Whole house renovation - Converting a Ranch into a Prairie Style

Completed the bathroom today - well except for the door knob.

It was a long process, and is documented here, but without dates.

First, the floor was really uneven, so I had to use a floor leveling compound. Never did that before now. I thought that the compound might get a little runny and run down the vent, around the drain or even between the cracks in the subfloor. To prevent this I taped everything with window tape called Protecto wrap.

Ok, so I may have gotten carried away - hey but it worked!





I then screwed durock onto the floor and went to work on the walls. John Eddington helped me do some of the drywalling. Of course, we had to do some re-framing to get a reasonably flat wall. I did a lot of the mudding and Dad painted the primer. Margaret painted the walls and the ceiling. Finally, we got to the tile. We decided to go with 2 sizes of tile. Since the room is small and narrow, we thought it would help. We layed it out like 3 times and took digital photos. We wanted to start in the middle, but getting the first piece in the right place, parallel to the walls was a challenge.

We borrowed the neighbors tile saw (Thanks Chip) and it went pretty well.

Next I grouted and then we sealed with a spray grout sealer. Sydney did most of that work.

We then started on the plumbing. First order was to install shut off valves. No problems sweating one on for the toilet, but the sink was another matter. I had 3/4" clearence from the back of the pipe to the wall. I thought about it and made another trip to Home Depot (whom I still dislike) for compression shut off's. Those went in, and no leaks were found.

Then I looked at the sink. Hmmmm. Sink is a pedastal sink we bought ages ago at Menards. Water service is in the floor. Pedastal sinks are supposed to have water service in the wall, right? That way you don't see the ugly pipes coming out. Hmmmm. The wall where the sink goes shares with the garage. Techinically it's an outside wall. I suppose it was not plumbed in the outside wall for fear of freezing.

Margaret remembered a narrow cabinet base with sink at Home Depot (whom I still dislike) on closeout. We checked it out. Comes with sink, cabinet & mirror for $200. We got that. Of course, I had to cut out a chunk of the bottom of the cabinet for the water service to come up, but we finally got it in.

We had some issues with the drain - like having spray foam all over the pvc in the wall that I had to cement a fitting onto - but we resoved them with another 2 trips to Home Depot (whom I still dislike).

So, today was toilet day. I grabbed the toilet that we had slated for Sydney's bathroom and started with that. Of course the wax ring was too short, and the bolts that hold the tank onto the bowl leaked and the fill valve would not shut off - but hey - nothing that more trips to the store wouldn't fix.

Finally got it all in!