time for plumbing.

I hate plumbing.

There, I said it. But it's sort of necessary (and evil, as the saying goes), and so it had to be done. Starting with a good ol' fashioned Cutting Into Our House's Plumbing party. In this case, it was copper supply lines running to the old tub shower. It's good times having water spraying all over, even after having shutoff the main and bled all the faucets in the house (note to self: the faucets outside the house are below even these supply lines in the basement ceiling, so need to be bled, too).

Anyway, these are the new PEX (Sharkbite) 1/2" shutoff valves I installed, and the PEX running up into the new tub/shower cavity. Next up... the valve. Similar to how I did it in the other bathroom, I zipped a 1x6 in half on the table saw after drilling a 2-1/2" hole, threaded the four 1/2" Sharkbite connectors, then clamped it down tight -

K joked when I was threading them about how, with all our fancy advancements, plumbing still requires wrapping threaded pipe ends with teflon tape. I pointed out, however, that this Sharkbite stuff really is a leap forward. Seriously. It's the only thing that makes plumbing bearable.

It wasn't too tough to get the tub and shower stub out installed -

The only tricky part was being pretty exact for the tub because the tub faucet threads onto the 1/2" nipple - and it needs to A) thread as tight as possible so it doesn't leak while B) butting perfectly up against the finished tile. Kohler said to measure 4-1/8" from the end of the nipple to where the finished wall will be. Of course, there is no finished wall - so I had to guesstimate using a scrap of 1x to mimic the 3/4" thickness (1/2" cement board + 1/4" tile). Crossing fingers after the wallboard and tile are installed the faucet fits right because, well, at that point it'll have to fit right.

That said, the shower and valve (once the work of clamping it to the 1x6 was done) were easy. I also glued the PVC drain fitting to the ABS P-trap with a special, slimy, green glue concoction. And yes, I made a special trip to Lowe's and spent $6 to get it - I don't mess with plumbing fittings, and assume that if it's recommended to use this glue for that and that glue for this... I'll do it.

Then the fun part - testing the tub!

So I cleaned it out, installed the overflow drain cover and drain plug -

Then filled 'er up!

Once it was full... turned on the jets! And... nothing. Drat. Went down to the breaker box thinking I may have switched off the breaker. Nope, it was on. Back up to check the outlet. Doh - it was dead. I dunno how the GFCI tripped, but it did. Hopefully that doesn't happen too often, although I'll be installing an access panel in the wall at that end of the tub in order to get at it in case it does. But still, hopefully it doesn't...

Anyway - flipped the GFCI back on and presto... jets!

Oh man. That was the sound of luxury, I'm not gonna lie...

Too bad K discovered a leak in the drain fitting under the tub (we can look up at it to access through the basement ceiling, which is convenient - and will be to fix it). So I'll have to take apart the drain and rethread it all to reseat the rubber seal. Bleh.

But the fun wasn't over... it was time to once again throw a House Plumbing Cutting party, and disassemble the galvanized supplies for the new vanity. Yep, it was wet and messy again - but we got the new PEX supplies fitted and ready to go -

Oops. Despite literally writing on the back of the drywall 'H' and 'C' for 'Hot' and 'Cold'... I still installed blue PEX (indicating cold) on the hot supply, and red on the cold. I'm retarded. It doesn't really matter, but I'll probably fix it cos it'll bug me. Which means shutting off the water and bleeding the lines again - oh well.

What remains then - besides those couple of fixes - is hacking off that cast iron drain pipe running to the vent on the right. I'll cut it off with a sawzall just above the floor joist, slip on a no-hub coupler and run ABS to line up with where the new drain will need to be, and attach it to the existing drain stack (which I'll also need to cut off, and likely run ABS up through the roof flashing - hopefully I'll be able to just stick a new ABS pipe through it without having to mess with it).

It'll look something like this -

And when all said and done... this (the sketch on the lefthand page) -

Onward...

we have a tub!

After making the classic mistake of ordering (and framing in) the wrong tub, we received the correct one a week ago or so. This is the most important part of the bathroom remodel, so it was time to fix my mistake and get it installed.

I needed to make up 4" in the space we framed for the tub, so between Home Depot and Lowe's, I was able to get what I needed: a stack of 2x2s (1-1/2") and 2x3s (2-1/2"). Today, Scott and I 'scabbed' them onto the framing we installed back in August - 2x3s on the plumbing side...

And 2x2s on the built-in cabinet/shelf side...

Then we dry-fit the tub to make sure it was good -

Boom. It fit. Time to install the drain -

Had to dry-fit the PVC pipe to measure, then cut it to length. Overflow and drain installed to the tub. Now time to take a look at the drain under the subfloor...

I thought I'd actually be able to use the glued section of the P-trap left from the old tub, and just take off the slip joint for the trap and use the new one I had bought. The thing is, apparently in 1980-whenever that slip joint was roughly 1/16" smaller, so... the new one didn't fit. I ended up having to cut off the ABS (slowly, it was a little tight with the saw under the floor between the joists... ) and glue a coupler to the existing pipe, then a short section to line up the trap where the drain would be from the tub. To make it a little easier, I opted to saw an 11" square hole in the basement ceiling (still, why did anyone install sheetrock on the basement ceiling!) to access the drain and make sure it all fit (I'd cover it up with an access panel) -

But it did... all fit, that is. Phwew. Knowing it did, we heaved it back out, then I went to work mixing up the mortar. We first laid 2-mil sheeting on the subfloor, then dumped the mortar onto it and spread it around -

Finally, we lifted the tub into place for (hopefully) the last time (then proceeded to jump up and down inside it to make sure it fit). We had scribed pencil lines on the joists for where the tub flange was before setting it in the mortar, so we'd know where it needed to rest. It all looked good, and was level -

Kohler's instructions were, in typical fashion, really lame. Here, Scott tries to make sense of them...

They mentioned how the motor should rest directly on the subfloor but, uhh, that wasn't actually possible (that plywood it's sitting on is part of the tub base) -

So hopefully that's ok and it isn't going to be terribly noisy. We'll test it before hanging the cement board and sheetrock...

Lastly, we nailed up 1/4" furring strips I had gotten at Lowes -

Only to find out 1/4" (despite that being what the ol' instructions called for) weren't thick enough - the tub flange was thicker than apparently it should have been. So I looked up in the garage and found two full sheets of 1/2" (well, technically 7/16") plywood, then broke out the table saw so we could rip 1-1/2"-wide strips to use for furring. I'll return the cedar ones to Lowe's (they were kind of expensive). Better to be scrappy, afterall - they're just strips of wood that will never be seen.

After we ate homemade pizza for dinner (that's the price we paid for Scott's help heh) and he left, I took a circular saw to the original framing to make room for the built-in cabinet that I'll build this coming week, as well as installed the framing for the built-in shower shelves. I mis-measured one of them (12-1/2" instead of 12-3/4", even though I had clearly written the latter) and mis-cut one of the 2x4s. I thought I was super-clever by using the back of the old vanity for the back of one of the shelves, but I mis-cut it as well and had to redo it.

It was time to be done.

A successful day overall - the framing fixed for the tub, the (correct) tub installed (just need to get the ABS-PVC glue to finish the final fitting), the framing fixed for the built-in cabinet, and the shower stall shelves built. But for some reason it still doesn't feel productive...

Christmas lights.

I guess it was fortuitous to wait to hang the Christmas lights, because the night we got around to hanging them it snowed!

It took a quick trip to the store to get gutter clips (haven't had gutters in a long time!), and K and Cheyenne kept us company on the porch...

oops.

Yep, oops.

After finishing the framing, then spending an hour or two making sure the new whirlpool tub deck was level, we heaved the beast into the opening, stood back, and examined our work.

It was then that Scott gently asked, 'Maybe I don't see the whole picture here, but what are you going to do about water?'

'What do you mean?'

I had ordered a tub without an apron only because I wanted to build the front paneling myself, like what I did in the back entry. And that meant also building a deck for the tub to rest. Of course, we had no intention of only using this as a bathtub, and so I also ordered a shower faucet for it.

That's where Scott noticed the problem: in the two inches all around the tub that made up the deck (space in this bathroom is tight, so no sprawling tub deck for us). He pictured the water piling up there after every single shower, and he was right. It (obviously) would.

Mother-trucker...

So then... yeah, oops. Well, Home Depot exchanged this tub for the same one, this time with the apron (and lefthand drain). And now we'll have to rip out the deck front framing, as well as do some more creative carpentry - add framing (thankfully only 4") to the inside tub surround walls. It's not the end of the world - just a little setback. But I'm thankful to Scott for noticing before we went any further!

electrical for the bathroom.

One of things that was necessary for this remodel was to wire a couple of new 20A branch circuits: one for the whirlpool motor, and another for, well, just in case (possibly heated flooring, but we haven't committed to installing that just yet so, if not that, potentially just more outlets).

It took an hour or two to snake the two 50' cables from the bathroom, across the house through the basement ceiling, to the electrical service panel (a Federal Pacific split-bus panel). Scott and I had bookmarked the dual-pole, 20A breakers that used to feed some baseboard heaters upstairs, long-since disconnected (it was one of the first things I did when I moved in, seeing how there was a brand-new, gas forced-air furnace for heat).

(We pulled the dual-pole breaker, so the hole is now at top left).

These split-bus panels work in such a way as to provide a few dual-pole, 220V breakers, along with a (in this case, 60A) dual-pole breaker that shuts off the power to everything in the power bus below (lights and outlets, primarily). There exists a '6 Switch Rule' that states - sans a main shutoff breaker for all electrical service - there can be no more than six breakers to flip off in order to kill all the power to the house. So, by adding two single-pole breakers in place of the double-pole, I'm technically violating that rule - and we should wire the new branch circuits off the subpanel (out of frame of that photo above to the left, about two feet away). I may end up installing a new service panel, replacing this old FPE panel (there exists a lot of chatter about the questionable validity of these FPE panels and - more importantly - breakers, but this install seems pretty clean and shows no signs of overheated breakers, etc.). So in the meantime - since we wired the cables to this panel - I'll let it slide. And technically, another of the dual-pole breakers is permanently switched OFF because it also powered more baseboard heaters, also ripped out of the house so the circuit isn't doing any service.

All that said, we discovered that FPE breakers - since they're no longer made - are $50 a pop at ol' Home Depot! Uhh, dang. But K had a brilliant idea... what about Ebay? Sure enough - they're all over Ebay (maybe a sign they're not the greatest breakers), so I ordered two 'thick,' single-pole 20A breakers for the new circuits.

Scott and I had already tied the neutrals and grounds to the neutral bus bar after pulling the cables, so the other night it was an easy job to finish wiring the hot wires to the 'new' breakers and pop them in the panel -

Then test the GFCI outlet we had installed on the new framing at the motor end of the new whirlpool bathtub -

It worked (glowing green light, and of course verified with an electrical cable tester)! So we now have power for the tub, as well as an extra circuit for... something. I'll deal with the panel later.

a vanity.

For the bathroom, we needed a vanity. Duh. Just preferably, not something like this (taken at the cute little inn we stayed at in Bar Harbor, ME earlier this month) -

A great example of the classic, pre-fab, Big Box, MDF veneer, totally cheesy vanity. Yeah, so no - not that. A few years back, I blogged about making stuff, not buying new stuff, and fixing stuff. So with this bathroom remodel, we want to reuse as much as possible. And we knew for the vanity we wanted to find an old dresser, desk, something, and turn it into a vanity. So in looking up ideas, I came across an article that said in order to accomplish that, we would need to hire an expert carpenter and a crafty plumber.

Ok, then - time to find out if I fit the bill...

Well, first - to find a piece of furniture that would work. We scrounged for a few months, looking at various used furniture stores in town, Offerup, even Craiglist, until we came across a nice-looking, mid-century modern credenza at a local used furniture place that looked like it would fit the bill -

It seemed perfect, with the two doors on either side and a large drawer on the bottom that could remain intact, and the two drawers in the middle that I could remove to make room for the sink and plumbing. It also fit the space we had perfectly, at 48" in length, 32" high, and 21" deep. And it was nice, a quality piece of furniture built from solid ash, with superb joinery and craftsmanship. Like any savvy antique hunter, we first did a quick search online, and were surprised to find it being sold for $1700. It was marked $400, but the guy even knocked a hundred bucks off when we mentioned not needing the hutch that was included. Sold!

Time to take it home and get to work...

Also, in keeping with that M.O. I mentioned earlier about reusing, we found a nice, undermount Kohler sink at the local architectural salvage yard for $60 - so I was determined to make it work, even if it meant having to do some creative carpentry...

First things first - size this thing up for real -

Then start cutting. Oh boy, it was such a nice piece of furniture I felt bad taking a jigsaw, and drill, and crow bar to it. Really, really bad. But it had to be done -

Ouch! Now there was no going back... I even loved the classic, flathead screws!

With the holes for the Kohler widespread sink drilled, the back cut out for the plumbing, and the drawers removed along with some of the joinery to make way for the sink - it was time to measure and make the cutout for it.

I'd first drill, then use a jigsaw to make a rough opening -

Of course, since this was an undermount sink, the opening couldn't just be rough - it had to be perfect. Yikes. So for that, I'd use a router and the template from when I built the router table. Well, the corner of the template anyway. Since it wasn't the right size, it meant taping it down and moving it for each corner. All in all, between that and feeling the pressure of needing to make sure the opening was perfect, it took about two hours to accomplish.

Thankfully, it actually turned out as close to perfection as I could have hoped -

Sweet, plumbing openings done. Then it was time to work on refinishing... I did some research and determined that Zar stripper was the one most-often recommended, so I bought a quart of it and got to work. Indeed, it did a miracle job with the existing finish!

(A test scrap - the piece I cutout for the sink - showing the existing finish on the left and the stripped, then sanded, clean ash on the right... )

Dang - stripped down to bare wood and sanded, this piece looked awfully nice...

But I knew I wanted to stain it darker to contrast with the flooring, grey walls, and white tile so... onward! Well, first - a few more instances of creative carpentry were necessary to make the sink fit. I had to gently pry the front top piece off in order to route it to make room for the drain bulge in the sink -

Reattach, countersink some new screws to hold it in place, then test the sink fit -

Boom. Time to stain... I used a mixture of the two gel stains I got (a brown and a red) for the fan base I built a couple of years ago, in this case 3:1 brown to red. And let me just mention, I love staining. Actually, I love putting on the poly after staining. But either way, finishing a beautiful piece of wood or furniture is so rewarding. Sort of like painting a room - instant gratification.

I swear by the Minwax oil-based satin poly, which I used on the door/drawer fronts, and cabinet legs and sides. But for the top - given the fact this is a vanity countertop - I'd need to find something a little more durable, and waterproof. After more research, it sounded like Waterlox was the way to go. So I ordered a quart of that and got to work... again. Three coats of it, for now. Maybe more in time. It'll be a test to see how a wood vanity top will hold up...

The last bit of creative carpentry I had to do was figure out what to do with the drawer fronts. I first considered hinging them, but that seemed like a) it would be challenging (not that I'm up for a challenge - pretty much this entire project of finding and converting a piece of furniture into another piece of furniture has been one, fun challenge!) and b) the hinges would be visible. So, thinking more how we wouldn't access under the sink all that much (there isn't much room), I opted for a simpler option: just use cabinet door magnets.

But first I had to make the false-front doors, which I did by repurposing one of the drawer bottoms from the drawers I tore apart -

I just glued the drawer fronts to that, then drilled holes for the cabinet handle screws and installed them -

As well as attached the magnets inside the cabinet -

Oh, but wait - there's more! I then realized I also needed to route out a section on the inside of the fake drawer fronts for that bulge in the sink drain -

At long last... it was time to attach the sink, faucet, and trap in order to get it ready to intall in the bathroom (oh, there's a complete overhaul of the plumbing needed in the bathroom to re-align the drain and supply lines for this new vanity - yay!). With a combination of silicone and plumber's putty, I had the sink and faucet installed. Then I had to take a hacksaw to the drain that came with the faucet in order to fit the trap in the limited space left where the two drawers once were. But a couple hours later and it... was... finished!

Now granted, this was taken crammed in J's bedroom between his computer desk and bed, but it's really a pretty beautiful piece of furniture now. We'll each get a side door to call our own, and the large drawer can hold extra towels and such. K came up with the brilliant idea to go with a dark grey ceramic tile floor that would contrast beautifully with the warm wood. And I'll be staining the inside shelves and sides to match the vanity for the built-in cabinet I'm designing and will install to the right of the bathtub.

Vanity cabinet - 1960s mid-century modern credenza from local used furniture dealer
Sink - used Kohler sink from local architectural salvage yard
Faucet - used Kohler faucet found on Amazon
Hardware - new from Rejuvenation

Time spent: I have no idea. Weeks. Lots of things learned. Thankfully, few mistakes made (the one glaring one is I centered the holes for the faucet spout and handles - only to realize the spout doesn't sit centered (because of the drain lift rod), so it's shifted back a little from the handles... oh well). But it was totally worth it.

Oh, and K had found a really solid, heavy, HUGE mirror (she's tired of the tiny one I installed in the other bathroom and made sure for this one she gets a big mirror!) at the new Habitat For Humanity store in town, so we bought that for $30 and I refinished it to also match the vanity -

Next... the plumbing overhaul to make this thing be actually, well, usable...