So we once had a three bedroom, one bathroom house — now we have a three bedroom, no bathroom house. That’s right, our bathtub/shower is 100% out of commission.
The saga began when we moved in — we thought to ourselves, “Oh, how nice, the old man we bought the house from just redid the bathroom.” Little did we know the tile job had a much darker secret.
After living in the house for a year and taking 4 showers a day we realized that the tile was starting to fail and water was leaking into the basement. So we decided to call out Ithaca Tile and Hardwood because we also wanted to add ceramic tile flooring in the bathroom. After approx. 9 months of no water in the basement all of a sudden we start seeing puddles again. We decide to have the water faucet changed so we call out Houseworth plumbing - also, we wanted them to check and make sure that the water wasn’t coming from any pipes. They suggested an independent person who does tile because once again our grout was failing.
We called out the independent person and Margot told him that she just wanted the job done right and asked him to please rip out the whole thing. He insisted that it could be fixed by just replacing the drywall at the bottom. So after 2 months we once again noticed a puddle in the basement (do you sense a trend?). We called the guy back again and he redid the job.
Needless to say, it didn’t last and after having various people come to our house - we decided to take matters into our own hands. We knew it was just getting worse because as I was playing with Graem one day in her room I noticed that there was a water stain on her hardwood floor.
Margot took off of work Friday and we ripped off all of the tile and drywall. We decided to get a tub/shower surround. After we ripped off the walls we saw all of the mold and wet insulation that was behind the walls. No wonder the grout kept failing! We couldn’t believe how wet and moldy everything was and at that minute we were so glad we had decided to do this project and not let it get worse!!!
With that said…Saturday our bathtub had to come up because we didn’t know what the floor underneath looked like and really wanted to start with a new tub. That took all day long. Our friends Laura and Lydia came over to help. Laura worked with Margot and Lydia watched Graem.
Laura and Margot started beating the tub with a sledgehammer because that’s what various websites said to do. They did that for a few hours and then went back to the drawing board and internet. They then rented a big saw that runs on gas. That saw let out so many bad fumes it’s a wonder that there wasn’t an ER visit!! Of course it also filled our house with smoke and the bathroom with little metal dust pieces. After that we had no choice but to stay at Laura and Lydia’s for the night.
The next morning Margot and me started strong. We made various trips to Lowe’s and then at 5:00pm Margot nails right into the water line. I was in the living room playing with Graem and just heard many curse words and a weird hissing noise. I ran to the bathroom only to find water spraying everywhere. I tried to cover the water with my fingers and all I could hear is Margot yelling “I don’t know where the $*#*@ water shut off is *$*#*@*#” After a few minutes and once again “a puddle in the basement” this time larger than the other Margot had to make yet another trip to Lowe’s to buy plumbing supplies to fix the leak.
Margot installs the pipe and then for some reason it doesn’t work. So she calls our local plumber who gives her some advice. Margot gets out the welding flame and goes to town…almost blowing up our house. There were a few “uncontrolled” flames but she was finally able to solder the parts back together. We finally had water!!
Of course, we still have a big hole in the bathroom floor looking down into the basement, no walls, and dust everywhere. But the hole doubles as a laundry chute! And we can throw clothes directly into the washing machine!
We have asked friends to please let us know if we have any type of odor emanating from us from our lack of showering, but the marine showers seem to be doing the job. In fact, we have decided to keep the laundry chute and just use the kitchen sink forever. We figure it would save on water, we still get a fresh clean feeling, and while we are taking our “bath” we can wash dishes too! Just joking!