As with everything else with my house, remodeling is at times a big hassle, mainly because the builders in the 50's apparently didn't know how to use a square. As I am finishing the process of remodeling the downstairs bathroom, I am running into all sorts of snags and delays. I would be so perfect for one of those renovation reality shows on HGTV, or DIY. Everything looks/seems like it wouldn't be a big deal, that is of course until you actually get into doing it.
The first problem had to do with having square walls. I tried to make sure I had a consistent grout width in between the floor tiles. Well that had to be modified/adjusted because when I thought I was laying the tile straight turned out to need slight adjusting so that I didn't need to rip the tiles the long way in order to fit it up. That resulted in extra time to lay the tile, and ultimately, a day longer that I had anticipated to get the door in place. I also need to adjust the door frame a little bit in order to get the last couple of tiles in place because after reinstalling a new sub-floor the gap between the frame and the sub-floor would not have allowed me to get the tile in place. What a pain!
Then when the cabinets and sink finally got here and I went to set things in place, I discovered that the location of the pipes and drain would not line up properly. In other words, the location of the cold water pipe would have ended up hitting the side drawer, and would not have allowed me to close the drawer. The solution was to cut into the wall and see if I could move the pipe. Unfortunately, in order to move the pipe, I needed to cut through a stud since the cold water pipe was right next to it. So I had to cut out a notch (approximately half the width of the 2 x 4). in order to put a 90° elbow in place to move the pipe over about three inches. One good thing was that I was able to put a couple of new sections of pipe in, since the existing galvanized pipes had a lot of gunk/deposits on the ID of the pipe.
The next issue was with the drain. The drain has two 90° bends inside the wall. It is a large, cast block with openings that allow for the bends. But because of where it is, I can't take it out and replace it. That means I need to work with it, and the existing drain was only press fit in place coming from the sink. I was not happy with that since I wanted to make sure I got a good seal to make sure it didn't leak. Well, to make a long story short, I managed to find a piece of pipe that fit very tightly in to opening that would not allow for any leaks. And just to make sure, I put a thin bead of caulk around it ti make sure nothing leaked. Then after I had all the pipes moved and in place, I had to patch the holes in the wall. So what was originally planned as about a two day installation of the sink and cabinet turned out to take a week.
And Kris wonders why I hate doing home improvement things myself. But overall, once everything was done, I do think that it turned up pretty good. So if you come over, be sure to use the small bathroom downstairs and tell me how good it looks/works; it helps my ego.
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