Bathroom renovations - Duke's house

Our house was built in 1966-67.  We bought it in 1993 from the original owner's estate / children, who had done a $50 fix-n-flip which mostly consisted of cheap sheetgoods vinyl flooring, a fiberglass tub kit upstairs, and a lot of off-white paint.

25 years later we were 10 years overdue to renovate the bathrooms, but they were functional, and the kitchen had needed it first.  There was college tuition to pay for, among other things.  By 2019 we were finally ready to pull the trigger.

Well, we all know what happened to the next 2 years.  In early '23 we tried again, but just couldn't get reasonable bids, or even responses.  Finally, in desperation, I re-checked my NextDoor solicitation and found a contractor who had replied about 6 months after I made it and given up hope.  Long story short, his price was about 20% under the next lowest bidder, and about half what the high bidder was.  References checked out well, and so we pulled the trigger late last year. 

Construction started in January for a 3-phase project:  downstairs bathroom, upstairs bathroom, and (concurrently) master bedroom renovations.

Here's where we started downstairs:  set the wayback machine, Sherman!

And another shot of that vanity, just because it was so hideous and I can't believe we lived with it for 30 years:

Phase I demolition.  The bathrooms are more-or-less stacked.  It's a Cape Cod, so the upstairs bathroom is inset a little due to the roof slope.  We're gutting all supply and sanitary piping from the basement floor slab all the way up to the second-floor fixtures.  It was originally plumbed by a drunken apprentice, apparently.

Framing and rough-ins.  We're not really changing the footprint or layout of the downstairs bathroom.

Solid blocking for future grab bars:

Shower pan:

Don't think I took any pictures in just drywall?  Anyway, unfinished drywall is boring and uninformative.

Not shown:  underfloor decoupling membrane and heated floor trace layout, dammit.  I'll get a picture upstairs when we get there.  Wall tiles are 12x24 porcelain with rectified edges - nice and flat and straight.  Floor is the same tile in 2x2.

Shower with niches.  Red stuff is fluid-applied waterproofing, floor to ceiling:

Shower control box:

Vanity installed.  Custom fabricated in cherry to match our kitchen cabinets, with white quartz top.

Shower niches with sills and accent tile.  The accent is glass 1x1, but is slightly disappointing.  It was intended to have more variety in color, plus the tiles are randomly polished or blasted for a variegated effect.  Unfortunately, as installed, all of that washes out.

Getting close to finished:

And, Phase I complete:

The empty spot next to the offset vanity cabinet is for the cat box, visible in the early pictures, which really took up a lot of floor space.  Bonus points:  you and the cat no longer have to stare at each other while you poop.

Shower door and faucet trim:

Here's Phase II, which ended up running concurrently with the second half of Phase I.  Don't seem to have a complete "before" picture, but this area was under the eave of the Cape Cod.  We used to have a line of three 3-drawer dressers in this space.

Off-camera at left is a typical 24" deep closet that runs the full length of the wall between the master bedroom and the upstairs bathroom, with 48" double doors.

As we speak, this is getting demolished to add roughly 28" to the adjoining bathroom.

This built-in replaces both the closet and the dressers.  I spent a looong time tweaking this design inch by inch to maximize drawer space while keeping the hanging space usable.  We ended up a little shy on drawers and a little heavy on rod space, but given the dimensions I had to work in, this was the best compromise I could make.

Mostly finished.

LED tape lighting in the cove at the outside top and another strip inside:

Phase III demolition is under way this morning as the upstairs bathroom gets gutted.  Here's where we're starting - 1993's fix-n-flip, after 30 years with a family of 4 using it daily:

Looking pretty good.

Duke said:

is that plastic tile?  My 1950 house had a boat load of pink plastic tile

Looks great!

Question - I'm assuming the second bathroom remained operational while the first one was gutted and redone? 

I'm still trying to figure out if there's any way to redo my single bathroom without having to build a second one in the basement (with everything connected to an up-flush toilet) first. 

Phase III demo underway:

Found some bonus space. It doesn't really help the bathroom layout, but we are considering putting a door in the hall to make a linen closet.

Datsun240ZGuy said:

Is that plastic tile?  My 1950 house had a boat load of pink plastic tile

No, the walls are ceramic tile.  My guess is that the floor was some kind of white pebbly ceramic mosaic, but it was yanked out during the fix up, and they put this crappy sheet vinyl down.

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

Looks great!

Question - I'm assuming the second bathroom remained operational while the first one was gutted and redone? 

I'm still trying to figure out if there's any way to redo my single bathroom without having to build a second one in the basement (with everything connected to an up-flush toilet) first. 

Thank you!  Yes, the upstairs bathroom stayed in service while the downstairs work was being done.  Once the first floor bath was gutted, we repiped the domestic  and sanitary manifolds serving both bathrooms.  We also roughed in power, pex water supply, and new PVC drain lines into the floor space above the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom.  Now that we're working upstairs, we will replace all the old stuff from the roof vents down, and connect to the new risers from above.  Upstairs we are moving the toilet and vanity from the locations you can see existing drain piping above back about 28" to the party wall with the MBR (inside of closet door is pictured).  We're also going with a double vanity.

The answer to your puzzle depends on how radically you need to renovate.  Given the age and extent of modifications, we pretty much needed to gut down to the framing and start fresh.

If you don't have wholesale changes to make, and mostly want to replace fixtures in kind and place, you might have a better chance.  You could maybe break the project down into a series of 1-day service interruptions to get each fixture replacement task done.  You'd have to be OK with it being rough but functional for a while.  That's also more feasible if you have easy access to piping underneath.

If you can swing it, the safer bet would be to build the new bathroom first, with the bonus of having 2 bathrooms (or at least 1.5) once you're done.  Good luck!  I'll advise if I can be of help.

Did no one notice the Cylon in the floor?

I'm afraid for you, man.

But really.... smashing job on the reno.

Nice! I really like the built-in closet and drawers.

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:

Nice! I really like the built-in closet and drawers.

Came to say this as well. Can you post a photo looking down into the top of the closet cove light?

In reply to Duke :

Unfortunately, the existing bathroom will need significant demolition and reconstruction.  And since the tub has a double-hung window over it, there is substantial water damage to the window sill and trim and likely the wood structure behind the tile.  I will also need to rebuild the flooring under the toilet... It's going to be a job.  What has kept me procrastinating is renovating the bathroom could quickly snowball into gutting the entire house.  The entire plumbing system from water entry to sewer exit is FUBAR and needs to be replaced. Of the three sink drains in the house only one is remotely built to Code - the utility sink in the garage.  Both the kitchen and bathroom sinks don't entirely drain properly.

However, no matter what I do, I think I need to get the basement bathroom built ASAP as something in the tub supply system has failed and has started leaking.  So I need to cut those lines and cap them in the basement.  Then at least I can decide what to do without having to pump catch buckets out of the basement... 

Now even the main water shut-off isn't quite working (doesn't completely shut off the water), so I'll have to shut off the water at the street and replace that valve too.  Fortunately, I have a street wrench.  For someone who really doesn't like working on plumbing, I sure have a ton of plumbing tools...  Granted, most of those were acquired when I was working on my ex's house renovation and had to rough-in a ton of drain and supply piping. 

Great progress on the additional demo!  

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

You can rent portable bathrooms (bigger versions of port-o-johns).  Some of them are pretty nice (and some are actually quite luxurious, depending on what you want to spend).  Maybe you can plan it so you rent something for a few weeks during the worst part?

I knew a guy that did a long term renovation on his only bath which included removing all the walls.  The only thing he had left was a toilet sitting in the middle of the living room for months with no walls or privacy.  His family was... unique.

Looking good Duke!

In reply to SV reX :

Hmm... that's an idea, although I am limited with the amount of space I have to place something like that along with how to get power to it.  My housing lot is pretty small (40' x 100').  I have most of the major components to build the basement bathroom (up-flush toilet, utility sink, shower pan,  backing board, & a pile of studs).  I need stop thinking about it and just and do it.

There won't be a ton of privacy for the basement bathroom, but I live alone so not really an issue.

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Here you go. These are 3000k, but the most important part is that they are CRI of 90+.  That really gets rid of a lot of the blue overtones common in LED lights, even in the warmer tones.

Off:

10% on:

We normally run them about 70% for general room lighting. 100% is more like studio brightness, not exactly what we're going for in our bedroom.

There is another similar tape running across the inside of the door heads to light the closet contents.  It is also put where you can't directly see the emitters.  That's not dimmed.

Tucked up inside the back of that little cove are the power supplies, one for each circuit. They are about the size of a chalkboard eraser and plug in with zip cords to an outlet up in the top corner.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Armacost-Lighting-RibbonFlex-Pro-24-Volt-16-4-ft-5M-White-High-CRI-LED-Tape-Light-Soft-3000K-60LEDs-M-145231/320511058

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Did no one notice the Cylon in the floor?  I'm afraid for you, man.

But really.... smashing job on the reno.

Thank you!  That's actually the temperature readout on our tankless water heater in the basement... I hadn't noticed it planning to exterminate me recently.  I'll be on guard.

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:

Nice! I really like the built-in closet and drawers.

Thank you very much.  I've been thinking about this project for a long time, and how to maximize use of every cubic inch.  We still have to figure out a few things - for instance, there's no longer a good space for a laundry hamper - but we'll adapt 30 years of habits to the new arrangement.  And I think the real payoff will be worth it when we occupy the new larger bathroom that actually has counter space, 2 sinks, and room to pass each other in it.

Update time!

Phase III is well under way.  Remember this tile?

Turns out it was installed later, directly over the original tile, which was 6x6 squares of blue - and I mean blue.  Like the color of that Pex cold water line.  I can't imagine how it must have looked in there originally.  No pictures available, unfortunately.

Framing and rough-ins mostly complete:

We decided to make use of the bonus space we found to add a small hall closet.  It's only about 26" x 28", but hey, it's better than being dead space.  We'll find stuff to put there.  This will have 12" deep shelves.

Are there double walls in the shower? Is that just for increased insulation and a niche, or some other reason?

STM317 said:

Are there double walls in the shower? Is that just for increased insulation and a niche, or some other reason?

Yes, we did the same thing downstairs on the end wall of the shower.  We wanted extensive niches for bath items - more than the usual between-the-studs versions.  The bottom one will serve as foot rail / elbow room when in the tub.

Excellent use of the unused space at the bottom of the roof pitch!  Also a good spot for a sky light.