleeping and eating really well) to move it out. We did it in increments. Some research online shows they weigh about 350-400lbs. At first we just moved it to the left of the room so I could work on the right.

Scrubbing the floor and walls. I had considered taking pictures of each dirty bucket of cleaning water successively, but decided to narrow my focus to more work and less play. I washed the walls 3 times and the floor 6 times to get them completely clean before painting. I used to be anti-bleach, but have learned that it really is the best thing for mold. When Jerome ripped out the shower we found mold behind some of the drywall. I washed with bleach, rinsed, then used citrasolv. Then washed/rinsed a few more times. Citrasolv is amazing. It is made with essential oils, so it is natural and it works so well that I avoid it on freshly painted surfaces. It makes your whole house smell like oranges.

This is a very early picture. It is clear the bathtub had overrun before. There was stinky carpet in the bathroom when we bought the place. We immediately ripped out the carpet and took out the drywall where we saw mold. After this picture we had a temporary tile walkway in place to the toilet and shower.