Bathroom Renovations

~Written by Pete
There were other projects on our list before this one, but thanks to a leaky shower and a bunch of mice, we gutted out two bathrooms... The upstairs bathroom had the leaky shower which dripped into the main floor bathroom.  There was nothing I could do to stop the leak, so I simply tore out the drywall below (just a small area) and let the water drip into the bathtub below.  That temporary solution lasted until one morning... before getting in the shower, one of the boys discovered a cute little critter... A baby mouse!  Ugh, so not only were the mice getting into the house and crawling around in our ceilings, but they were also starting a family and settling in!  :(

I was determined to find the place they were getting in, so I began with the upstairs shower room.  I call it a shower room because that's all it was.  It was a bit weird, to be honest.  It was connected to our "master bath" and had a door which opened to the rest of the upstairs bedrooms.  For the first couple of years that we've been in the house, we basically kept the door locked which opened up to the hallway, but we always had in mind to change that into a full bath for the boys to use.

This is a view from the master bath doorway.

The first thing I did was cut out the old fiberglass shower unit (my sawzall was the favored tool of this whole project).  Guess what?  I found NO holes to the outside from here.  Basically, they're getting in from some other place, walking around the ceiling and crawling up to the bathroom (for water?) and building a nest.  :(  

By the time you get this far into the project, whether you want to be or not, you're committed... so in order to try to summarize this, I'll put it in list format:

1) Added a bathroom fan to the upstairs shower (which will now be a bathroom for the boys)

2) Replaced the fiberglass shower unit that was there with the bathtub from the bathroom below (we want to make that bathroom a nicer "guest bathroom" and we didn't want to keep the bathtub there any longer.)

3) Added a surround to the "new" tub upstairs.

4) Added electricity for an outlet to prepare for the "new" sink (which was conveniently already in the right place... I just needed to remove an electric heater that no longer fit).

The plumber came and added a toilet to this room (behind the door), re-connected the new shower, and set us up for the "new" sink (we brought up the sink from the downstairs bath.)  Remember:  this is going to be the boys' bathroom... we realize it will probably be treated, um... not-so-gently, so we are using all used things.

Obviously with the toilet behind the door, that needed to change, so I took out the door that connected the Master bath and replaced it.  This involved moving it over a little bit so that you didn't walk right into the toilet when entering the room.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the new floor!

You can see that the old doorway has been sealed off now...

Next step, drywall.  Drywall took forever because I basically put up one piece at a time (whenever I found time).  Mudding and taping was an off-and on project as well (and will be a task of mine in Purgatory, I'm sure).

Even by the time I had finished all the mudding and taping, we started using the bathtub... showering little ones is possible, but not so much fun!  Finally we could move on to the painting:

The sink is now installed as well as the $15 mirror that I got from the local Re-Store... and then dropped while bringing it in the front door :(  Oh well, remember, this is the boys' bathroom!  We put some tape over the broken glass and installed it anyway!

Finally, the big reveal... we had to make it more of a fun bathroom for the boys... they weren't that excited about getting a new bathroom, so we had to add a little flare... are you ready for it?

Taa Daa!  It was a lot of work and a long time coming, but so far so good.  The boys really like their Star Wars bathroom and as far as we can tell, the mice have now evacuated the building... oh yeah, speaking of, we brought home a few things to help with that problem... kittens!  We now have four cats... hopefully they will take care of the mice!

Stay tuned for the downstairs bathroom renovation update!

Damian loved going into the gutted out bathroom to hide!

Our new sidewalk!

Remember how we created a front door to our house? (If not go here to catch up.)  Well, it's not much use if you don't have a sidewalk leading up to the door!  The foyer project wasn't completed in time to start the sidewalk, so we walked through the grass for about six months until the snow and frost went away (OK, well maybe it was more than six months).

We decided not to go with just pouring concrete because we figured it would cost a lot more if we went that route.  Instead, we looked into paver stones.  The obvious first step is to clear the path (and when you don't have a wheelbarrow, you improvise with the kids' wagon and a tarp).

Below you can see where all the dirt went... I always wanted to fill in the gap near that retaining wall... it seemed to me that the water just drained right down the inside of it... now hopefully it will drain away.

Removal of the dirt was actually probably the easiest part...

Below you can see how I solved the drain spout (which would have gone right over the sidewalk).  It now drains out into the yard... time will tell how well this works.  With the rented compactor, we were ready to get the base of the sidewalk ready.

The trick with the base is to include the suggested slope on the sidewalk (so water drains away from the house).  Here's how it looked after adding the first layer of gravel and compacting it.  After the second layer, we were now ready to start laying the pavers.

As we started to lay the stones down, I was a bit nervous because they shifted on top of the leveling sand... in the end, it all worked out nicely, but being the first time, I wondered if we weren't doing something wrong.

Thankfully, adding the plastic edge along the sides helped to pull those loose stones in tightly.  The next step was to add a paver-locking sand and actually run that compactor over the stones (which was a bit nerve-wracking).  No stones were harmed and we were able to clean up and make it look pretty.

Here are several pictures of the final product.

If you look real closely, you can see the cross.  We only added this unique design to the first set of stones.  The rest follow the pattern that Theresa came up with so that we could complete the project without having to cut any stones (it actually took a lot of work and I was very grateful).

In case you haven't noticed yet, the sidewalk ends abruptly before the stairs to the front door... this is because one day we expect to build a front porch... leaving the sidewalk "unfinished" will hopefully serve as motivation to get to the porch project. 

Well there you have it!  Was it cheaper than pouring concrete?  Probably, but we get more enjoyment out of doing it ourselves!

a punch to your shoulder

the Martins

9 months old and not too happy ;-)

Well, you can keep Damian in your prayers, poor kid has been miserable the last couple days!

But he turned 9 months old today!

cruising like crazy :-)

Here's a cute video to commemorate his day - grumpy, but still cute!



oh and fyi - we have switched things around a bit and while viewing the blog is still open to anyone, we would like this blog to be kept just for family and friends. So, we would ask you not to share posts with the general public. (I, Theresa, am using my www.NewFeminismRising.com blog in a more personal but public way. So my musings on mothering and family life will be there, but the posts of our children - for their privacy too - will be here.)
Thanks!