I am going to need a new bathtub as well. This is really how our bathroom remodel actually started. Our toilet in the main bathroom was acting up, and would only flush about 25% of the time over the course of about 4 days. We finally bit the bullet and went to purchase the new toilet. I casually made the comment, "while we are here, we should really look at bathtubs." Our current/former bathtub, was the original to the house, and the previous owners had painted it. I know this because large chips of paint have been flaking off the tub for years, revealing its original powder blue color. I hated that tub. Bathtubs really aren't that expensive, so we decided, why not? My husband did his homework, and learned how to remove a cast iron tub the easiest way. A sledgehammer is the preferred method of breaking the tub apart. However, several whacks in, it wasn't breaking up like a cast iron tub was supposed to do. A quick search on the web by me, yielded a second option. It had to be a steel tub. More research determined that a steel tub is usually secured to the studs of a wall. Down came the walls of the bathroom. Once all of the walls were down, you see they all had to be removed, because you cannot partially remove walls covered with tile, the tub still wouldn't budge. My husband was not going to be defeated by the now severely beaten steel tub that refused to leave the house, after all, it WAS the original tub. It was clearly attached, in more ways than we had expected. So, being the determined individual he is, my husband began removing the flooring around the tub, with the sledgehammer. Such a handy tool for destroying a once perfectly functional room, but I digress. Being that the floor was tiled, there was no salvaging that either, and lucky us (sarcasm intended) the sledgehammer took out a portion of the sub-flooring as well. However, it was at this point, my husband was able to get the tub to move, though it was too big and awkward to get it out in one piece. In order to make sure it was sufficiently killed, never to resurrect itself as a useful tub again, my husband cut it into 3 large pieces and removed it from the house. Finally!
Phase two, there was virtually nothing left in our bathroom at this point. It had no walls, no floor, but I did have a lovely view of our crawl space. It was at this point, we decided, well, we should probably move the plumbing around. Our toilet had always been in an awkward spot facing the vanity, and now a plumber wouldn't even have to crawl around in our crawl space. He could just open the bathroom door and jump down. Our neighbor, a man the does a lot of work in the home renovation area, came over to assess the situation and hooked us up with an EXCELLENT plumber. He also made another suggestion....
Phase three, removing the window from our bathroom. We have always had a very awkward window placed smack dab in the middle of our shower. About a week after we moved in, I was leaving one evening to run an errand, and after a day of moving and organizing my husband was in the shower. It was at this moment that I discovered, much to my chagrin, that the frosted window, did NOT hide the silhouette of a showering man when the bathroom light was on and it was dark outside. For at least a week, I am sure we were giving our neighbors quite the show! To fix the problem we "custom" fit a shower curtain over the window, doubled it in thickness, and that provided an easy and immediate solution. During our current remodel, our neighbor mentioned that now would be an easy time to remove the window, and brick up the outside. I jumped at the opportunity. The window is gone, the brick is in place, though it doesn't match, because shortly before we moved into our house the previous owners had the brick painted. Now the challenge is finding an exact paint color match. I joked to my husband, that now we will probably have to repaint the entire house. But truthfully I am a little concerned about that possible problem.
Lastly, in all of the demolition of the bathroom, our hallway carpet has been ruined. I don't think even the most powerful or best carpet cleaner in the world can remove the stains. Once all of the work is done, I am tearing the carpet up in our hall, and I plan on refinishing the hardwoods underneath.
There is a children's book called, If You Give A Moose A Muffin, and it goes on to explain that if you DO give a moose a muffin, that he is never satisfied with just having a muffin. He will need jam to go with it, among a slew of other things. This bathroom project has become the nightmare version of that story. If our toilet had only continued working as it should, then we wouldn't be where we are right now, but I am a little excited to see how it turns out. I sincerely hope we don't run out of money mid-project, or I shall be one very disgruntled moose. I still don't have a toilet because it is sitting in a box in the garage.
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