Gutted...well sorta...

Well, I didn't get quite as much done as I planned for the weekend but I actually got more done than I thought I would. I always have bigger plans than I think I can do to try and motivate me since I kinda tend towards working at a snail's pace.

The misson for the weekend was to finish the demo for the most part and get the floor pulled out of the bathroom. All I have left to do to complete that mission is finish taking out some more drywall and actually cut the plywood subfloor out.

When I left off last weekend I'd removed all the tile from the shower walls but most of the drywall and the floor tile was intact. So the first order of business was removing the toilet so I could remove the tile floor. Oh, what fun! For those who think that taking out the toilet is the most ungodly, vile thing you have to do, it's actually not that bad as long as you have a cover for the drain pipe like I grabbed before starting this part of the job. Oh, and for the record, the brown stuff all over the floor is RUST. Just wanted to clarify...

Removing the floor tiles was pretty painless once I'd gotten the tiles in one corner removed. I'd just smack the ground with the hammer a few times until the tiles started breaking and hopping out of place with every whack of the hammer. Then, I'd grab the pry bar and lift the only sorta loose ones with it. Once I had the tiles off, I then had an inch thick layer of thinset, essentially concrete, to remove from the floor and guess how you remove that? Yep, you smack it with a hammer! Needless to say my right arm's aching. This was kind of funny, though. Everyone I talked to about the floor I had to rip up kinda cringed when I talked about it because of the thinset being notoriously difficult to remove. It turned out to be easier to remove than the tile! Just like the wall tiles in the shower, once you started to get it to come away from the floor, it came off in one big sheet. The hardest part was loading it into the tub and hoofin' it downstairs and out to the truck. Just like that, the floor was out! Bad news came next though. The moisture in the top left corner of the photo I expected to see. The moisture on the right side, I did not expect to see and the area surrounding the toilet is the most rotted. When I took off the toilet, I was a little worried when I noticed that the wax seal wasn't actually coming in contact with the toilet, only the flange. Yyyyeahh...that floor's REALLY got to come out.

Next order of business, remove drywall.

Dirt simple, and straightforward. In other words, not very interesting to talk about. Took me like 30 minutes.

Finally, the single most finalizing part of the demo, removing the shower pan! This was totally uncharted territory for me. I've never taken one out so I was pretty clueless on how this was going to work. From what I could tell, it looked like the drain hole just had a huge rubber gasket that squeezed over the drain pipe. I was right! Amazing! Cass found a DIY video that showed you how to remove a fiberglass shower pan and I'd swear they were removing the same shower pan that we had. So I followed that and PRESTO, shower panless bathroom! I had to grab my drill and literally drill holes in the gasket to reduce the amount of pressure it was imparting on the drain pipe. After fighting with it for about 10 minutes, I finally got it off the drain pipe and carried it out to the truck! That pan was a lot heavier than I expected! I'm sure emptying my truck bed at the dump is going to be a fun job!


Stay tuned! There's more to come soon.