Monday, January 3, 2011

Bathroom Remodel

As you may know, we are moving up to ABQ later this year when our house sells and Rus's parents move to Lordsburg to their new home. (In reverse order, hopefully.) We have had our house on the market since August with not a nibble...or sniff or glance, and yet we are ever certain that Heavenly Father has a plan for us in Albuquerque and he'll make sure we get there...eventually.
Anyways, we took advantage of Rus's vacation time this Christmas to remodel the master bathroom at the house since Rus's parents don't actually use the master bedroom or bathroom. I wish I had the before picture to show you here, but it's stuck in Rus's mom's camera, so I'll have to show it later. Let me just say that the previous shower was a 3'x4' box with some sort of cultured marble surround and termites hiding in the rotten step. (We knew about the existence of termites but had never seen them alive...and wiggling. blech.) The bathroom also had red carpet that dated from the seventies and was quite obviously hammered.
So Rus and I tore out the previous shower, framed in a new shower that is twice the size and installed an extra shower head. Rus worked on the shower pan while I did the framing. My dad was here to help us start tiling. The first part we did was the outside of the shower. Then last week Tyler and Gina helped us tile the shower and bathroom floor. I have to mention that Tyler and I worked all day alongside each other, and at the end of the day I was filthy and Tyler, in his white t-shirt, was spotless. Impressive.
These pictures are before the grout was put in. The door to the bathroom is only two feet wide, so there's no great way to get a picture. The toilet is back to the left, and the vanity on the right will be replaced later.
The outside shower wall: This stuff is called Stackstone and looks really cool, but was pretty tedious to install. It comes as 13" square mesh-backed pieces that interlock together.Rus in the shower (the top half will be glass, from the wall to the ceiling.) The entrance to the shower is on the right. It's just an opening, no door. The back wall of the shower has been waterproofed with "Red Guard." It's the dark blue/green stuff. Underneath it is the "green board" that you have to use in high moisture ares. It's the purple stuff. Makes total sense, right?The floor with a "hopscotch" pattern (I laid all of that part while Tyler and Rus ran the saws.):Shower floor - seriously the hardest part because you have to make sure that you keep a slope down to the drain:I'll have to show you more pictures as the work progresses. Right now my shoulders are burning just thinking about it...but it'll turn out great, I'm sure.

1 comment:

Kristina said...

Amazing! You guys are incredible!