I’m a few weeks late on posting this. I really haven’t had the time to sit down and right a proper entry until now. The day that I never thought would come finally came, the dry wall is up in the master bath. There were times when I was demolishing the bathroom that I thought it would it would be a impossible task to finish it. It was such a mess and was going to cost so much money to put back together. This is a big milestone for me.

This was my first time installing drywall and I made a few mistakes. Apparently the top peice of drywall should go up first. I put the bottom peice up first which left me with a gap at the top. I also managed to to incorrectly measure every single protrusion through the wall and had to make all the holes in the drywall larger to adjust.

Next items to start working on are the flooring and the shower waterproofing. The Warmly Yours floor heating was very expenisve and cost me my budget for the next few months. The schluter kerdi product I plan to use for the shower stall will be pretty expensive so that purchase will have to wait. I will work with what I have but won’t be able to buy much therefore I don’t expect a lot of progress over the next month.

It’s been almost two months since my last post on the master bathroom remodel progress. I had to wait for a special order shower head to arrive which took over a month. I also had to pay for the previous months remodel.

Today a plumber friend came over and help me install the new shower and vanity plumbing. OK, really he did all the work. I have never done any copper soldering before so I wasn’t able to do this myself. Now that I see how it’s done it’s really not that hard and i think i could do it myself next time.

I decided to move the vanity from the north wall to the east wall. I think i can better utilize this small space and install an extra cabinet next to the sink by having the cabinet on the east wall. The connections points however were too far over to be hidden under the sink. The cold water outlet and the drain pipe both needed to be moved over several inches.

I still want to put in two electrical outlets, one for a heated towel rack and one to put in a cabinet (so I can put all my rechargeable stuff and hide it). I have to decide where I want to tie into the existing GFCI protected circuit.

I special ordered some bathroom fixtures from Lowes on Wednesday. I can't believe how much I spent on them, but I just didn't like the cheap in-stock stuff. Bathroom fixtures just simply are not cheap. They were supposed to call me on Thursday and let me know how long before they arrive and it's Saturday and I haven't heard anything back.

I've put together the base cabinets I bought from IKEA to figure out how to lay them out. I've drawn out several ideas but it's hard to tell without actually seeing it.

I'm not sure how much the Home Depot prebuilt kit is, but the Johnson Hardware kit was $60 through Ace Hardware's online site.

Next up, the electrical

Last fall, I threatened that I would have the master bathroom completed by the end of the winter. Here it is spring and I did almost nothing to the bathroom. I have a variety of excuses that I wont go into now, however I did finally make some actual progress on it this weekend.

Before I can do anything I need to install the pocket door. Before I install the pocket door I need to relocate the wiring that exists on the wall where the door goes.

I need to decide how to wire up a exhaust fan, will it go near the light switch or near the toilet? I also need to figure out if I'm going to use a fancy digital shower control. If so It will use the power from the outlet then I can wire it up properly.

Finally I can install the pocket door. I have the studs marked to cut down, but I'm waiting for some friends to come by and verify my measurements before I screw it all up. I will save the pocket door install for another post.

The main control unit allows you to select the temperature, flow rate and to program the three personalised user buttons. These buttons illuminate when selected directly or via the remote control. Two backlit LCD panels display the water temperature and flow level and are controlled by the temperature and flow dials. The flow control dial can also be used to start the shower. To prevent children from turning the water above 38ºC, the SafeStop (temperature override) button must be pressed before the raising the temperature above this level - so there's no risk of accidental scalding.
For convenience, the Pause button allows you to temporarily stop the water mid-shower - great if you want to wash your hair. When you're ready to re-start you shower, press the button again and it will return to the exact same setting. Finally, the Stop button is used to turn the shower off. This button can also be used to turn the shower on at the safe temperature of 38ºC - perfect for when you have guests staying.

Pretty nifty. I can't seem to find US pricing or availablity for this product. Anyone familiar with this product or similar devices?

I wrote perviously about how the shower in the master bathroom had leaked. Now that I have researched the issue more, I understand more about how shower floors are constructed. The original floor was constructed as a "mortar bed" and it was not constructed correctly. It was missing the bottom membrane. The mortar was placed directly on the cement floor. The membrane that was installed was brittle and too far under the top layer of mortar. Finally, there was no strengthening agent, such as chicken wire.

I didn't want to repeat what I considered a poorly engineered design so I looked into solid surface designs. Royal Stone produces a 48x48 solid surface pre-made floor that resembles stone (think Corian). The normal price is about $900, but my drain is not in the location of the pre-made floor so I would have to order a custom made floor. Since they would have to made a new mold for my application the price would be about $1600 at the cheapest. That's way too much to spend on just the shower floor.

I then found Tile Redi products which are a thick plastic solid floor that you can tile on directly. Cheaper at $679 (not by much), but not in the size I want and the drain hole isn't in the same location.

Now I'm back to the mortar floor shower floor as the replacement. Considering the price and how a proper floor is suppose to be built, there should not be a problem for the new floor.

About a year ago most house remodeling projects came to a halt. Costs got a little out of control and I ended up with some large credit card bills. I've eliminated those bills and am ready to start back on my projects. I didn't waste any of that money, it was just a bit too much to spend at once. I now have this radical new idea that I will call "planning and budgeting" and I will apply it to projects going forward.

A quick recap on this project, the house was a foreclosure. Though not trashed, it was pretty dated and in need of remodeling in several places. The master bath showed signs of leakage in the shower. It's pretty clear that it's been going on for a while, it had leaked into the adjacent bathroom and into the master bedroom.

The demolition is about 99% complete. I intended to get a good amount of this bathroom completed this winter. I've got a basic plan put together, but that's a post for another day.

I know what I said, that the sprinkler system is going to be my priority. Give me a break thought, the back yard is sitll pretty muddy and now full of weeds. I'm now sure that the sprinkler project will have to wait till next year.

It's on to indoor projects, the first of which is the master bedroom and bathroom. I had a demolition party scheduled for the end of August, where I invited some of my friends over to demolish the house. Surprisingly, most of them didn't show up. Enough did to get most of the work done.

For the bedroom the goal was to take the closet from the neighboring bedroom to create a bigger overall closet. This was accomplished.For the bathroom the goal was to remove the framed in shower. Both of these were accomplished. After the demo was completed, with drywall and crap all over the place, is when I questioned what I have done. After two trips to the dump and probably 6 hours of clean up I'm not sure I did make the right decision.

The framed in shower was not usable. It had been leaking pretty badly for quite a while. The lower framing was rotted, the water had leaked into the bedroom and there was even plant roots growing about a foot up the interiors of the wall. One doesn't expect mold in a dry state such as New Mexico, but there was plenty of mold in the walls.

The next step is to plan for the rebuild. Since it's a small room, 7 foot by 8 foot, I'd like to put in a corner whirlpool tub with a shower. I think I can get a 54 inch by 54 inch corner tub to fit. I also plan to put in a electric radiant floor heating. The plan here shown is from Warmly Yours.

Can anyone loan me a few thousand dollars?