Bathroom Project Week 7

Progress was slowed again by the third major snowstorm of the season. Not only was a lot of time spent shoveling the driveway, but also the roof. It sprung a slight leak, so I spent several hours raking snow off the roof with my homemade long-handle snow rake. I could reach most of the roof by standing on our massive piles of snow.

Even with all the snow, we're staying on schedule and should be finished by the end of the month.

Here I mix tile mortar which is used to patch the cement backerboard seams.

A strip of fiberglass tape is embedded in mortar to cover the seams.
The mortar has cured and the backerboard is ready for tile.
Still deciding how to tile the bottom of the niche - leaning towards a single piece of tile instead of the tile mosaic since the grout would probably stain easily from all of the shampoo & soap bottles.
The drywall seams are covered with three layers of compound and a piece of paper drywall tape. Here the first step is done.
The screw holes are also covered with compound. Two more layers of drywall compound to go.
After the third layer of compound dries, we sand it smooth. I was going to try to wet-sand (which was recommended to avoid dust), but then I realized you need a special sponge. I didn't want to make a run to the hardware store, so I opted to dry sand with traditional drywall sand paper.
Now that the sanding is done, we can start painting the walls. We'll do this before tiling so we don't have to worry about spilling paint on the new tile.

Bathroom Project Week 6

We only got one good work day in this week because of the two feet of snow. The goals were to install the closet door jamb, finish installing all backerboard and drywall.

Here the second piece of backboard goes in. The 3'x5' piece almost fit...I had to trim 1" off the side.

Here the backerboard pieces for the top, sides, bottom and back of the niche are scored with the carbide cutting tool on the right.

Backerboard done! The gaps will be filled with fiberglass tape and mortar.

A few nice rectangular pieces of drywall are placed around the door.

and around the window...

The drywall piece under the sink water lines had about a dozen cuts involved.

The new closet door jamb was installed, as well as drywall around. A plastic corner bead is installed at the outside corner.

Goals for next week - three layers of drywall mud, mortar backboard joints, lay plywood floor, build and hang closet door...

Bathroom Project Week 5

Week 5 was filled with pipes, paper and plaster.

It started out with the tub drain. With the tub in place and the PVC pipes already dry-fit, they can now be glued together. A little sandpaper, some purple primer, and a thin layer of cement is all it takes to join the pipes.

And that stuff is permanent - I accidentally spilled some on the dryer and now we have a purple polka-dot dryer. Sorry Cendy.

Griffey interrupts progress.

Shiny new white PVC drain is finished!
The next task is to re-locate the copper water supply pipes for the same reason we relocated the PVC drain - to raise them above the basement bathroom ceiling. We had to turn off the water to the whole house for this task.

Here you can see the new pipes running two new holes drilled into the floor beam. You can see the old clips underneath (and also where I cut them beyond the floor beam.)

A couple of 90 degree bends will re-connect the relocated pipe. First I needed to trim the pipe to allow room for the elbows. I can do it with my eyes closed!
Here's the access panel behind the tub. The old water supply pipes have been cut and the old shutoff valves were removed. They'll be replaced with valves that actually work.
Thanks to the Sharkbite connectors by the Cash Acme company, the pipes came together quickly. No solder or torch needed - just some elbow grease to put them into place.

Things got a little wet with the first test, but after re-tightening some screw fittings everything is dry and functional.
The next day we tested the tub drain and all connections checked out A-OK.
Behind this wall is our hall closet. To give our bathroom more storage, we decided to open this up to give access from the bathroom.
Here it is opened up and ready for drywall around it. We'll have to make a custom door to fit.
With Micah over to lend a hand, we put this large section of drywall in place. There are openings for the vanity light, medicine cabinet and GFCI receptacle.
Micah staples tar paper around the tub surround. This provides a layer of moisture protection behind the cement backerboard.
With tar paper finished, Micah looks on as I screw the first cement backerboard in place.
Here's the finished backboard in place. Next week we'll have the rest of it up.

A couple more pieces of drywall are put in place on this wall. There was a slight miscalculation with the piece at the bottom of the wall. We'll fix that next time.

Bathroom Project Week 4

So we've been working on the bathroom for 4 weeks now. I've started putting some time in during the week to catch up with the goal of finishing by the Super Bowl (Feb 7).

We had our electrical inspection, and for the most part we "passed". However, there was one notable mistake that I had to fix.

By taking the old bathroom electrical wiring off the old circuit, I had spliced the rest of the circuit (hallway light, adjacent room receptacles, etc) and put it in its own box below the new dual switch box seen here.

The idea was to just cover this junction box and 'bury' it behind the drywall, but apparently that's an no-no. He suggested putting a splice in the new switch box, but after running the numbers I found that I needed a slightly larger box to accommodate all the wires. I also had to cut out half a stud (non-load bearing) to access the switch for the other room so I could re-wire it. The old wire wasn't long enough to reach the new box, so I went ahead and replaced the wiring for that switch and it's receptacle.

Here's the splice in the new box. The new switches were taken out to install the new box.
With the electrical taken done, the next step is drywall. Here's the ceiling above the shower with a new recessed light. The trick for tracing the circular cut-out is to put some lipstick on the edge of the can and press up your drywall panel against the can so that it "kisses" the panel with a circle. Next some construction adhesive and drywall screws secure it into place.
One panel up, two to go! It's green which means it's moisture resistant.
Two down!
And done!
Next up, tub...

It's a fiberglass tub, so the instructions call for it to rest on foundation of plaster to help support the bottom. I've read that Sand Mix is also appropriate. It's a mixture of sand and Portland cement that's combined with water to create a concrete-like slab for the tub to rest on.

The tub to placed on the mound of wet concrete. Next we stood on the tub to smoosh down the concrete so that it bears nicely on the bottom.

Since the alcove isn't perfectly square, so we use some shims to nail the tub to the studs.
This wall next to the tub will have a niche for shampoo bottles, soap, etc. That's what we have framed out in this picture.
And since the alcove isn't square, new studs are nailed to the old ones so we'll have walls that are parallel to the tub flanges.
The new medicine cabinet will be recessed between two wall studs. Here we find that the medicine cabinet is 1/4" too wide so I had to cut one of the studs to create a larger opening.
Luckily I didn't damage the drywall for the adjacent room when removing the old stud. A 1/4" is all we needed.

Bathroom Project Days 6-8

Martin Luther King weekend was spent carrying out our electrical plan.

First this old switch/receptacle is disconnected and the circuit is re-wired to skip the bathroom.

Power from the panel is coming in from the top left, and is simply spliced with the branch going to the adjacent room (out the bottom of the box) and the hallway light branch (out the upper right). This junction box will be covered up and live behind the drywall.

Here I cut the hole for the bathroom fan vent.

Looks good!
A little black roof cement and some roofing nails finish the job. It rained the next day, and we were able to see that it stayed dry inside.
Here's the empty fan box mounted to the ceiling. A flexible duct connects the box to the roof vent. The fan assembly snaps inside the box.
Next the can light over the shower is installed. This recessed light is "IC" which means "insulation contact" - it's designed to not start a fire if it's covered with ceiling insulation.

Now the vanity light is mounted. This is connected to the shower light in series so they both turn on with the flip of a switch. (It'll look nicer with the pretty bulb globes attached)

The switch on the right is for the lights, an the one of the left is for the fan. The black wires are existing wiring from the panel and the hallway light.Next the GFCI receptable is installed about 1' from the sink. It's rated for 20A, so bring on those power hungry hair dryers!

Now is the part that made me the most nervous - working inside the panel. For safety, we turned the entire house off. However, the power feed coming from outside is still hot. After some research, we learned the proper precautions and everything went smoothly, although Cendy secretly had 911 on speed dial in case something happened.

The bottom right breaker is a special 15A GFCI circuit breaker. It is required by code to have the shower light GFCI protected. This is one way to accomplish that, and we're protecting the fan and vanity light while we're at it. About 3 slots up from the new breaker was an unused existing 20A circuit breaker that I used for the new GFCI receptacle in the bathroom.

We were still nervous as we prepared to test the fixtures...
IT'S ALIVE!!!

And the receptacle works too! That orange contraption tests the wiring in receptacles.

The last accomplishment for the weekend was insulating the fan duct. This prevents condensation around the duct when warm bathroom air runs through a cold attic.