It's amazing how long this project has been going on. I had to go through my albums to find out exactly when it started (and stopped, it was an on/off thing).
This is our laundry room & second bath. I know it had been in progress for a long time. We had finished our upstairs bath back in July of 2015. So we stopped using the existing shower in the basement that we'd been using since we bought the house back in 2002.
Then a problem with the old clay floor drain meant I was going to have to bust up the floor to fix it. Everything is easier when you have the right tools. This Boschammer is was my best buddy. Broke up the floor like it was dried dirt. Without it, I'd be reaching for the Advil, and Voltaren.
After removing the old shower, I got to work opening up the floor. When I dug up the dirt around the drain, it just fell apart. It was cracked and the dirt was the only thing keeping it together. That was back in August of 2016. That was the year I also installed pot lights in our living room. It was just me and Kevin the cat for 2 weeks. He'd come around and hang out while I worked on the house.
In any case I installed a new floor drain. Every year I seem to acquire some new experience that gets used for the next project. Since I had already opened up the floor to install a new ABS floor drain. I gave Tresa the green light to install a wall mount toilet if she wanted. That just opened up the project to more extensive work.
So for a few years we didn't do anything because she wanted to think about it. Eventually a few years later, she decided to re-jig the layout. I'm not sure how many times I've drawn this drawing layout with dims of the space, but the toilet was over by the drain and vent pipes. And the shower was by the doorway. But the new plan was to relocate and install a wall-hung toilet beside the shower and group that area together. The rest would be laundry and drying area. It's not a huge space. So it made sense to rejig the layout.
Looks easy enough on paper. Doing the work was the hard part. And doing it in phases made it a bit easier on me physically.
Phase 1 was getting rid of the floor tile and opening up the floor so I could dig up the old floor drain. It got me reacquainted with my Boschammer friend again. This I did in August of 2019. I had floor boards over the open cement area where it was just sand til next May.
That was right when the COVID pandemic started.
Phase 2 meant digging up my old floor drain and re-doing it to accommodate the shower and the toilet from the area by the doorway. And making the connection to the wall hung toilet and shower. I also redid the laundry tub & washer drain, disconnected the old one that I disliked how it was done and installed a prime for the drain. Google it if you don't know what that is.
I followed the drawing schematic and directions from our really great friend that happens to be an awesome plumber. I had to lay all the pieces in the backyard so I could visualize what I was going to do. Took me a while. Like 2-3 full dawn to late evening weekends, but I checked all the drains to make sure all was good, before shovelling and packing the dirt back in. This was a lot of work, I didn't want to have to dig it back up. This phase started Mothers day and took about 3 weekends to complete.
Phase 3 involved doing all the new plumbing supply connections to the shower and toilet. And installing drywall. And cementing the floor. This took til the end of July.
Phase 4 was installing the shower base and cement board for the walls, and hooking up the new toilet. Once the new toilet was connected and working. I could now begin the disconnecting of the old one.
Phase 5 was finishing and painting. This was now September of 2020. I couldn't progress any further since the shower walls needed to be finished. And that's where it stayed until Jan 2022 when the new slabs arrived and were installed.
We had a bit of challenge finding an installer for the 2 slabs Tresa had selected and purchased back in late November 2021. But with some referrals we got one and they turned it around so fast and it was so nice when it went in. I didn't know how it was going to look. But it looks amazing. They even delivered it the day after the massive snow dump.
We were so grateful they made it happen. Good thing their truck made it through.
(Note: Between Phase 4 and 5, I squeezed in the 2nd floor flooring and garage reno. It was a busy 2020. I was recovering from it for 6-12 months. We also upgraded our electrical...finally.)
I was now able to hook up the shower controls that we'd bought in almost 1-1/2 yrs back and test them out. Hope all the parts are there and they work! I love Grohe and Hansgrohe stuff. They work like smooth butter. It's what we used upstairs and there's nothing like it. At least that I know of and can afford.
Anyways it worked great. The new universal installation housing box they have is pretty slick. They didn't have that when I did the upstairs bath. Made install a lot easier.
Yesterday we installed the enclosure. I was looking forward to finally completing this project at least my bit, but not looking forward to this part of the install. First of all. glass is heavy. Like really heavy. It's 10mm thick glass and almost more than 6ft high x 36 inches wide. Its not plexiglass that's for sure.
Also, drilling 7 holes into 0.25in thick porcelain is a beeyatch! I had tape and lines drawn to make sure I had everything measured 4x and marked. Constantly checking if it's plumb and level.
I also bought new bits for this part. It'll make the work go faster and better. And a high speed hammer drill works well. I was scared about cracking the slab. But with time and patience, 7 holes and a couple of hours later and some tired muscles. It was done.
It took all 3 of us to move the panels into place. And it wasn't easy with the 3 of us. It wasn't just heavy, the fixed panel side was a bit tricky to get in right. Some head scratching at times and a lot of cursing that I apologize for. And it was done. I was done. I have the cuts on my fingers to prove it.
This is the last of the big work that I have to do for this renovation project. The rest is either not for me to do or is not that hard to do. Floor tile still needs to be done, but that's not my problem to solve.
I have been looking forward to this day, it's so nice to have a 2nd full bathroom/shower again. I thought it'd be small the 36x36 shower foot print. But it's got plenty of room and the high enclosure keeps the warmth in. And it's -15 deg C out (that's close to 0 deg F for you non-metric folks. It's way easier you know).
And today, I got to shower in the basement for the first time in 5-1/2 years. It was the best shower in a long time.
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