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Bathroom: Day 4

This morning the sheetrock guy showed up while I was taking the dogs for a walk.

When I got home there were two Latino guys on my front steps. I asked them where their car was and they said they rode the subway. I said “Me too, but I drove from the station.” I even showed them my MARTA card. I asked if they wanted a ride to MARTA. But since MARTA means something in Spanish, I don’t think they knew what I was talking about. Turns out they spoke very little English. Maybe they were actually telling me where they got lunch when they said “Subway.” They did communicate that their cell phone wasn’t working so I let them use mine and they called Miguel. He was there a few minutes later. We all went in and looked at the day’s work.

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Bathroom: Day 3

Stanley arrived much earlier today and when the doorbell rang I was still in the shower (not nearly as private now that there is a giant hole in the wall). He decided to go ahead and remove the rest of the tile on the wall between the two bathrooms. This meant removing the sink and toilet, though he would later put the toilet back. Mom checked up on progress later in the day. Apparently they hadn’t counted on me asking for a bullnose border and thought I would use flat tile (which “most people” do now). I still want that classic look though. Anyway, that caused some trouble because Miguel hadn’t counted on that and had to add an extra quarter inch of backing board to get the extra thickness needed for the bullnose. He explained this to me when I got home and he was about to leave. Still, I was impressed with the progress. They got the shower pan and mortar all in, along with some of the shower wall tile and some of the floor tile.

Miguel says the tiling should be finished tomorrow. I should have a functioning master bathroom by the end of the week.

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Bathroom: Day 2

I was worried that Stanley would try to reuse a lot of the wood in the bathroom or the piece of plywood that had been put in when the shower pan had been fixed previously. However, his plan was much more drastic than I imagined. He spent all day in there with a sawzall cutting out all of the old floor joists, installing new 2×8 joists and crossmembers, and then putting plywood over the top of that. He says it is now ready for the tile man to come in tomorrow and install the floor. Over the weekend, Mom, Susan, and I picked out some slate-colored floor tile and some 4-inch square white tile for the shower walls and floor.

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Bathroom: Day 1

This morning Stanley came by and started removing the plumbing from the bathroom. By the time I had left for work the toilet was out and lying on its side in the front yard next to the vanity. Later in the day he had the tile man come and they had the thankless task of removing the tile and flooring. The mud bed under the floor tile was up to 5 inches deep. To get that depth they had to build a false floor below the top of the floor joists. So the floor joists actually stick up into the mud bed some.

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