Bathroom Renovation

Since I got back from Tucson one of the things that have been taking a lot of my time is a bathroom renovation at our place in Avon. The bathroom was original and had only had some small cosmetic updates since my mother-in-law bought the place in the 80s over 40 years ago. The bathroom had a one piece fiberglass tub and shower enclosure. 

Although I had painted the bathroom and added a new ceiling 15 years ago the bathroom was really showing it's age. 

The first thing we did was to hire one of those one day bathroom renovation companies to replace the bathtub with a shower as we don't really need a bathtub here. 

The actual installation took two long days so these TV commercials showing a completely new bathroom in a single day are false advertising as it takes a lot of work and time to do it right. They took the fiberglass bathtub out then ripped the walls around it down to the studs and built it back up from there. The team was careful and meticulous and did a good job. We now have a 30x60 inch shower instead of the tub. It has shelves and a seat and glass doors instead of a shower curtain so it's a nice upgrade to what was there. They also redid all the plumbing so it is like new. 

After the shower was finished it was my turn to do some work. The old sheet rock ceiling wasn't in good shape 20 years ago which is why 15 year ago I put in a beaded plank ceiling in instead of trying to patch and paint the old ceiling. The ceiling I had put up had reached the end of its life so I put up a new plank drop ceiling made of PVC which looks good and will have no trouble holding up to the moisture that's in a bathroom.

It was relatively easy to put up as I just had to put some metal tracks in the old ceiling and use clips to secure the PVC planks to the ceiling. The hardest part was just working in the small space of the bathroom. The bathroom is 53x59 inches plus the 30x60 shower so it's hard to maneuver a ladder, planks and tools around the shower and toilet to get everything installed properly. 

Our place in Avon is a studio so even outside the bathroom there wasn't a lot of room for the table and mitre saw I needed to do the work on the ceiling and floor. 

I also had most of the place covered in plastic to contain the dust. If people saw all the plastic drapes that came in and the bags of debris going out they may have thought I was disposing a body. 

After the ceiling was done I replaced the floor. I put a new vinyl floor over the existing crappy tile floor. 

Doing this require me to take the toilet out and reinstall it. So for a little over an hour I didn't have a working bathroom. Laminate floor has come a long way in the last 30 years. I installed a few of these in my last house and they ready stand up to abuse well and if installed right look really good. We had a cherry laminate floor in our old house that almost looked as good as real wood but was a lot more durable. The one installed in the bathroom was a solid vinyl laminate that snapped together really tight and felt real solid. It should last for a long time especially since this bathroom is really only used in the summer. 

After the ceiling and floor was in I took another day to put in the ceiling and floor molding. We then had a plumber put in a pedestal sink. We originally had a small vanity in the bathroom but changed it to a pedestal sink to gain a little more room in the small bathroom. 

It was a lot of work but it's the type of work I don't mind doing and I'm pretty good at this stuff. I still need to add a medicine cabinet to the wall but the rest is done.

Doing the majority of the work myself let's me take the time to get all the little details the way I want them. Something a contractor probably won't have done. The building was constructed in the 1930s and renovated a couple of time so some of the walls are not even close to square or plumb. So although the renovated bathroom my not be as nice as new construction its a big improvement to what was there and am very happy with the way it came out.