Bathroom remodel begins ... officially

We have lift-off. Or tear-down, or whatever you want to call it. Demolition has begun and dust coughing has ensued chez nous.


The shower is obviously the main reason for this bathroom remodel so that has come down first. We didn't uncover the gruesome mold problem we had first thought, and this is because the shower is surrounded by the concrete foundation of our lower level. However, this wasn't done all in vain because studs were rotted with black mold, and the previous remodeler had added a layer of particle board under the shower to raise it up, which was also rotted and housing a new albino species of rolly pollys. Once we removed all those pieces, we were left with clean/mold free concrete to start the job anew.

I was also looking at photos from 2005, when we previewed this house, and this shower was IMMACULATE. This makes me think that this remodel was pretty new -- maybe to sell the house -- and so the old owners never used this shower. It looks like a cheap fix that had inevitable consequences (as all cheap fixes do - you get what you pay for). Unfortunately, we were the ones to get stuck with having to fix the problem. Any water use in this shower would have ultimately led to the mold problem, there was nothing we could do.

Moving on ... it's not healthy thinking about old owners.

The tile came in this weekend and it looks really nice. My dad approved of the marble tile, "It's just beautiful," he said. For the pebbles, he just shook his head and said, "It's gonna take a lot of grout."

The shower system came out pretty easy, and my dad is adding insulation against the concrete foundation for extra warmth. We also got a new high powered vent with a light for inside the shower (currently a low powered one with no light).

We also bought our shower heads, etc. Remember I said I wanted the LUX? Okay, well I budgted for everything I WANTED, and then I set the budget at what I wanted to PAY. Needless to say there was a slight discrepency not in my favor. So we left it as is, but knew we would have to cut things along the way (or downgrade). So what got downgraded? Yep, the spa shower. We ended up getting the Kohler Forte Essentials Showering Package, shaving $1000 off the initial estimate, but we're still over-budget.

So I hope we move along as fast as we can. My in-laws are coming in to town in 2 weekends, but there's no way we'd have a working shower by then...