Bathroom Issues: Part One

View of ceiling/wall in main floor bathroom. This is directly below second floor/primary suite bathroom.

If you are reading this, you likely saw my Instagram stories where I posted a poll on the bathroom situation.

Wanna know what is happening with said bathroom(s)? Keep reading to find out!

Ok. We bought this house at the beginning of lockdown, March 2020. So we have lived here for about 18 months at this point. When we purchased the house, we knew the bathrooms would need a little attention, as any 1950’s original bathroom might. We have two bathrooms (stacked on top of each other); one on the main floor (guest bathroom), and one on second story. It is the “primary”. The entire second story is our bedroom + bathroom + closet. Kind of a loft style space with slanted ceilings, cute built in bookshelves, and windows on either end of the large room. The bathroom was added on at some point, created by building a dormer type situation. It is all very cozy and cute… at first. Ha!

This is the current state of main floor/guest bathroom. Notice there is no ceiling. You can also see that a human cannot fit in here right now thanks to the massive drying machines…

So now you know the layout. Back to the issue…

We always knew an update would be needed eventually. If you know anything about me, I am a vintage loving lady through and through. I actually enjoy the original 1950s tile that is in our main floor bathroom (guest bathroom). It is a cute mauve/pink tone and cream tile design (see photo below). This pink vintage tile situation is only on the floor of the bathroom. There is a pedestal sink and toilet, as well as a tub/shower combo (unfortunately no tile here, I am guessing it was replaced over the years). This is a small footprint bathroom- like a one person at a time situation haha. If you have a 1950s Cape Cod house, you know what I mean! Basically I am saying that the first floor bathroom is darling, and we weren’t planning on doing much to it other than changing the light fixture/mirror/paint.

Fun, funky design with pink (I love pink)! It has debris on it in this photo because the ceiling was ripped out. It is a mess. Don’t judge me!

Upstairs, in the primary, it is a different situation. The original tile isn’t very cute at all- more like plastic/acrylic cream colored with brown specks that just appears dirty. In addition to the style not being my “ideal”, it has functional issues. The door was poorly fitted to the frame so it doesn’t swing open fully (drags on the bathroom floor). The linen closet in the bathroom is behind this door, so when I am brushing my teeth with the door open and Jordan needs into the closet for toothpaste or whatever, he can’t really get to it due to layout problems. I should mention there isn’t sufficient AC in the bathroom unless the door is open. Like the first floor bath, this is also a “one at a time” size bathroom, which has worked alright for us since we thankfully aren’t both getting ready to go to work at the same time (he works from home, I work odd schedules as a RN).

Although the primary bath wasn’t perfect, we thought it was functional enough to live with for a while. Fast forward to this past weekend…

The hot/cold handles (of tub/shower) were acting up, like they were stripped - you had to spin them 100 times to turn the water off (exaggeration sure but something was obviously loose). I am not sure if that was the actual issue or not, but Jordan attempted to fix it by taking the handle off (wrong move hahah). We are not plumbers. This created a much worse problem- a miniature fire hydrant in our bathroom. The water pressure was actually so strong it blew Jordan’s glasses off! I am very mad I missed seeing that happen, I was downstairs doing gosh knows what and missing (truthfully ignoring those calls as we had been in the middle of a disagreement- the same disagreement that prompted him to attempt to fix the water faucet…) all of Jordan’s desperate phone calls asking me to turn the water main off…LOL. After a few minutes I realized he was yelling GRETCHEN so I walked up to see what was happening, only to quickly run down to basement to switch the water main off.

Of course this happened on a weekend, so we waited for Monday to contact a plumber. When the plumber came out, he replaced something in the handle so that we could turn water back on without it blowing all over the place. We quickly realized there was a water leak somewhere, because the ceiling of the MAIN FLOOR bathroom (right below upstairs bath) was wet. Uh-Oh!

After a few conversations with insurance, a restoration professional came out to take a look. Then they had the plumber come back out to fix the leak. Then the restoration crew came out to rip out ALL OF THE WET, DAMAGED, MOLDY drywall. They put de-humidifiers and massive industrial grade fans in both bathrooms - and WOW are those things loud. This all took place over the last 5 days.

One of these massive things is a fan, one is a de-humidifer. Yes, I have to step over it to shower or use bathroom in the middle of the night. Yes, I am terrified I will get electrocuted. Oh- I tried using a blowdryer in our bedroom and turns out that is one too many things plugged in. Had to flip allllll of the breakers to get the power back on… how fun.

Oh, and yea that is a window exhaust fan. Electrician scheduled to install a real one this week…

Currently, we have a main floor bathroom with no ceiling and fans in there. The door is staying closed and it is basically out of order until the ceiling is dry and they come out to replace all of the drywall. Our primary/second floor bathroom has the same fan + de-humidifier combo, but we found out that water was going through the wall tiles in the shower (in addition to the leak around the drain). They fixed the leak, but we have to fix the tile. Cue the bathroom renovation…

Plan:

This week the restoration guys will come out, remove fans, and drywall main floor bathroom ceiling. We will then be able to use this bathroom while working on the second floor/primary bathroom.

Is that a shower curtain nailed to the drywall inside a shower? Yes. Yes it sure is.

Why? The cracks in the tile. The restoration guys did such a great job drying the main floor bathroom below this out, that I refuse to get it wet again. Until the ceiling below is replaced and we can use that shower, this will have to work.

The plumber suggested a full remodel since the water is getting in behind the old cracked tiles/nonexistent grout. YAY, NEW BATHROOM!?!?! I started down the path of searching for bathroom remodeling companies here in Louisville. We had a few out to the house for quotes, which ranged from 10k-30k. Taking our neighborhood property values into account, we are not willing to spend that kind of money on such a small bathroom. Who knew a 4 x 8ft bathroom remodel could be so expensive? Materials alone won’t cost a fraction of that…so I suppose these quotes are 90% labor costs.

Some of the companies we talked to: Re-Bath (basically they drop a plastic composite style material over existing tub/shower- not a fix at all. A $10k bandaid). Triple Crown Remodeling (first quote was 20k, and when we balked at that the price quickly came down to 10k in about 10 minutes, so not very trustworthy in my book). We also talked to a couple of smaller businesses, but they were even more expensive.

Exasperated at the cost of such a small space, we looked for other options. Why not call Jordan’s dad? He has flipped a few homes in their hometown, so he knows a few things about remodels and also has all of the equipment needed. He knows how to cut tile, lay tile, install vanities, etc. Perfect! We lucked out. The plan (for now) is that Jordan’s dad comes down to KY next month for a week or so and helps us get this project going. We (Jordan and I) will be doing the demo and removal beforehand. I have the basic design plan down. We are about to find out how fun a DIY bathroom is!

Recap:

-Water, mold, old pipes, wet drywall, etc. All of that is in the process of being fixed by professionals.

-We will use first floor bathroom while second floor bathroom is being remodeled/is out of commission.

-Jordan and I will do demo/removal ourselves.

-Jordan’s dad will help us with the remodel (we will use licensed professionals for plumbing/electric).

-I want a timeless black and white bathroom that fits the 1950s cape cod style of the home.

-Hopeful to do most of this the week before Thanksgiving.

Of course, I will share ALL PRICING DETAILS. I want to be totally transparent with this process. We are hoping to keep it around the 5k mark. That is an appropriate amount to spend on a bathroom for the neighborhood we are in.

So there you have it. The current issues, the plan, the goal design.

Follow along to see how we are doing, if we are still married, and if we have two functional bathrooms by the end of 2021…

Thanks for stopping by!

Gretchen, Jordan, Maker & Lincoln.