The Big Bath Remodel

Once upon a time, in the summer of 2005, I was taking a shower and noticed a loose tile. I decided to give the tile a wiggle and found the tile to be rather loose. Fearing the wall behind the tile may be soggy, I removed the tile. The wall was not soggy, but I did determine the original construction consisted of tiles attached directly to drywall, something that certainly would not be considered a good idea today.

I decided to embark on what proved to be the most involved home improvement project I ever have undertaken, the replacement of a bathtub and tub stall.

Since it didn't occur to me to take pictures at the onset of the project, I don't have any shots of the removal of the tub or the teardown of the original tile wall.What you do see here, though, is a empty spot where a tub once stood. The top shot shows the shower faucet with a plastic bucket underneath to catch the drip drip drip of the old bathtub faucet. The bucket would be about half full each day, requiring a daily dump of the watery contents.

In this third shot, imagine that the day before, two installers from a local plumbing company came in and hauled up the near 300-pound cast-iron bathtub I bought at Home Depot and installed it. That concluded the work I had done by outside contractors; other than the misery of hauling the cast-iron tub up the stairs and doing the install of the plumbing hardware for the shower "guts", I did rest of it. Blame me. Anyhow, the pic here shows the bathtub, with a plywood sheet laid over the top to protect the tub and to provide me a nice work surface to stand on.

Here you see a ceiling shot, showing the bare framing going up to the top. I have at this point replaced most of the original vertical studs; which were crooked in about every dimension, not to mention pretty warped. One of the studs was so twisted it appeared to be an airplane propeller. Following the instructions I read in books and similar good advice I received from Jennifer (please tell me that's her name!) at Mat Valley Tile & Stone, I attached 4-mil plastic sheeting to the studs, to serve as a water barrier.

The same corner, with the camera tilted down a bit, shows the shower fixture covered with a black protective cap. You can also see some black ABS sewer pipe running along the right wall; this was going up to the roof as a vent for the downstairs bathroom, I think. Since I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to access the back wall of the adjoining kitchen, I changed out our over-the-stove microwave oven. This turned out to be good, as it was very easy to securely attach the oven with the back wall exposed. Of course, this was prior to attaching the plastic sheeting.

Here is a shot of the shower wall opposite the shower side, oh what would you call that wall? I don't know, but I'll call it the "back wall." You can see the toilet peeking out a bit.

I should have done a lot more camera work, you missed out on a lot! I had to install Wonderboard, a concrete-fiberglass board used in wet tile installations such as a bath. Wonderboard comes in 5-foot long sheets that weigh about a thousand pounds each, or so it seemed. I was not going to install tile clear up to the ceiling, but rather than bother with splicing in a little slice of drywall, I ran the Wonderboard clear up to the ceiling. I was very glad I did this, as I was able to avoid hassling with any difference in surface thicknesses. What you see here is a shot of the corner, after I mixed up what is it, base compound? I forgot what it was, but it's the "not topping compound" compound. It's a drywall thing. Also, I found you make corners in drywall by buying these metal corners and basically cementing them in place. The end result is a sharp corner that looks great. I sanded this down, then applied topping compound, and sanded that down, too. Drywall work involves a lot of sanding.

The thin wall between the tub and the toilet is what you are seeing here. Notice that I did not sand down the entire ceiling, and notice that the existing ceiling has a pretty heavy knockdown texture already applied to it. This would come to haunt me later on.

Ah, here is a shot of the upper corner, on the side with the fixtures. You can see a stub of iron pipe sticking out, where the shower will go. You can also see the white silicone caulk running vetically in the corner. To seal the corners where the Wonderboard touched, I applied silicone. You do not want water leaking into the hidden spaces of your house.

Now it is time to actually attach some tiles! What you do not see here is the very start of this adventure, which took place at Mat Valley Tile & Stone, where I placed my order for tile, discussed the project, and got a ton of very good advice. Sure, I could have done the whole thing through Home Depot, but I believe in supporting my local business, and I would do it again, cost savings or not. What you also do not see here is the deciding on a tile pattern, the hassling over colors, all that. The color quality here is pretty poor; the tiles are white and lavender.

Did I mention that working with tile isn't much more different that working with glass? I bought a wet tile saw, and it proved extremely valuable. Even with the wet saw, though, I was getting tile shards under my fingernails, and that wet saw was spraying a fine mist of tile slurry all over the bathroom. You see, I had the tile saw on the bathroom counter, and could not imagine doing the job otherwise. You might think a bathroom wall is square in all dimensions, and even though I did a lot of work squaring up the framing, the tiles do not lie. I had to custom cut every piece of tile that fit into a corner. I realized I did not have a square wall, but more like a trapezoid wall. The tiles do not lie.

Okay, this picture could use some color balancing, but you get the idea. I have the tile wall up, and even have the decorative trim tiles running around the upper edge. It turns out that I like the colored trim tiles far more than my wife; she doesn't care for the iridescence, which is the very characteristic I love about them. Also, you can see that I have applied, oh, what is that stuff that is the "not topping compound" drywall stuff? Whatever. That's the stuff. The first mud, then the second mud. Yeah. I applied first mud.

I wonder if this picture was supposed to come ahead of the previous one? Probably, but whatever. Anyhow, this shot is of the fixture side of the wall. The Wonderboard is up, and there is a nice circle cutout where the plumbing comes through. You can see the joint between two sheets of Wonderboard, where I taped the joints together. There is some controversy over if you should tape the joints or not, but seeing how I had some gaps between the sheets, I decided to fill the gaps with silicone, and tape over the top, so as to provide a compatible surface for the thinset mortar. The white stuff you see here is the thinset mortar, the stuff to which the tiles are attached. In doing the shower, I did the back wall first, then then wall opposite the fixtures, then the fixture wall last, as it involved some serious tile cutting.

Okay, now you can see the tile work is done, and you can see the little stub of pipe where the shower head will go. The band of trim tile is up, and looks pretty good indeed.

What you don't see here is the grouting or the waiting. After doing the grout, you need to wait about a week before applying grout sealant, a clear coating that keeps the grout looking nice. I attached four soap dishes, three in the corner next to the fixtures, and one on the opposite corner. I did not want a shower where there was no room for bottles and stuff, and I can tell you for sure, having all those soap dishes is great! You see the finished shower here, after I actually took a shower. See that huge shower head? It would be great, if it produced a decent shower. It does not. The shower head is so big that it diffuses the available water pressure, resulting in a wimpy shower. My wife likes it, though; so I may be stuck with it.

Slightly blurry, but you get the idea. Here, after my first bath, you can see the tub at last. The cast-iron tub is very comfortable, and has a nice sloped back. The tub itself is a Kohler, I don't recall the specific model. Rather than go with sliding glass doors, we went with a nice lavendar shower curtain. One benefit is that my wife can sit on the edge of the tub; which you cannot do with sliding shower doors. See the lower soap dish? It even has a bar of soap in it.

Here is a shot of our fancy shower rod, actually not that fancy. The shower rod is of a brushed nickel finish, as are the other fixtures in the bathroom. You can see the shimmer of the accent tiles in this shot. They have the look of heated titanium, with a metallic blue, purple, magenta, and green shine.

And at last, a final shot, capturing as much shower as I can fit into the frame. You can see our three soap dishes on the one corner of the wall, and they already have plenty of stuff on them. My blue nylon back scrubber is casually tossed over the shower head, where it will probably find itself each morning after I work it out.

The project is finally done! I spent two months working on this, working during the evenings, the weekends, and during time taken off from work. What you do not see here is the ceiling texture. I tried my best to match the knockdown texture to the existing ceiling and wall, but it just didn't come out as a great match. I wish it came out better, but in light of the entire job, I can live with it. So, with that one disappointment, I can look at the shower, and I give out thanks to Jesus, my family, and Jennifer at Mat Valley Tile & Stone for all the assistance.