Ed's 1956 Ranch Master Bathroom Renovation

[Ed_S]

Hi all,
The time has come. I am renovating our 1956 ranch master bathroom, all 42.5 square feet of it. After nearly 9 months in the making, the demolition starts Saturday morning. My plan is to have the room down to the studs and subfloor with the new ceiling in by end of Sunday. The Kerdi, Kerdi drain, and BT-17 better bench are sitting in my office. The Kerdi book has been read too many times to count. Subfloor is rated at L / 620. So I think I'm ready to proceed. I know how everyone likes pictures, so I will post pictures after the weekend work.

The design is to remove the tub and make the shower stall a shower only with a semi-frameless glass door. The shower will have white subway tile, 1" hex floor tile, in and out of the shower. Going with a pedestal sink. The fixtures will be finished in chrome with porcelain knobs and controls. Walls will have beadboard, half-height. Considered subway, half-height, for the walls but the budget took care of that. The shower will have a 2-section niche.

My plan is as follows...
Week 1 - Demo
Week 2 - Rough plumbing, electrical, subfloor and framing
Week 3 - Sheetrock and Kerdi, mud shower Floor, CBU room floor
Week 4 - Tile, beadboard and molding
Week 5 - Paint, Fixtures and Finish

I hope to get some work done during the week. Perhaps my schedule is ambitious but I'm determined.

I've enjoy reading and watching the progress of the many projects on this site. I'm glad to be finally starting mine. Catch up with you all first of next week.

[Bill Vincent]

Anyone with a signature line like that can't be all bad!!

[Ed_S]

For your viewing pleasure...bathroom in original state. A nice mixture of blues. This is the only room in the house that we haven't touched. Getting good pictures in a small room is tough.

Links with larger pics.....

Entrance / Vanity
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...anceVanity.jpg

Exterior Wall
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...teriorWall.jpg

Floor Tile
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n.../FloorTile.jpg

Shower
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...ggs/Shower.jpg

[ChrisIL]

Ed,

Beauty is obviously in the eye of the beholder, but I love your old floor tile. Any reason besides aesthetics that it needs to go?

[Ed_S]

Chris,
The leading reason is that my wife wanted a new bathroom. The bathroom was tired and was getting to the point that no matter how much cleaning was done, the room never seemed clean. I demoed the bathroom this weekend. Pictures coming. There was a small leak around the toilet flange that was not visible from above, however after removing the tile and cement, the floor boards about 1 sqaure foot in area to one side of the flange were wet and one edge of one gave way. Also, the cast iron toilet flange had rusted away. So, while pre-demo, the floor seemed good. Post-demo, the decision was justified as problems were beginning to grow.

Ed

[ChrisIL]

Good Call, Ed.

Good luck with putting all the pieces back together again.

[Ed_S]

Pictures from demolition. Father-in-law busted the cast iron tub, helped bust the floor and assisted in carrying a few trash can loads to the truck. I worked about 7 hours by myself on Saturday and 5 hours on Sunday. The window in the bathroom does not open, so I had to transport the waste through the house.

A few notes from my experience..
1) Create a walkway of brown craft paper from the bath to the exit. I got a 140 ft, 35" wide roll at the big box home improvement store. I have hardwood floors and I'm glad I put it down.
2) Build yourself a dolley from some scrap 2x4 and 4 non-marking casters big enough to carry a 35 gallon trash can. I was shocked at the weight of the tile/concrete waste. And as the day went on, the loads got smaller yet they seemed to get heavier
3. Shop-vac.
4. Create a seal between the bathroom and the adjoining room. I used 2 mil black plastic. Stapled at the top and then a 2x4 rolled up and stapled at the bottom making the plastic taught. Not air-tight but a definite help.
5. Buy better quality masks. Dusty, dusty, dusty.

The first pic is the shower access panel that connects to the adjoining closet/bedroom. Easy access to the shower valve if it ever needed to be replaced without a full on demo.
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...ccesPanel4.jpg

Second pic is where the tub used to sit.
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/TubDemo4.jpg

Third is taken from when the tub was looking at where the vanity was.
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...anityDemo4.jpg

Fourth is the water damage from the toilet leak.
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...letFlange4.jpg

[Ed_S]

Next step is to rework the plumbing for the new fixtures and replace the rusted cast iron toilet flange. I'm excited about the plumbing going in this weekend since after that I get to sheetrock and bring the form back to the space. I think once the sheetrock goes up, I'll feel accomplished.

Question on the subfloor and the underlayment. There was 2 1/2 inches from the joist top to the previous floor plane. There are the 1x8 planks (3/4"), 1 5/8" of concrete base and then 1/8" of tile. I'm thinking I should pull out the planks and start with a clean base of Advantech flooring (3/4"), then layer either advantech of high-grade ply at 1", then 1/2" backerboard, then the tile. That should get me back to the 2 1/2" to meet the marble transition with the adjoining hardwood floors.

Should I remove all of the planks? I know that I have to replace what's around the toilet flange. Thoughts.

Thanks,
Ed

[lee polowczuk]

I just did this as you are doing great. I wouldn't remove all the planks, just the ones that are bad

You are very lucky there was no wood rot from leaks or very little...

good luck... i went from small shower stall to whirlpool tub..... took me longer..

i did do subway tile..and saved my original floor.

your floor is nice..but i understand where the wife is coming from..

Lee

[Ed_S]

I started the rough plumbing this weekend. Frustrating. When I have plumbed before, I sweated copper. This time I went with PEX because of the ease of use and supposed time savings. What a PITA. I sweated the female PEX adapters to the existing copper just fine. Installed the remaining lines and got the plumbing back to a point that I could turn on the main and check. Looked fine. Let it sit overnight and a small, and I mean a small, leak occurred on two elbow joints. So I cut them out and reset the connections. In order to do that though, I had to cut the other ends of both lines. The original leaks were resolved, however two new leaks occurred at the opposite ends. So after 3 cuts and resets on the second end due to leaks, the lines are back together. I'm still not confident with one of the connections where I had the original leak. I put in new connectors at each location, so everything is new, nothing re-used. I noticed on connectors that have been re-used, that when the crimps are cut off, notches get cut in the rings on the connectors. I think those notches contributed to the continuous leaks on one end.

I haven't checked the connections yet this morning but if there are leaks, I'm ripping out all the PEX and going with copper throughout. Part of me wants to rip it out and start all over anyway. My confidence in PEX is very low. Most likely it's my lack of skill with PEX but nonetheless on total, I don't feel good about it. As progress stands now, I've completed half of what I wanted this past weekend.

Thanks for the vent. Updates as they unfold.

[Ed_S]

After two weeks of battling the rough plumbing, I think I'm done. The PEX is holding. I roughed in the shower exit and the toilet exit. I'm enhancing the support and blocking for the plumbing tomorrow after which I'm laying the new subfloor, closing the 6x5 hole in the floor. I absolutely underestimated the time to get the plumbing right.

Anyhow, I'm happy to be starting the carpentry work, much more my forte. I'll be setting the blocking to support the better bench, creating the niche, creating the inset for the medicine cabinet and setting the curb.

I'll take some pictures after I complete the framing, nothing really to see now except a hole in the floor and plumbing.

If anyone has any questions on the plumbing I'll post some photos, otherwise stayed tuned.

[Ed_S]

Another milestone complete. I've installed the new subfloor as well as laying another layer 3/4" ply. That gives me 1 1/2" over the joists and then when I add the CBU over the non-shower part, that's give me 1 3/4" which matches the old elevation and transition to the bedroom when the floor tile goes down.

I also framed the inset medicine cabinet and the shower niche. Before the sheetrock goes in this coming weekend, I will be installing the curb, shower glass supports in the side walls, the better bench blocking in the rear wall and the reworked electrical boxes.

What occured to me after I framed in the niche is what should I use for the back wall of the niche and should that have been attached before I framed it in. The sheetrock exposed is the back of a wall in the master bedroom and I dont think adhering the kerdi and tile to a wall not attached to the niche is a good idea. What have others used a back wall to their niches?

Picture coming, I promise.

[cx]

I think it's not uncommon to use the existing sheetrock on the opposite wall as the back of the niche in a Kerdi shower, Ed. If it's an inside wall, of course, and reasonably well fastened. I suppose you could glue another layer of sheetrock in there, but I don't know that you'd gain much.

A fella does hafta be careful where he hangs his pichers inna other room though, eh?

My opinion; worth price charged.

[Ed_S]

Thanks CX for the reply. Good point on the hanging of pictures. A nail through the tile would be a downer. I should have asked (before stating my intent) what is the most common practice for a niche backing when using a wood-framed niche? Perhaps I was naive to think that I couldn't use the attached wall as the backing. I'd like not to use a pre-fab niche since I've got the niche sized right to accommodate the tile that I'm using however I can go with a prefab if no other solution can be had.

Thanks.

[cx]

Naa, with Kerdi you just make'em any size and shape suits your fancy and waterproof it. Is good plan.