Here’s the master bathroom remodeling evolution.

Before, in all its glory:

Teardown and remodel:

and after the remodel:

Handsgrohe Axor shower and Porcher sink:

 

The original kitchen, spray-painted white to hide its misery before the sale:

 

Tear down:

 

Final result:

We completed the first major milestone today. The first phase of the electrical upgrade: addition of circuits and service panel upgrade is done! We doubled (or quadrupled? I don’t remember…) the electrical capacity. We added dedicated circuits to the bathrooms (left the existing one; added one for the new space heater and one for the outlets), 3 or 4 in the kitchen (see left picture) and spread a few others throughout the house. All rooms have ceiling lights (original Eichlers had very few of these). And all outlets throughout the house are now grounded!

The roofers have already started installing the insulation - you can see it on the right picture. Some rigid insulation, on top of which they will lay the Duro-Last, a single-ply membrane, also called “pool liner” (because that was the first usage for that material).

Demolition is going on. After the kitchen, I turned to the first bathroom, the one at the end of the hallway.

I’m still full of enthusiasm (if only I knew…) and getting rid of this old stuff is quite liberating. I have respirator, goggles and gloves on - what you find under an old bathroom is not exactly pretty and probably not very healthy neither! This drywall seems to be the original one (circa 1964), and wow, I don’t think I want to breathe too much of it - I’ll keep the respirator, thank you.

Everything was in very poor shape and came off quite easily.

Well, everything but the bath tub. It felt fairly heavy and sturdy, and I was hoping this would be one of these cast iron tubs that you can just break with a hammer. Not so lucky - it was just cheap iron. You cannot break these, nor cut them (like you would cut an acrylic bathtub); you need to remove it in one piece. The first problem was an unexpected one: I couldn’t remove the old rusty drain basket… come on, how hard can this be? I don’t even have to be careful about the tub… no, cannot even get a grip on that thing… losing my calm and getting the hammer out doesn’t help much neither… Problem will be solved a few days later with the help of a contractor I was discussing a bid with: “oh you know, there’s a special wrench for this. I can lend you mine”. Thank you Steve!

Since then, I’ve found a web page describing another method to accomplish this. Obviously quite a common problem

Now, the second challenge is to lift and get this tub out of the house. It’s very heavy and it sits tight between the two opposite walls. This is impossible alone (yes, I tried and wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re looking at crushing your back and fingers). There again, problem was solved a few days later, with the help of my father. Three people wouldn’t have been too many, especially as you have to twist this heavy tub in some inimaginable ways to get through all the door frames!

Overall, it probably took me two full days to get through that demolition and clean-up.

I don’t think I had ever enjoyed a shower as much as I did enjoy the one I would take at the end of each day during that demolition exercise (back at the house we were renting, in a bathroom that was still in one piece)!

The house has been tented and now looks more like a wigwam than some mid-century modern house!

It’s about to go through a whole-structure fumigation with Vikane®. I am glad this can happen before we have any personal belongings in the house. Whatever people might say, I wouldn’t feel too confident living surrounded with objects that were exposed to the gas.

What you see on the right hand side of the photo is the garage. The rest of the house is on the left, hidden behind our own private jungle (growing dangerously close to the house - another thing we’ll have to take care of I’m afraid…).

I finally got my hands dirty for the first time on this house (and not the last time I’m afraid)!

I tore down the kitchen during the long 4th of July. There’s no arguing that demolition is the most dangerous phase of remodeling. So I strongly recommend you pick up that book and follow their safety recommendations. My brand new safety glasses are already chipped - glad it’s them and not my eyes!

The kitchen cabinets were all nailed to the walls - impossible to remove them without messing up everything. Fortunately I had no intention to save the walls as I needed to expose the studs for the electrical upgrade. My technique was to chop everything in small parts and disassemble using the crowbar. The reciprocating saw is great for that. With a demolition blade it cuts through everything: wood and embedded nails, concrete and chicken wire (holding the tiles around the sink).

I almost killed myself when bringing down the cabinets that were hanging over the stovetop: they came down in one piece. And it was heavy - we’re not talking MDF here, it was thick plywood.

As for the tiles, it wasn’t that bad. Whoever laid them did a very sloppy job and didn’t bother removing the underlying linoleum. Don’t ever do this - mould was growing in between those multiple layers. Not pretty - you wouldn’t want to know that something like this exists in your kitchen…

Removing the AC unit from the wall was very painful. There again, everything was nailed (ever heard of screws?!), with rusted metal flanges inserted between the studs and the drywall sidings. No good grip to remove this in one go. Had to chop using the reciprocating saw - and a metal blade this time.

Isn’t this bare kitchen a beautiful sight? I must say that I was quite proud of myself when I eventually got the last bucket of dust out of this kitchen!

Count at least two full days to reach the studs and the concrete slab (OK, I might be slow - remember, I’m not a professional!).

I hate to put some limits to your creativity, but bathroom remodeling is subjects to some hard constraints.

At the beginning we had all these brilliant ideas for our bathrooms. We sketched multiple plans, moving fixtures around. For instance we really wanted to switch the shower and the bath tub - it seemed that having the tub in the master bathroom and the shower in the guest bathroom would make more sense (how likely are your guests to have a bath when visiting you?). Sure, it sounded good on paper…

Wake up! Bathroom fixtures are no regular furniture. They need water, just like plants - actually this is not such a big deal: re-routing copper pipes is within reach of a handy homeowner. But more importantly: they need to evacuate waste and used water. Through drains. Drains are these heavy, large pipes, going from the roof (each drain is ventilated) to the floor where they exit the house through the concrete slab.

Think about what would be involved in moving one of these drains: jack-hammering the concrete slab (and if you own a working radiant-heat system you should be very circonspect about the idea of hammering your slab!), but also potentially having to open the roof in a different location (and if you have a single-ply roofing system, opening a hole in the roof requires professional intervention to maintain your warranty). Oh, and last but not least: you would need to reroute these heavy pipes - I have no experience in this domain, wouldn’t even know where and how to start, but this sure wouldn’t be as easy as a copper soldering…

Bottom line: unless you have an unlimited budget you should really consider a bathroom remodeling that keeps the fixtures (sink, tub or shower and toilets) in their original location. Unleash your creativity in other areas: tiles, cabinets, windows or skylight etc. There is plenty that can be done to give a radically different look to your bathroom.

As far as we’re concerned, the tub and the shower will not leave the locations they had adopted back in 1964, when the house was built!