Renovating the Bathroom of Fail

[AngryMarmot]

Hey folks - I have completed my shop renovation from a brown, smoke-stained, bare-concrete stinky mess to what I think is pretty good (using Racedeck flooring).

My next project is to tackle the small shop bathroom. There is one of those glue-in shower surrounds that is getting torn out and replaced by tile along with most everything else. I have never done tile before and I plan on doing a LOT of it in the house, so I've budgeted about $1200 in tools for a good tile saw/etc. What I intend on doing is removing the plastic surround, all the drywall, replacing the toilet & sink - basically everything.

In the below pictures you can see the plywood surround where the incoming water to the house is and the 100 gallon pressure tank along with valves/etc. There is a sliding plywood door that is facing the toilet that slides out toward the bathroom entryway for access. Basically you grab the toilet paper roll holder and slide. Not sure what to do about this, but at least the ugliness of the pipes/tank/etc isn't visible. Not that it matters much in this bathroom. Why the former owners painted the concrete green - I'll never know.

Basically the only major DIY stuff I've done is flooring and baseboard trim. This is going to be a learning experience. Fortunately, the bathroom here is pretty small and no one uses it currently. I'm not sure that I'm capable of making it look worse, so I figure this will be a good start before I do the more important rooms in the house.

Anyone have any suggestions based on what you see?

I'm kind of wondering about what to do about all the rounded corners when it comes to laying tile - I am thinking that most of the drywall is going to get ripped out. There is no subfloor - we're on the concrete slab.

A.M.

[Dave Taylor]

Hello Angry..... and welcome to Tile Your World forums..... can you give us a better first name to use. :---)

Why the former owners painted the concrete green - I'll never know.

What's wrong with green concrete block?

We're sure here to help with questions you may have along the way with what looks like a nice project..... and you will prolly'' get plenty of design ideas too.

Mebee' change that concrete color first.

Again..... welcome aboard the Tile Your World train.

Edit: PS Ang: Bathroom projects completed with help from here-a-bouts' are usually rather successful renovation projects..... would you like us to change your thread title from "fail" to sumpin' more positive? :---)

[AngryMarmot]

Thanks Dave. You guys can call me Scott.

The "fail" comes from what the bathroom looks like now. The idea is to turn it into a "win".

While I'm just getting started, over the next day or two I will be doing demo work, ripping out the drywall, tub surround, sink, toilet, etc. It's kind of a scary prospect to take a crowbar to your walls for the first time.

Any tile saw recommendations? I will have two more bathrooms to do after this one, as well as a 2nd kitchen that is going to be the bar/entertaining area, so I think investing in a good saw and some good tools are in order. I've ordered the tile book out of the store, so I plan on going through that pretty throughly.

[Davestone]

Look through the threads around here type in tile or wet saw and you'll get bajillions of posts,read through them get confused then go out and buy the best saw you can afford.

[bbcamp]

Do you have any idea of the tile sizes you may be using? You'll want a saw big enough to cut them without having to flip them over. Keep in mind that you can recover about 50% of your saw's cost if you sell it after all your projects are completed.

[AngryMarmot]

I don't see myself at this point using larger than 18" tile.

Any opinions on MK Diamond saws? Are they a good value or are there better values out there?

[AngryMarmot]

Ran into a small snag. Figured out pretty easily how to shut off the cold water to that bathroom, but not the hot water. Well, actually, I did find a way to shut it off, it just shuts off the other downstairs bathroom as well. I would have expected to find a separate valve, but no luck. In the wall maybe? I may just have to live without hot water in the downstairs until I'm done.

I have a well, a 100psi pressure tank, and a hydronic heating system fired by a munchkin boiler which I think you probably need a PHD to design, looking at the insane number of valves, pipes, etc.

[goodlife]

If you dont have a shutoff for your hotwater for the bathroom make one. Shut all water off and drain. Put new one in. Shut new one off and remodel

[jaysz]

And if you don't do soldering and the line is copper, just buy an imp
(small pipe cutter) and a "gator" or "sharkbite" valve and put it in
without a torch, they are pretty nice.

[AngryMarmot]

I'll have a look after I get the sheetrock ripped out as well as the vanity and toilet, my options are pretty open when I am only looking at studs

[AngryMarmot]

Going a little faster than I had thought - I'm hoping to be done taking out the sheetrock tomorrow night.

Looking at the ceiling drywall seam against the stud, I can see what appears to be the blown-in type of insulation there, so If I take out the ceiling sheetrock, it will rain that stuff down - may leave that sheetrock in place and give it a good coat of Kilz versus taking it out.

[AngryMarmot]

Ok, I've torn everything out except the ceiling, which I don't intend on replacing. I WILL be replacing the light/fan in there though.

I took out the shroud that was surrounding the incoming water from the well pump, well electrical, and pressure tank. I think I can come up with something a little bit more space efficient and neater-looking than what was there.

Interestingly, the hot/cold water incoming for the vanity and toilet come up through the concrete, right next to a piece of rebar. It's in one of the pictures below. It's set off the wall maybe 3-4 inches, so I'm thinking I should probably build something around it to hide the piping.

The window frame has some water damage, so I am assuming I will probably have to replace the affected pieces when replacing the window.

For some reason, the previous owner decided to put the 100psi pressure tank on cinder blocks. I don't really see it being a problem, just kind of ugly when it's out in the open. Any ideas for surrounding this and the incoming well water pipe would be appreciated

Any suggestions based on what you see? I am not sure if I can link files from my website, so I just uploaded the 50k limit-sized pictures.

Now that everything is down to the bare studs, I'd like to make whatever repairs/changes make sense at this point.

Thanks!

Scott

[AngryMarmot]

Any thoughts? Anything you folks see that might be concerning?

Based on the shower layout, would I be able to use one of the Kerdi prebuilt shower pans?

[Brian in San Diego]

Scott,

I couldn't get a feel for where the pressure tank was situated. Can a closet be made to hide it?

I do see where the supply lines come up through the slab for the vanity. It depends on what you are going to put back with regards to a vanity. The pipe can certainly be covered up so as not to be noticeable. I know one thing...I hate the idea of copper lines running underneath a slab...even if they are properly sleeved.

You probably could use one of the Schluter shower trays but I have to tell you portland cement and sand is a whole lot cheaper.

Brian

[AngryMarmot]

Brian, if you look at the 2nd and third pictures in the top of the thread, you can see the shroud that was originally built around the pressure tank and piping.

I'm going to recreate the shroud, only smaller, and a lot nicer looking. I'm thinking something that goes all the way to the ceiling with integrated shelves or something similar. The copper pipes are snug against the rebar coming up through the slab right next to them. I don't like the idea either - but nothing I can really do about it.

Would the Schluter shower trays be just as easy to tile over as one built with cement and sand? What do those bad boys cost? The area of my shower is 4' by 3'6". I've never built one before, so I am a little worried about screwing it up by building it myself.