My bath remodel (1 Viewer)

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Trollhole

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So about a month ago my wife noticed a soft spot in the floor beside the shower. A little investigating and I found we had some rot. Figured I could just pull the linoleum away and repair the rot and put everything back. Well got into it and this is what I found. What was supposed to be a weekend job has turned into a whole bathroom remodel. We have a budget of 1k and I plan on keeping it that way.

All those black dots are dead ants. We would see one or two ants every week or so. I didn't think it was a big problem. When I started tearing into everything they started pouring out. Millions of them. This is on the second floor of my house. Crazy.

From what I could tell every corner of the shower had been leaking without us knowing for some time.
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Best part is I get to see how crappy the framing was and even better was the repair the PO did on fixing the rot the first time. They repaired it with MDF. Wonderful. Notice the far right stud. Looks like the ran out of wood and used 3 pieces to make one.:mad:

Also they didn't use concrete backer board behind the tub. Just tiled over the sheet rock. So we just tore it all out. At this point I still thought I was just going to replace the wallboard and just tile the floor and wall.
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Kept cutting away the rot and found more under the drain. That's when we got to the point of just saying screw it we will do it all over again. Very proud of the wife for jumping in and helping.
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So I got the water lines done for the tub. Have to say I really like PEX. I was afraid the crimper was going to be expensive but I found one you can use with a pair of vise grips. It's a pain in the ass squeezing it but worked just like the 100 dollar tool.

And then plumbed the tub drain line. As well I added another set of lines for the shower as I'm going to install a rainwater/ waterfall showerhead which I plan on making myself. Also got the floor patched.
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Yesterday I got the tub back in. When the builder installed the tub they used concrete to try support the base. But when I pulled up the tub I found out they actually did it as an afterthought as they only packed concrete around the front of the tub non of which actually supported it. I laid down a layer of felt paper, a sheet of Hardiboard and then a couple bags of concrete. Then put the tub in. It's not going anywhere.
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When I pulled the toilet I found they had cut the hole to big for the flange. So instead of redoing it they just took nails and bent them over to hold it in. Not only that but as they were pounding them in they broke both sides of the flange. I was going up over 3/4 of an inch so I used a steel plate behind it and put a new spacer on it. Then put thinset around it. It won't be going anywhere now.

Also I took a magic marker and wrote the whole bathroom story on the wall behind the shower head. I put as much info about my family as I could think of as well. So maybe some day when someone is remodeling they will have a nice surprise.
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That su-huh-hucks. You can really see where the moisture was getting through the shower wall and into the insulation. There wasn't any barrier between the shower pan and the sub-flooring?

Good job for turning lemons into lemonade; the move to the bigger shower is a great idea.

Did you just extend the new tub drain to the existing line?
 
they make fittings for pex called "shark bites"...no need for crimpers when you use them...nice work!

osagecruiser
 
That su-huh-hucks. You can really see where the moisture was getting through the shower wall and into the insulation. There wasn't any barrier between the shower pan and the sub-flooring?

Good job for turning lemons into lemonade; the move to the bigger shower is a great idea.

Did you just extend the new tub drain to the existing line?

Ended up capping the original tub drain and cutting into the line further down and installing a new trap.
 
they make fittings for pex called "shark bites"...no need for crimpers when you use them...nice work!

osagecruiser

Yeah but they are expensive. I had a whole lot of fittings to do.
 
Looks good. we ran into the same thing with our kitchen. We bought the house and it only had a small amount of cabinets so i was going to take half a wall down and patch the sheetrock and add cabinets. but as we pulled up the linoleum floor it was totally rotton along with the sheetrock behind the existing cabinets. My wife kept saying the floor was uneven. Well under the linoleum was a particle board sub floor. and if you know what happens to particle board when it gets wet it just expands. so my just adding cabinets turned into taking it down to studded walls and floor joists.
 
I hate OSB, they started roofing my house with it and I made them tear it off. PEX is good stuff, replumbed my house last year with it, has worked great. I'd run the membrane up at least a foot for that shower pan.
 
how is the $1000 budget holding up? :p

I'm right at it. The only thing that is going to set me over is the glass. I'm thinking 200-300 for a single piece that is 6x4x 5/8

So far

500 for 13 boxes of 12" tile, 6 sheets of glass tile, grout, 12 sheets of underlayment, screws and a few tools.

150 for the plumbing fixtures and drain.

100 for pex, crimper, fittings etc.

40 tile cutter.

40 membrane

150 for slate mosaic tiles for the floor.


How's that?


I see all these bath remodels on TV. All of them are over 10k. I think that is crazy.


I've also decided to do new countertops in the bathroom and kitchen. I can get 1" granite slabs for $4 a ft from India.
 
Good job Marshall.....We recently installed a shower with new tile and I loved installing the small tile going in at the bottom of the shower. We were damn careful about going thru all the steps on the membrane. More pics!
 
good job man.. if you have already thought of this just tell me to shut up..

the shower head that you are making, have you thought about the flow rate ? i have to tell people on a daily basis that there water heater is working just fine.
but your shower head is blowing 5 , 6 . sometimes 7 or 8 gals per minute.. or more

so your 50 gal water heater is completly drained after your 5-10 minute shower, or there abouts.

i have been seeing alot of full body showers lately with multiple shower heads. . wasting tons of water,,
 

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