Week 1 Bathroom Remodel

After two years in the house, and over a year of planning this project, we finally "broke walls" on the main bathroom remodel.
In the days leading up to the contractors' arrival, S&D handled a few tasks personally - removing the gold and white sizzle strips from the walls (~75% breakage rate - ouch), emptying the linen closet, vanity, and medicine cabinet, removing the medicine cabinet, and removing the shower door:

The official project schedule called for demo and re-framing work to be completed on the first day, with drywall going up on the second, to be finished on the third, primed on the fourth, and painted on the fifth day... lol.

Demo took way long, due to having double-layer drywall everywhere and all the tile adhered with mastic.
S assisted with removing wall tile on day 1, and S&D removed floor tile on day 2.




The electrical and plumbing rough-in work was completed on schedule - so we have wiring and boxes for outlets and switches, a new recessed light fixture in the shower, new shower faucet, and higher shower head.

There have also been some unexpected changes - such as needing to replace the sink drain pipe to the stack, and the toilet wax ring failure necessitating replacing of the flange and surrounding subfloor.



On the bright side, we found and are able to address these issues now instead of having to rip apart the bathroom at a later date.





Other delights so far -
We got more, better insulation in the exterior and interior walls.
The recessed shower niche shelf boxes (from Tile Redi) look terrific.


There wasn't any mechanical stuff in the soffit above the vanity, so that could be removed easily - and the flush ceiling already makes the space feel bigger:



Because of how our windows are finished, we have elected not to completely re-do them, but simply trim around the edge, and finish the bottom with a very small sill.

At the close of business Friday, the first mud was up and drying.

Spent the weekend cleaning the radiators, disassembling and cleaning the commode, putting a first coat of paint on the medicine cabinet, and scraping caulk of the edge of the bathtub.

Much more to come!