Remodeling your bathroom = hole in the side of your house?

Posted by Evan in Around the House, My Favorite Posts

For us it does…

Monday we worked on the demolition phase of the bathroom remodeling project. We got all of the walls torn down to the studs, all of the tile ripped down from around the shower, removed the vanity/sink, removed the tank from the toilet and generally prepped the room for all of the finishing touches that would be applied over the next week.

Once we had the tile removed and could see the wall behind the shower the extent of the damage was clear. The cement board, the insulation and the outer wall were all completely saturated and dark with rot. As expected, Rick told is that a section of the wall should be replaced. The only decision to be made was what we were going to do to finish the hole once it had been plugged back up, would we put vinyl siding on the front of the house? Find a creative way to put siding over the the hole? Eventually we decided that if the siding came off cleanly and Rick thought it would be possible to put the same siding back up, we’d do that. We’re quite fond of the cedar shaker town shingles that are on the house now and, despite the comments made by folks at the lumber yards, have needed little to no maintenance.

All day yesterday Rick worked on cutting the five foot square hole in the house and trying to get the new tub in place while we had the space we needed. We ran into a few problems with the plumbing kit we purchased for the new bathtub and decided to call it a day at around 8:30. It was a long day for Rick, he worked so hard.

Today the plan is to get the tub installed and get the hole in the house closed. Hopefully that will get us back on schedule so we’re ready for the plumber to come tomorrow and finish the plumbing for the shower. Overall things have gone pretty well considering the problems we’ve run into. Hopefully by the end of this week our new bathroom will start to come into focus.