Pulp Bath 1 End of Weekend

Weekend number 5 complete and Pulp Bath 1 Reno moving along nicely! As you may recall, last week’s goal was to complete the rough ceiling install and get going on floor and new plumbing to accommodate the switch from tub to stand alone shower. Mission accomplished! In the adjoining pics you can see our new recessed lights, exhaust fan and sheetrock all up in place (see below for that last section of sheetrock (ended up buying some more so we could have one full cross piece, made first cut backwards, oops, followed with second cut done correctly, ceiling not exactly square, so one end wider than the other, last piece installed, all good). Ceiling ready for tape, patch and paint.

Now I should mention, the cast iron tub we had pulled out had been in the hallway outside since we yanked it, came up with a few plans to get it down from the 3rd floor to dumpster outside, eventually coming up with the best plan ever! Turns out you can smash cast iron tubs to pieces using a properly sized sledge hammer (lots of on-line videos available toward that end). So, with the help of a few friends and lots of moving blankets strewn about to protect the surrounding areas, eye protection worn by all, sledge hammer we did. And guess what? Worked like a charm, tub was split into dozens of pieces, tossed into buckets and easily disposed of into said dumpster. Good times!

Then it was onto getting the plumbing ready for the new shower (see the other adjoining pic). Drain for tub was about 6 feet into the room, shower obviously much closer to the entry wall so extension required. In progress pics below, you’ll also see that original plumbing was a combo of copper pipe and brass fittings, including a very cool and old brass trap on the run (I had to Google it just to make sure it was an actual trap, lots of pics out there to confirm), so having to adapt PVC pipe and fittings to the copper and then have it all perfectly line up with the new drain for the pre-fab shower base. And that is where we are currently at. About a half inch shy on where the drain is coming up at the moment so going to add a coupling to the drain line and make the necessary adjustment.

On tap this weekend, finish the drain, run the new water lines, mount the shower mixing valve so we can land the new water lines, install a new plywood sub-floor and land the Durock on top of that so floor will be ready for tile. Stay tuned!

Progress pics below, hope you enjoy and we’ll see you next week!