Home Improvement Project

When I moved in with Erin she already owned a wonderful house that had a lot of work done to it. She had bought it with her ex-husband and together they had gutted it to the studs and put a few years work into turning it to a comfortable and classy home. Somewhere along the way though, the work stopped and a couple projects were left unfinished. The kitchen was an ugly mess but was left intact to keep it functional. Before I moved up, Erin had family over and they spruced the kitchen up enough to make it bearable for a least a few more years. Then there was an upstairs bedroom and a secondary staircase that were gutted and left down to the studs and a few pieces of hung drywall panels in the bedroom. The intention was to make the bedroom into an upstairs bathroom. That was 10 years ago. 

The room had become a storage of sorts with drywall and miscellaneous other project materials thrown in as well as random things from the house that were added for lack of a better place to store them. We had talked about moving forward and getting the house finished up but we never really put a timeline or even a start date for anything. The plan was to try to do it on the cheap so when I came across a Facebook post in late September selling a whirlpool tub for $50 I knew it wasn't going to start any cheaper. 

I went to look it over and it was in even better shape than I had hoped. The gold fixtures were awful and needed to be changed but besides that it was a great deal at $50. After deciding it was too big to fit in my vehicle I worked out delivery from the people selling it. The guy didn't want to leave empty handed though and offered to sell me two sinks that matched the tub for $10 more. They are heavy cast iron basins and all came out of a bathroom they were converting into a laundry room. 

Since I didn't get to take the tub home I looked at the data plate on it and did some research when I got home. As it turns out I had just bought around $5000 worth of Kohler sinks and tub for $60 and that doesn't include the cost of the Kohler faucets that were on them. 

As I said though, the gold had to go.

We decided that the time would never be perfect to start such a project so might as well start it now. We agreed that the plumbing and electrical would be done by professionals and the rest by us. I had never done any type of home project like this before so I was very apprehensive but willing to give it a try.

My car doesn't quiet fit a 4x8 sheet of plywood. Thankfully the hardware store was just around the corner.

Getting it cut to fit.

I cleared the room out and work could begin. First step was cutting the sub-floor to the plumbing and electric could be roughed in. The plumbers started the first week of November. 

Using drywall panels to simulate where things would be.

We have a perfect little dead space below the room that could be used for drain lines and power to the basement.

View looking up at the drain right below the sub-floor.

After everything was roughed in and the city inspector came to give us the ok I was able to really start my part of the work.

Floor back down.

Drywall going up!

In the next picture you can see a little wall built out. Erin had always wanted the washer and dryer upstairs so I had to build a closet to hide them.

More drywall up.

Building an interior wall for the other side of the closet. Note all the vent and drain lines coming up through it.

Closet built.

All panels up. Its time for.......

MUD!!!!!

And that meant sanding, which sucked, a lot, a whole lot.

Texture shot on to hopefully cover up anywhere I was not so great with the mudding and sanding.

I'll stop here and give special thanks to my father in law Steve for coming to double check my drywall and get me started on texturing.

Paint on the walls, finally. 

But what about this ugly mass right?

We used beadbord to give it contrast in the inset part of the wall.

Finally the walls were painted which meant the plumbers could be scheduled to come back to finish their work. It also meant that our electrician, Erin's ex-husband who was willing to do that part of the work for us, could come and hook up the lights. To that point we had been working with daylight or a set of work lamps that never seemed to be at the right height.

We traded a Friday date night out on the town for one spent in painting trim. A trip to the gas station for 'broasted chicken' and beer and we were set.

The next day I got the floor in. This was probably my favorite part besides being done.

The chimney ran through the room so we were left with insets on both sides. I widened the wall on the tub side so it was the same width as the tub deck. The only real use for this area would be some shelving and the most ascetic way to do it was to make them appear as built-ins.

Crown up and shelves started.

Couldn't even wait until the shelves were done to get the TV up there.

Erin's brother in law Jesse drew up and cut this lotus for us out of aluminum. It really turned out amazing.

After a rescheduling problem with the plumbers they finally made it back over to set the tub and connect everything in the basement. 

Filling to check for leaks.

Moment of truth. Did the pump work? Yes!

Since the tub deck didn't extend all the way into the inset wall I was going to have to build an extension for it. I had to wait until the tub was set in place and tub deck screwed down to know exactly how big it needed to be though. The problem I had was that there was going to be an area of wasted space there so I decided to made a box for storage. 

Fits perfect.

Covering it to match the tub deck and floor.

The perfect place for soap and shampoo.

And now here are the finished pictures.

I put a little access door on the side.

It took a lot of work but it really turned out nice and I'm glad that I was able to give Erin the bathroom she always wanted. And the kids love it too.