Yep, that's what we are around here. You can read a bit about
the whole story here, but it goes something like this...
Eric bought our house with a remodeled bathroom. It is LOVELY, but we've known it needed some work to fix the shoddy job done by the first DIYer who lived here (the same bright-idea-haver that filled in our pool with dirt and let two palm trees grow inside. What a winner).
On a seemingly unrelated note, Arizonans occasionally get bouts of termite activity. It's totally normal and expected. Those little underground wood-lovers can't get enough of our dry soil, so you have a termite guy on hand for those occasions. We started noticing increased activity in the past few months and got worried. We called some people in, and paid quite a bit to have the house completely treated and with a warranty to boot. Yeehaw! Love me some warranties!
Enter the kitchen island a month later with it's wood boring insects (
read more here) that I was certain were termites, and you have a pretty pissed-off me. I thought the termites were falling from our ceiling onto the island and I was not a happy camper. Especially sine this company guarantees their work, but doesn't cover furniture damage. The owner of the pest company came out to take a look and he was the one who knew the island had come from IKEA with the bugs in tow and told us to take it back and exchange it for a bug-less one (which we did). He checked over the inside of our home while he was there... *cue foreboding music*
He enters our bathroom, pops off the tub acces panel and sees a practical SWARM of termites coming up from a HUGE hole in our foundation. Awesome. Way to go Mr. Crappy Remodeler Guy (this title reminds me of the Real Men of Genius ads, haha!). The termites have been coming up through this hole for years. Solution? Remove the bathtub (!?!? Be still my heart!!), treat the area, and hope to eventually put the tub back in.
The good news is that the damage from the termites is not severe and very localized. We are so LUKCY!! The bad news is that the bathroom is snowballing into a HEFTY project with an equally HEFTY price tag. So, for step number one, we spent our weekend removing our tub. And because I knew all of you would be dying to see (winkwink), I took tons of pictures.
Here's what our bathroom looks like when you walk in...
(forgive the counter clutter, we live here, people.)
I L-O-V-E love our cabinets, mirrors and couter tops. It's hard to tell in the photos (since there's no natural light in here), but everything is either glass, chrome or white white white. I love how clean and sparkly it looks.
Here's what the tub area looks like (directly to the left when you walk in the door). You can see the access panel is already popped off...
I luuuuurrrvvee my soaking tub. I mean, the tub has been out for two days and I've almost cried twice because I wanted to take a bath that much. THAT is how much it LOVE my tub.
To the right of the tub is the shower...
Yep, washcloth hanging over the top and all - I like to keep it real (and for the record, I also hate loofas. Are there any other washcloth loyalists/loofa haters out there? I keep it old school, I guess). The shower is a little small... Sometimes I feel like I could just soap down the walls and spin around and be all clean. But you take what you can get =)
Here's the view from standing between the tub and shower...
It's a pretty spacious bathroom for a 40 year old home - hallelujah. I HATE small bathrooms. I also love our toto toilet with a no slam toilet seat and lid. Seriously, I love that toilet like people shouldn't love a toilet. It's easy to clean, and looks amazing. I'm considering taking it with us when we move out.
We've known the bathroom has issues before this. Like the tiles behind the shower and tub in the above pics were laid too close to one another, so the grout comes out when you so much as wipe it down with a SPONGE (talk about a cleaning NIGHTMARE). Case in point...
So, we knew we would eventually need to re-tile.
Then we started noticing the caulking around the shower base slipping away from the wall. Then, water started leaking out from the wall whenever we would shower. Cue my nightmares about Eric and I both dying of cancer that we acquired from black mold in our walls (we DO NOT have mold, but my imagination tends to run away with me - especially in my dreams). What we do have is water coming out of our wall because of an improperly-leveled shower pan. Thanks again Mr. Crappy Remodeler Guy! Case in point...
See that wet grout? The water has only been on for 5 minutes. UGH! Eric's solution was "We'll buy ourselves some time and shower together." Haha! I don't think so mister, that thing is only big enough for one.
So when the termite guy gave us MORE bad bathroom news, the writing was on the wall. So, we began taking out the tub this weekend.... First we (Eric) scored the caulking all around where the tub is mounted to its box...
We (Eric) sealed off the water lines to the tub and moved the fixtures (my beautiful chrome fixtures!!) out of the way. Since every fiberglass tub that is not freestanding has to be set with grout on the bottom, we (Eric and his dad) lifted up the tub and tried to knock the grout off the bottom from the access panel so it would be lighter to lift. Meanwhile it sat propped up on pvc pipes like so...
When the grout had dislodged itself from the bottom of the fiberglass, we (this time I actually helped and didn't just stand around in the way while snapping pictures) just lifted the whole thing right out and carried it to the backyard (we would look like HICKS if all you knew of us was our backyard, haha!). Leaving behind this GAPING hole...
You can see the grout that was attached to the bottom of the tub leaning up against the left side of the tub box. Fortunately, it looks like the drywalling and framing was done according to code. I was FREAKED out that the drywall would be just the normal stuff and not the moisture resistant stuff, so you can imagine my relief when I saw that green paper! (Green-papered drywall = drywall for bathrooms/kitchens/anywhere moist)
Wanna see a bigger-than-life hole in someone's foundation and Mr. Crappy Remodeler Guy's solution? Welp, here ya go...
See that friggin L-shaped BEAST of a hole? Grrrrrrr grumbleandcursetheformerownerofyourhome. And do you see his "aweomse" solution to said problem (<-DRIPPING with sarcasm). Landscape rocks. Yep...
You can see some of the termite tubes in the top left of the above pic. Tears! So, we are tub-less. And in an ideal world, this will happen...
Termite man will come today between 8 and noon and tell us that we can treat and patch the foundation easily and inexpensively, and that the patch will work so amazingly that we'll never need access to said area again. We will then be able to re-use our old tub, and all we'll have to do is rip out the shower, level the pan, double check the plumbing and moisture situation, re-tile and use the same old (tiny!!!) shower insert again. This will cost us somewhere in the range of $300-$1000 depending on how well the shower holds up upon removal. We will of course do EVERYTHING (except plumbing) ourselves. Because unlike Mr. Crappy Remodeler Guy we know what we're doing with tile and shower pans.
But.... it could turn into this mess... Mr. Termite man says we can patch the hole, but we may need access to it again in the future for further treatment, meaning we would need to either buy a new, freestanding tub and re-tile the floor leaving an access panel there, or come up with some other access solution. This would mean that we could invest in a bigger shower insert (a relatively small price, only around $200 and TOTALLY worth it), since the freestanding tub would take up much less space. However, the freestanding tubs of the world cost roughly your first born child and also your right arm, so there's that to think about. The re-tiling would still have to be done around the shower, and we would have to try and match our current floor tile, as you have to finish the floor under a freestanding tub. This could run us anywhere from $4000-$10,000. I DIE. Holy expensive, batman! This is what I feel like that amount of money would be...
Everything hinges on the word from the termite man today. *bites nails compulsively* Not that I'm freaking out or anything (I totally am!), because I know our DIY skills are up to the challenge (Are they?), and I'm sure everything will work out perfectly and we won't have to spend much (But probably not!). Ugh. Merry Christmas to us! This is why you haven't seen me around. This is why you don't see my holiday mantle and Christmas tree and wintery crafts and everything else my bloggy friends with functioning bathrooms are doing. So if you think about us, say a little payer for cheap repairs and stress management techniques. Also that I would stop tearing up whenever I think about how NICE a bath would feel...
I'll be back tomorrow to show you what our bathroom looked like BEFORE Mr. Crappy Remodeler Guy got his grubby little hands on it. I must say, even with these hefty issues, I'm glad he did the remodel... I don't think we would have purchased the house if it had the original bathroom. Be ready for some 70's chic countertops!
I hope you're having a fantastic Monday, friends, and thanks for reading my not-so-interesting, and very wordy post. =) Happy Monday!
