Tearing it down, Widening it out

One of the major to-do’s before moving into the house involved tearing out the existing ¾ bath and installing a full bath. At 5’x5’ this room was teeny tiny. The vanity jutted into the doorway and turn around space, well, there was none. It was also covered in floor to ceiling pink tile. Not exactly screaming young career couple. (My apologies to those who like this style. It just didn't fit us.

Pink Tile Bathroom

A view of the sink jutting into the doorway opening

 We hired subcontractors to demolish the bathroom. What we learned was that there was an existing water problem in the bathroom. The shower was mounted on cmu’s filled with concrete, with layers of tile on top of it. That section of the house was not originally built to withstand that type of weight and it appeared that someone had tried to do a repair of it previously. This repair did not seem to hold and the weight of the CMU’s, concrete, and tile only served to allow water to seep under the house causing bigger problems. We had to remedy this by removing existing rotten supports under the house and replacing them with new supports. Additionally, the entire floor on into the water heater closet and laundry room had to be removed and replaced due to the rot. Eek! This was becoming a much larger job than we had anticipated!


Gutted Bathroom

In order to enlarge the bathroom, we enclosed a broom closet on the back side of the bathroom. And to add more complication to the mix, the walled portion of the former broom closet needed to be pine paneling to match the existing wall. The contractors were able to salvage some of the pine paneling boards removed from the closet, but it was tedious work as the boards were both tongue and groove and blind nailed together so trying to take them apart could lead to breaking the panel.


The left shows the former broom closet which was incorporated into the
new bathroom as well as the tongue and groove pine panels

Meanwhile the plumbing and new electrical continued in this space. A bathtub and subfloor was installed as was the pine paneling covering the former broom closet door.


Old broom closet door now covered in panels

For Part Two, click here.