Friday, May 7, 2010

Deja Vu All Over Again

There was a time when we were building our cabin in Montana, that we used to fantasize about having the time to sit on the front porch for an entire morning or afternoon, with no work that tugged at our conscience. Eventually, that time came, but at times, it seemed that it would never arrive. Deja vu, to borrow a French term. We are looking forward to finishing the upstairs bathroom, and not a little bit of the anxiety is because we have to trudge downstairs at night to use the toilet. But at least we have another bathroom. We've been busy not having too much fun. This is the upstairs bathroom that has been gutted. The pink sink, pink tile and pink bathtub have been removed and hauled away. Down came the plaster, up came the floorboards and they all went to the dump, except for the bathtub, which will get melted down and made into cars or something. You can see the plumber has spent some time here (at $88 an hour), and run new PEX red and blue water lines and some black ABS waste lines. Little remains except the old floor joist.
This is after the new sub-floor has been put down. You can see the toilet waste line in the corner and the shower drain line in the left center, and a few of the new water lines, copper and PEX blue.
This is the wall where the pink sink was attached. You can see a bit of the old wallpaper, which we don't miss at all, and a few electrical lines, some new water lines. What you can't see are the tools and tile and wire and lumber scattered around the upstairs bedrooms. Everything is in turmoil, with cardboard on the floors along with new tile, buckets of drywall mud and tubes of caulk. At times, the beds had tools and stuff scattered around on them. Oh, woe.


This is a picture of the first few pieces of beadboard going up on the ceiling. Shortly after we finished the ceiling, we put up drywall on the walls and cement board on the shower walls. To make room for the shower stall, we had to rip out the old door (which opened like shutters, hinged on each side, kind of like an old saloon door) and move it a half a foot over. Rest assured, we threw away the old doors and installed a handsome six panel pine door.
This is a picture peeking into the shower stall while Nancy is laying out the new tile, which is natural stone, or more correctly, natural pebbles. They come glued to a square foot of plastic mesh, but they are still difficult to handle.
And here are the pebbles set into place and grouted. We are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. The drywall is being finished when Nancy has time between laying tile and grouting tile. I don't have a good picture of the new tile floor because it is always covered with cardboard during the construction. But soon, we will have pictures of the finished bathroom, and if we can find it, a picture of the "before" with the pink sink and tub. I know I can't wait. Stand by.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I saw the picture of the loose pebbles on the shower floor I couldn't quite imagine how the finished floor would look. It looks GREAT! Ms. Nancy you are an artiste!

Can't wait to see the finished bathroom!

Luke

Peggy said...

Another new treatment for a shower floor. That really looks nice. I was surprised to find they weren't individual stones collected, honed and polished by Nancy. I have very high expectations of you two!