Bathroom Reno - Day 6.26-6.99

I'll admit it, folks: I'm tired. How do I know? Well, when Paul came by to give me a hand this afternoon he pointed to a number of things that need to be fixed before we can start hanging the backer board for the tile. How did I react? I cried. This is pretty much the universal sign of Susie exhaustion. In fact, whenever I call my mom crying she always asks, "Are you tired?" And, yes, I generally am. I suppose all you manly-men out there are saying something like, "There's no crying in home improvement!" I reply, you got to get out your frustration somehow. And, yes, today was another frustrating day.

As I explained earlier, I was all psyched that I was going to get to moving today after ripping out the vinyl and prepping the mostly good subfloor. Then I got to the subfloor around the toilet. I figured, hey, it's just rotten on the top layer of luan. No, it was rotted through several layers of subfloor (there have to be at least five layers on there, including what appears to have been pieces of the original wood floor). It took me several hours to get the rotten layers out. Then Paul came over and helped me think through how to replace what I had removed and then pointed to the many problems with the framing around the tub. One 2x4 had rotted out at the bottom, which will have to be replaced. There is no framing in the center of ceiling so it basically goes for 34" across with nothing - this means the exhaust fan will need to be taken out and put back differently. Then, a lot of the framing is not even square or plumb - heck, in a few places it just doesn't even align. All of these things must be fixed. So why did I cry? I think because I had assumed that since all that board and tile was up there that it would be fine to use what was there. Of course, you know what they say about assuming. Not to mention the fact that there was nothing renovated after 1970 in this house that was done correctly (refer back to kitchen renovation for more drama). Indeed, I remembered later having the same sinking feeling when Paul came by during the kitchen reno, when I was all raring to go, and told me things needed to be fixed first. I think I cried then too.

So, after a trip to Home Depot, I started working on replacing the subfloor. I will be the first to call myself terrible when it comes to measuring - I'm just awful at it and consequently I measure once and cut about twelve times. Anyway, I'm just about there, as you see below - then I get to cut out a few more to get up to the height of the rest of the subfloor. Then I'll work on framing and then maybe, just maybe, I can get to rebuilding this Bangor Foursquare bathroom. G'night.