Finishing the Bathroom

My wife wants to start deconstruction in the 2nd upstairs bedroom. I have informed her that we need to complete all of our unfinished projects downstairs before I will start another project. This is how it has gone for our home improvement projects. We begin a project, then we begin another project...then another...I think you get the picture.

Well...the list of 10 or so projects is down to 2. One is the bathroom with the 1950's speckled tile. The other is the wine cabinet to fill in the space between our new cabinets. We have decided to have someone build the wine cabinet and I will complete the bathroom.

Over the last 2.5 years that we have owned the house, the bathroom has gone through an almost complete renovation. We started with the tub surround. The tiles around the tub/shower were loose. I removed those, which exposed the crumbling plaster from being wet for so long. Removed that to expose some mold and wet insulation. Reinsulated, killed the mold, put on new fiberglass drywall, and installed vinyl window. Then we had Bath Fitter come and install the single piece shower surround so I would never have to worry about moisture problems.

We had to remove a couple of extra tiles for the Bath Fitter installation which has left exposed Liquid Nails for the last 2 years. Not a pretty sight when you have some tile and some holes where tile used to be. Don't ask me why they used Liquid Nails to install the tiles, but it is the reason we had water problems in the shower. But it is also the reason I am able to remove tiles with just a putty knife.

Then when we replaced the linoleum floor with heated, ceramic tile which required removing the bullnosed floor tiles. That has been like that for the last year. We also installed a new toiler and vanity/sink combo and removed yet more tile that was behind the toilet so I wouldn't have to remove the toilet after installation.

Then we replaced the door, which required removing the door trim. Missing door trim for the last year.

So...it has been a long time coming. Here are the "before" pics. These are before the final removal of the tile. You can see the spots where tile used to be, but liquid nails is now showing through. Beautiful I know. Sorry for the crappy pics, but the bathroom is 8x5, so it is hard to get a good picture.







Under construction...tile removed.

And after pics. I have finished about half the bathroom. We are going on vacation this weekend, so I won't finish it for another 2 weekends, but you get the idea of what it will look like. A major improvement! Welcome to the new millenium bathroom. You have been waiting a long time for this!