… and the Master Bath

The lines are straight. It's the camera lens that's curved.

Day eleven and the walk-in closet is pretty much done. Instead of wooden baseboards, porcelain bullnose adds a touch of class — even if most of our work will be hidden by the clutter of plastic drawers, hanging clothes, boxes and shoes.

We have it for a month. 

We decided to skip the weekly garbage pick-up and go all out with the smallest dumpster we could get. Fifteen cubic yards. We won't get near filling it up, but the collection of demolition debris in the bathroom was really too much.

Showers are wet, yet the only accommodation in
the previous remodel was thin plastic sheeting
(like the plastics bags for your vegetables, only
a bit thicker) stapled to the studs behind the basic
(i.e., not even waterproof) sheet-rock.
Of course, the sheet-rock screws in
the bottom foot or two were all rusted.

Actually, the bathroom is too much. Specifically, roughing in a walk-in shower is too much for me. This is the first time I've demolished down to the studs. Tearing out the old wall tiles revealed funky construction, multiple layers of wallboard, crumbly mortar, huge strips and gobs of still flexible caulk, insulation coated with black mold, and insect feces. The shower floor tiles came out attached to huge pieces of poorly set concrete. The shower floor is a mess. On the plus side, the studs are in good shape — no rot.

Rotary hammer, much preferable to a
sledge hammer and chisel, but
the vibration and dust are terrible!

Eleven days and I've hit a bit of a wall. I don't want to be responsible for installing the shower pan, a new square drain and the floor grading so the water goes down the drain, glued plastic liner material. I'll pay someone to install the floor and walls so all I have to do is cut and cement tiles.

We had a guy come out today to get us a quote on the shower.

Imagine the floor crumbles to the touch.

Preparing the bathroom floor itself was enough of a job. Now I know what is a “rotary hammer.” It’s an electric jack-hammer. It probably has other uses, like making bread dough and polishing cars, but it's good for tearing up old tile and the mortar that holds it down, the thin-set.

A rotary hammer looks innocent enough, but it packs quite a wallop and generates veritable haboobs of mortar dust. Wretched stuff. We should keep a canary in that room and watch for it coughing and passing out.

My hands are vibrating like they have Parkinson’s. The alternative is Michaelangelo-ing it with a sledge hammer and chisel — which I did for three hours on Sunday with little result except for the pain in my hands and arms.

Friends who are also doing some remodeling took pity and lent us their rotary hammer. They are good friends!

I could not conceive how this thing could cut
safely without breaking your hand, but
it does, and quite elegantly.

I am the proud owner of an “oscillating tool” which has an ugly looking cutting edge that makes flush cuts. I got talked into buying one at Home Depot and it's one purchase I haven't regretted.

Eleven days into it and Shari has already declared this to be our last construction project. My idea of "remodel" is increasingly becoming (a) assembling Ikea furniture and (b) replacing light switch covers with decorative Mexican ones. I want to work in the garden and dream about making tongue-in-cheek YouTube videos on Do-It-Yourself projects.