“Just when you think you are done with demo, more staples appear in the floor and you have to sweep again and again and again.”
THIS is Season 6 of the Jeffrey Court Fall Renovation Challenge, where we will renovate our kid’s full bathroom… taking it from an outdated, carpeted, builder-grade bath to a functional, beautiful oasis where my boy-girl siblings can fight over counter space in style!
14 contestants – 1 grand prize winner – YOU get to choose!
Come behind the scenes with me on INSTAGRAM, where I will show you live video of the entire process. Then, hop over to the blog for a weekly breakdown of our progress. Lastly, head over to the Jeffrey Court Site and VOTE VOTE VOTE for our design along the way! The design that YOU – the voters – choose will win a grand prize of $5,000!
You have the chance to vote once a day EVERY day, from each internet-accessible device you own. Your cell phone, tablet and computer? Absolutely! And don’t worry… I’ll remind you 🙂
WEEK 2
RECAP – MORE DEMO
In week 1, you saw the hardware and accessories removed, shower walls come down, and the vanity doors come off. It doesn’t seem like a lot in hindsight, but we were actually out of our house for three days while our hardwoods downstairs were refinished, so I was happy with the initial progress. If you missed the before pictures or the design plan, you can find them HERE.
This week, we completed the demo and had the plumber rough in the shower. A “rough in” is when initial services are installed but their end points have not been. In this instance, the plumbing that goes inside the walls was installed, but the hardware that will go over the tile was not. Those pieces will go on after the shower has been tiled.
As far as demo, the tub was taken out, we took down the mirror, disconnected the sinks, removed the countertop, ripped out the carpet, and demoed the tile floors. I began to patch holes, but they will probably take a couple rounds of filling and sanding since the anchor holes I am filling are rather large.
For a list of tools I like to have on hand during demo, head back to my WEEK 1 post. The MVP so far has been the new chisel scraper that I picked up in the tile section of Home Depot.
Ok, let’s break down each piece!
BATHTUB REMOVAL
The first thing to do in order to get the bathtub out was to remove everything I had dumped into it. We didn’t want to rent a dumpster so I was trying to figure out the best way to get rid of all our debris. My neighbor told me about a bag you could get from Waste Management and after looking into it, I found out it’s called a Bagster.
You can purchase them at most hardware stores, like Home Depot, where I got mine. You put it at the end of your driveway – there are specific instructions since a truck has to come pick the bag up – and fill it with your demo debris. It holds up to 3300 lbs, and when you’re done using it, you schedule a pickup through Waste Management. The bag was $30 and the pickup in my area will be around $150. It’s cheaper than renting a dumpster, so this was a great option for us.
We got all the trash out of the bathtub but were concerned that it was cast iron and we wouldn’t be able to get it out. I was able to enlist the help of one of the crews at my job-job and after a little wiggling, they got it out pretty easily. Pretty easily for three grown men. I love DIY, but I’m glad I had some help tackling this.
PLUMBING
Once the bathtub was out, I cleaned up that area to prepare for the plumber. He came in and installed the new valves, the diverter, and moved the drain from the side of the floor (where it was for the tub) to the center of the floor (where it needs to be for the shower). I’ve literally never seen such pretty plumbing!
As a side note on hiring a plumber, my husband has some experience changing faucets and fixing valves, but we felt like this was something that we wanted a professional to handle. If we weren’t on a timeline and had ample time to learn about and install the plumbing, we might have. But seeing as this is inside the walls and could cause major issues if we did something incorrectly, we agreed that subbing this out was our best option. If you have plumbing experience or the time to learn about plumbing, this is definitely an area where you could save some money.
MIRROR REMOVAL
This bathroom had a builder grade mirror with a frame that was glued directly on. Most of these mirrors are attached by large globs of adhesive between the mirror and the wall. This is to prevent them from having to use clips around the edges to hold the mirror in place. After watching several YouTube videos, the general consensus was that the best way to get the mirror off was to use shims. By gradually hammering shims in behind the mirror, you can loosen the mirror without cracking it. In one video I watched, the contractor said he had been using this method for 18 years without ever cracking a mirror, so I felt confident this would work.
As a precaution, I used my FrogTape to stabilize the mirror. This stuff is AWESOME and I knew that if the mirror cracked while we were trying to remove it, at least it wouldn’t shatter everywhere. I was so glad to have a couple rolls of Frogtape on hand. This was definitely an unexpected use for it!
Shims were also something I did not expect to use and did not have on hand, but instead of running to the store, my husband suggested I cut some out of scrap wood. I found a great tutorial for a quick jig and was able to make enough shims for us to use in about half an hour.
You can check out the tutorial I used below.
Fast forward to the mirror removal and the shims worked beautifully. We actually used them to loosen the countertop from the wall as well. Regardless, I felt totally comfortable because I knew Frogtape had my back 🙂
COUNTERTOP
To remove the countertop, we scored the caulk all the way around and took out the drains. With the water off, we disconnected all the plumbing from the valves under the sink. It took a little muscle, but once we got the side pieces off, the countertop came off easily. We carried it out to out Bagster since we are putting in a new countertop in week 5. I even learned how to disconnect all the plumbing myself!
FLOORS
Removing the carpet was simple. So simple in fact, that we let Carter do it! He enjoys being part of our home renovations and this was something that was safe for him to do. He did wear PPE and tennis shoes for safety as well. The main thing we told him to watch out for was the tack strips used around the outer edge of carpeting to help keep it in place.
He did a great job pulling up the carpet and removing that and the pad below. Once it was out, I used a crowbar, rubber mallet, and pliers to remove the tack strips and staples.
The last thing we had to remove in the bathroom was the tile floor. I think Chad was excited to demo this part, so he took the lead. I had borrowed a Bosch Bulldog Xtreme from a friend that I wanted to try, but Chad wanted to do it the old fashioned way with some pry bars and a sledgehammer. Needless to say, it worked!
The floor came up in large chunks, mainly due to some wire mesh that was laid underneath, inside the mortar. There was no cement board, so we were speculating that the wire mesh was used for stability and strength, like rebar in a driveway. Although concrete is stronger and more durable than mortar, and mortar is mainly used as a bonding agent, not for structural projects (as you will see when we create the shower pan in week 3).
FACT
Cement, concrete, and mortar are three different materials. The basic difference is that cement is a fine binding powder (which is never used alone), mortar is composed of cement and sand, and concrete is composed of cement, sand, and gravel. SOURCE: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/difference-between-cement-concrete-mortar-tanya-marchiol/
After the floors were out, a lot of clean up was left. We took all the tile out to the Bagster, removed nails and staples, filled holes in the walls, and swept, swept, and swept some more. And then vacuumed. I also cut a couple pieces of plywood to cover the hole made when the plumber moved the drain.
That’s all the demo! Now the real work begins! Next week, WEEK 3, we will be:
- Creating the shower pan
- Tiling the shower
- Tiling the floors??
- Beginning to build the shaker style vanity doors??
At this point, I know what needs to be done, but am a little uncertain what will take place when. The tile should be delivered in the next couple of days, so depending on whether we start tiling or not, I may or may not be able to start building the shelf and the vanity doors. Since I woodwork outside with jobsite tools, the weather plays a large part. I also have a good idea of how long woodworking projects take me, so I don’t want to put off the tile too long, just in case that takes longer than I anticipate. I’m sure it will. 🙂 I KNOW I can bang out some shiplap and a shelf pretty quickly, so those tasks may get pushed towards the end of the timeline. But we’ll see!
I’m looking forward to sharing our progress in WEEK 3! Thank you for being here and following along!
Don’t forget to follow along on INSTAGRAM for behind the scenes video and DIY tips!