Renovation World - Day 1

The Pre-lims:

This was our bathroom before the renovations. ONLY because we are going to have it fixed soon am I willing to show you this. For the year I have owned the house, this bathroom has gotten worse and worse. I have not been able to have people over to the house, except for my VERY closest friends and relatives... and most of them make sure to stop and pee at a restaurant on the way to visit me.

Notice, first, the lovely "floor" we made around the crapper. Originally, it was the top of SuperRoomie's desk. But when James started to fear he would fall through the regular bathroom floor, we decided the desk's top might work better as a floor. And it did!

Second, notice the rotted plywood underneath the toilet. The toilet was uneven and refused to seal... rotting the plywood which was there above the rotting floor... You have NO idea how disgusting that was. I think we could probably earn some money by selling the mold we grew though!
Finally, we moved the desk/flooring and got to the floor beneath... made a little hole...

And made a NEW FRIEND!!!!! It's called "lime". You put it in wet places to soak up liquids... (or in barns, to soak up animal pee I believe). And yes, my hubby was BAREFOOT on that floor.

We put down some, into the ground below the house... and look. Water was standing beneath the house.
Three 50-pound bags later... the lime was still soaking up water.


9AM: We've ripped up as much of the floor as we possibly can without a saw. Waiting for Uncle Norman to arrive and the fun to truly begin! (I accidentally deleted the pics I took at this point.)

NOON: The floor has been completely ripped out, and thank you God we did not have to take out the bathtub. Here is the underneath of my house:
OH! Are you wondering what happened to the sink, toilet, cabinets? They are in my dining room/office. Doesn't the crapper look cute in the middle of my floor? Maybe I'll keep it there as a conversation piece! HA!Pics of the area beneath the house... notice that after the three (or is it four, now?) bags of lime, there is STILL water sloshing down there. Also notice the boards, which are broken. Lovely, eh? 3:20 PM - Leak #1 is discovered. This pipe was rusted through! Leak #2 (the big one) is not in the bathoom area... I think it's in the back porch, or maybe the kitchen. James and Uncle Norman think it's in the back bedroom. We'll see who's right :o)

7:30 - We've hit several minor snags, but look! We're replacing the boards holding up the floor...And I say WE, because I am pulling my weight. I learned today how to "toenail" nails cross-wise to keep a board in place from the sides.

Next challenge? Getting support boards underneath this section: Which we did, surprisingly, without major issues.

11:17PM - The toilet freaking hates us. Seriously... I think it just wants me to die. We got all the joists and such in the floor, and even laid some of the flooring on top... life was going mostly good! We went to put the toilet back... tried put it on right, failed... tried again... sucess! We went to tighten up the toilet... and realized that the drain pipe for the toilet comes up higher than the floor, so the toilet was STILL the Leaning Toilet of Doom. Perhaps the toilet was angry because of this picture, where James is pretending to "pray to the porcelain god" (aka, throw up). Notice the tongue sticking out of his mouth, to add realism to the scene.

Now it is our bedtime, so I will close this post for tonight. In the morning we'll buy a 1/4" board to put under the toilet and see if that helps... if not, we'll put another one. Tomorrow is a new day, and a new chapter in this oh-so-fun adventure.