A few days ago, I wrote about my mother’s lavatory renovation project. Probably close to ten years later, my father was finally ready to renovate the lavatory himself. A lot had happened in the meantime. For one thing, my mother had finally decided her children were old enough that she could divorce my father and she moved out. My father had reached retirement age and qualifications. Given he was a police sergeant, that wasn’t as hard as for some occupations. He only needed to be at least fifty years of age and have more than twenty years on the force. He had been counting down the days until he could retire. And then he stayed on the force about another five years. However, in preparing to retire, he wanted to find a small town like the place he had grown up and retire there. He started looking for such a town, taking his weekends and vacations to find a place he liked.

He also started preparing the house to be sold. Part of this meant getting through the backlog of renovation projects and repainting things. It so happened that I was unemployed at the time. The job market was not terribly hot. I had been applying a lot of places but had yet to get any bites. So, I got to stay with him and help with repainting the house and conducting appropriate renovations.

Now, he had heard some advice from a realtor, and I think the advice still applies, that white is the best color for interior walls in selling a home, because it makes a room feel more expansive. The house was a raised ranch. It had a downstairs family room with one small window. At some point in my youth, going with a Mexican ranch theme, my father had installed dark paneling and painted the exposed walls dark red. They had plenty of black cast iron work in the room, too. Preparing for sale, we ripped out the old paneling, painted the walls white, and installed a light oak paneling that only came to the chair rail all around. (It should be mentioned that due to things the city did, we had several instances of sewage backing up into the lower level, so the paneling on the lower wall was an easy way to hide wall damage rather than wholly replacing them. Don’t try this at home.) Having the room much lighter really seemed to expand it and make it airy, rather than brooding. So, after that first experiment, white paint on the interior walls it was.

Preparing the bedrooms and other rooms was not very difficult. The kitchen received all new cabinets in a light oak similar to the paneling. This left only the two lavatories. We tackled the downstairs lavatory first. It was a half-bath, meaning only a shower and not a tub, off the utility room. Besides having the washer, dryer, heater, and water heater, the utility room’s main purpose seemed to be to bring the dog inside on really cold days. This was in the bad old days when folks would chain a dog up in the backyard instead of carrying them in their purses. Old Duke liked to curl up in the shower stall, and he was about the only one who used that bathroom from the time I was growing up until we remodeled it. We cleaned the bathroom out, installed new fixtures, painted the concrete floor with a few good coats, installed tile board on the walls around the shower and lower walls, and painted the rest of the room white. We did a good job, and that lavatory was now nicer and more usable than the main upstairs lavatory. It was also necessary to have the lower lavatory usable before we could remodel the one on the upper floor.

This was the lavatory my mother and Mrs. Next Door had painted. The blue shag carpet remnant they had put down about a decade before had seen better days, especially since it had been poorly installed by two women who had no idea how to do it. The paint had not been the best type of paint for bathroom walls and had not worn well. Much of the paint they had put on the tile had worn off or peeled off with time and a steamy atmosphere. And then there was the window. They had not used a separate paint for the trim. It was the same blue they used on the walls. It also was applied rather liberally. And back when they painted it, nobody had tried to open the window afterwards. The window had not been opened in about a decade. They had painted it shut. The fixtures were still the same pink fixtures that had been installed when the house was built in the late 1950’s. The tub had a few new chips in the enamel, as well as having the old chips grow and start to rust.

It should also be said here that my father is the typical man when it comes to remodeling projects, and lives by every man’s rule: the project can’t be finished without at least three trips to the hardware store. Usually at least one of the trips was due to the fact that he would decide to force something that was not coöperating.

I should also state that this was more than half a lifetime ago, and I do not remember all the details. For instance, I distinctly remember pulling up the carpet and then removing the leftover small-pattern tiles that were on the floor underneath, but I have no memory of how we replaced it. Did we put down carpeting? Did we put down new tile instead? I really don’t remember. I also seem to remember that this project took some time, since my father was involved in every aspect, and he was still working. That meant nights and a few weekends to get everything done. So, with those caveats and preliminaries, let’s get to the subject of the conversation.

The Tub

Probably the largest part of the project was the tub. If you have never de-installed an old tub or installed a new one, the first thing to note is that tubs are installed before the walls. This means that taking a tub out first entails taking out the walls above it, and depending on shape and style of the tub and obstructions, it could mean significant wall removal. The other thing to note is that older tubs were made of metal and enameled, and they were very heavy.

Before we could start taking out parts of the walls in which the tub was installed, we first had to remove that old tile, the tile my mother and Mrs. Next Door had painted blue. This was relatively easy for two reasons:

1. First, some of the edge tiles had fallen away, even before my mother’s painting spree.
2. We didn’t care much about the wall behind the tile, since we had to remove large parts of it for getting the old tub out and new tub in. We were also going to cover the wall with tile board.

I took a scraper, edged in under one of the tiles, and started popping them off. This part of the project did not take long. The glue that held the tile was more than thirty years old.

My father then cut a line into the wallboard perhaps a foot above the top of the old tub, and we pulled out that wall board to expose the real top edge of the tub. (Thank heaven it was wallboard. I later had the pleasure of having removed a tub from the thirties or forties where the walls were plaster over wire mesh. That took a sledgehammer and attitude.) The type of tub we were dealing with had an upward flange that helped ensure that water will never get on the top surface of the tub, get past the tile and wallboard, and fall off into the walls.

You can see such a tub and how the process works on Youtube here:

That video glosses over if the pipes are galvanized steel or another substance and does not take into consideration if the tub had been installed in the 1950s and had been there for over thirty years and how stubborn the pipes can be after years to cold weld into place. For that matter, that drain collar gets mighty hard to get out after over thirty years in place, too, special tool for it or not. It becomes easier to cut the pipe.

Do you notice in the video how they are working through a hole cut in the wall to access the pipes to disconnect the tub? Most construction companies do not leave holes in walls and just put in an access panel, or at least they did not in the 1950’s. So, we had to cut a hole in the wall of the closet of the master bedroom. Of course, when one is working on plumbing, one does not want clothing exposed, so the closet had to be emptied first. And sometimes you don’t have the luxury of having a closet on the other side. In my current apartment, the kitchen is on the other side of that wall, and if they had to cut into it, they would first have to remove kitchen cabinets. But wait, there’s more. The way they access the plumbing of my upstairs neighbor’s tub is through my bathroom ceiling. So, if there is a leak upstairs that need to be fixed, guess who is inconvenienced? Anyway, unless your contractor has been very thoughtful or a previous owner of the home has created an access panel, you’re going to get to open up a wall in the room adjacent to the tub. Isn’t it nice how the video glosses over that fact?

Also, in the video, it is obvious that the tub is in a first-floor room immediately above the basement with open access from below to the drain pipes leading down. This is great if you have it, but if the bathroom is on a second or higher floor and above a finished ceiling, such as in a kitchen? Then you have to reach those pipes as best you can from wherever you are cutting an access hole.

Another thing that the video glosses over is that they have already stripped the rest of the room. Do you see a toilet in that video? Of course not. They have already removed it. They are professionals and are renovating that lavatory in the most sensible way. They get everything out and then remove the tub. Then, they reverse the order. They put the new tub in and then either reinstall the other fixtures or install the new tub, sink, etc. The layout of the bathroom was more like the one shown in the video I will link about toilets below. The tub with a toilet about half a foot away with a sink beyond that.

This is a long way of saying that we wound up cutting the metal pipe just above the joint from the tub’s drain pipe hardware through the access hole in the closet. (Because this pipe that connects directly to the tub has two inlets, above at the overflow and below at the drain, it’s shaped sort of like a stylized T with one arm going into the main drain pipe.) Also, because we had a toilet right there a foot or so from the tub, we had to cut the wall much higher up, so that we could stand the tub up to get it out of the room. There was no sliding it out for us. That old metal tub was heavy, and it was a real treat to maneuver it out of the bathroom around the toilet and sink and then into the hallway and around another corner to get it down the stairs and out the door. This is where I wish I had pictures as iWe did on his recent post or better would be video as the two stooges got that heavy pink tub out of the house. You’ll just have to picture it in your mind’s eye. But don’t try to picture my father’s language during this escapade in your mind’s ear. You could go deaf that way.

Once the tub was out, we had access to get the cut-off end of the tub drain pipe disconnected from the main drain pipe.

We now had the wall that had the faucets in it cut fairly high up to get the tub loose, but this was alright since we also wanted to install something that had not been there before: a shower. We replaced the two handle faucet with a three handle job, including a pipe going up for the shower. Once that was all in place with all appropriate parts sticking out, we put in the new tub. I believe at some point here there was another trip to the hardware store because some part or another was the wrong size to match what was already there.

Now, my father was not generally a cheap man, nor did he necessarily do things by half measures. As part of our project to get the house ready, we reversed something he had done decades before. He had converted the upstairs living room into a den for himself by building bookshelf walls framing it off from the hallway and stairs. When we removed these walls, I found out just how much a man could overbuild a wall. I was introduced to nails that were practically railroad spikes as I had to get them out of the wooden studs and ceiling. However, his goal at this time was to make the house look nice as cheaply as possible so that he could sell it for as much as possible. His goal was not to invest money.

Thus, the new tub that he bought was some sort of plastic, perhaps vinyl. It was certainly lighter to lift and install than the old metal tub. Unfortunately, it would have consequences within a short time. Also, it seems that the place he bought it from had a sale on blue fixtures at the time. Rather than a decent white or pale cream-colored tub, it was light blue. While it did not have the chips and other signs of wear of the old metal tub, blue was not really much better than pink.

Again, more than half my lifetime later, I do not remember the details. If we had been sensible, while the tub was out would have been the perfect time to deal with the window, cutting the old paint to get it to open again and painting it properly with a nice white latex trim paint before the tile board went in. I don’t believe we did it sensibly, though. It was probably done a few weeks later.

Once the tub was in, we refinished the walls. I would like to say that we properly replaced all of the wallboard that had been removed and then cut and placed the tile board over it, but as I may have mentioned, Dad was looking for it to look good, but not cost lots of money. Which was also why he used tile board in the first place. For those who don’t know, tile board is like paneling with a waterproof finish on the outside, usually with a pattern that looks like tile in some form and which may be scored to resemble tile even more. This was not even expensive tile board, and it installed with plastic joining strips between the panels or sealing off the tops, bottoms, and exposed edges. I believe it might have glued to the walls since using paneling nails would have broken the waterproof seal.

You may be getting the impression that whoever had to remodel that lavatory next had special words for my father and his methods. Whoever that next owner might have been, I am glad not to have been the one.

Once the walls were in place, including tile board, we put the handles on the faucet, installed the spigot and the shower head, and then put on the shower doors. That was the largest part of the remodeling finished.

The Toilet

The toilet was a fairly standard toilet replacement, mostly. The only problem I remember encountering was that there had been some rot in the sub-flooring and the bolts that secured the toilet were now a bit wobbly. We were putting in a new floor anyway, so we pulled up the old sub-floor and installed a new one. Then we installed the new flange and bolts in the new sub-floor, followed by installing the new toilet.

Here is a video with a fellow doing it, minus having to replace the floor in the middle:

One thing, we did not have a shut-off valve on the toilet to turn off as he did. But we did install one so the next time someone had to do it, they would not have to shut off water for the whole house. This was one of those places where we earned an extra trip to the hardware store when Dad tried forcing something and tore up one of the parts.

Also, isn’t it great how in the video, the guy just says, “And now we remove the toilet,” and it’s gone. Nice and neat and easy. It’s never that easy. Nor is it that easy to remove the washers on the bolts, especially if they have been there for more than thirty years. Same way with cutting the top of the bolt off after installing the new toilet. One slip of the tool and one might need a new new toilet.

The Sink

The old sink was a stand-alone, hang-off-the-wall sink. There was no covered storage anywhere in the lavatory, other than in the medicine cabinet, which was not overly large. Dad decided to install a vanity cabinet with a larger sink. The new sink was a light blue with a marbled finish to match the other fine blue fixtures we had already installed.

Here, the fun was getting the old sink de-installed after more than thirty years. The way they are installed is with a metal plate attached to the wall that the porcelain sink then slides down onto. After thirty years and some sloppy painting that sealed the sink to the wall even more, getting the sink off required a crowbar and a bad attitude. Good thing we were not planning on re-using the sink.

That video shows a similar type of sink, although ours did not have the additional feet to support it in front.

Another thing our sink did not have was those individual line valves. We had to turn the water off for the whole house. We installed valves with the new sink.

The Floor

As I mentioned in the original conversation a few days ago, the original lavatory floor had been composed of pink and white tiles in various shades and sizes. There was a weak metal mesh on the back of the small tiles to hold them together in a larger framework that I would assume to have been in squares of 9”x9”, making them easy to set down into a layer of grout. Many of the smaller tiles had come out of the matrix over the years. The grout had crumbled in areas. Then, my mother had covered it with a carpet remnant.

We removed the carpet and pulled up the rest of the tile. We then wound up pulling up and replacing the sub-flooring while working on the toilet project. In theory, we should have put in the new floor before installing the new toilet or vanity, but I doubt we did it the right way.

I have no memory of what we did about the floor. Did we put down new carpeting, perhaps with padding properly installed? Did we put down tile? I’m inclined to believe tile, but I do not remember.

Painting and the Window

As with the rest of the house, we repainted the lavatory white. Had we done this all the smart way, we would have:

1. Taken out the old carpet and floor tile;
2. Taken out the fixtures, including the wall tile;
3. Installed the new tub;
4. Repaired the walls;
5. Fixed the window;
6. Replaced the tile/installed wall board;
7. Painted the room;
8. Installed the new floor; and then
9. Installed the new toilet and vanity with sink.

Obviously, we saved the painting and getting the window to open for last. This is not a big deal. One is likely to paint a room more often than replace the fixtures, so we just treated it as we would have if we were just painting instead of remodeling the whole room.

The window was first, and involved a lot of scraping, cutting through layers of paint, and stripping old paint. Once the old stuff was gone, we managed to ensure that the bottom pane would slide up and the top pane would slide down.

We painted the window with a proper paint for trim. Then we painted the rest of the room, carefully masking edges and covering fixtures we did not want paint spattered. When I say “we” here, I really mean me. Stripping old paint and painting could be a one-man job, and I could do it while my father was working or looking for a new town to move to.

A Few Weeks Later…

This new vinyl tub was not necessarily as strong as the old metal tub. It was supported on the bottom by foam pads in strategic locations, places the manufactures thought it most likely the tub would need reinforcement. But these foam pads did not support the entire bottom of the tub.

My father was a somewhat robustly-built man. I think at this time in his life he probably weighed between 225 and 250 pounds. He only had a slight belly at those weights. He had broad shoulders and a deep, barrel chest. One would not look at him and say 250 pounds. Still, not everything is built for that sort of weight. Many office chairs are rated for 225 pounds, as I have found all too often, and they mean a very gentle 225 pounds, not for someone who plops down in the chair.

I do not know if the tub had a weight rating or what it may have been, but while enjoying the newly installed shower feature one day, my father happened to step on one of the unsupported spots, and the vinyl tore. The new tub had about a three-inch gash where his heel had been. He attempted to repair this with an epoxy resin, although it was quite visible to any but the most casual observer. I believe it was still there and that way when he sold the house a few months later.

How about you? Ever had something that you could have done better and quickly came to regret that you did not invest just a little more time or money?