The new bathroom

Okay, so it's been a bit of a journey.  And now I know why no one blogs about bathroom renos.  They are not pretty.  It's not like taking pictures of an ugly light fixture and then replacing it with a beautiful chandelier.

This involves mud.  And concrete.  And dark, damp places.

Lovely as it was, we had to tear out this:

 To reveal some of this:

That beautiful copper pipe was sitting smack dab in the middle of the space that was to become the new bathroom.  It's had to design around a centre pipe.  It had to go.

And that standing water?  Not a good sign.

After days of breaking up old, thick concrete, the big plumber with the sore back told us that the copper had rusted away in places and the water had been draining directly into the soil under our floor instead of being whisked away through the pipe.  If we hadn't moved the water main, we wouldn't have known that and our basement would have flooded in time.  Good timing then.

And why did that big plumber have such a sore back?  Because the 2 days job was actually 5 days of jackhammering and carrying lumps of concrete and clay up the stairs (or out the window).  And then mixing heavy concrete and filling it back in. 

Now we have a sump pump (which has not once to our knowledge turned on because the water IS draining away through our new pipe) and a backflow preventer.  Both good things.  Ugly things, non-photogenic things but things that will keep our floors dry.

And the big pipe is now about 6 feet over, allowing us to have a bathroom and 2 bedrooms!  Yay! 

It's still not pretty, but 5 months later, this is where we are.

That's the corner where the toilet will go, and that's the shower that I can't wait to put into use.  There will be a light above the shower, and I sure hope the vanity lights will light up that toilet corner.  I have been assured that it will be fine.

The drywaller ran out of time today to finish the vanity area and the concrete-board areas above the shower.  We're still trying to think of creative ways to hide the water meter (which couldn't be moved) and the cleanout drain without blocking in the toilet.  

How do you search for that on Pinterest?  I'm getting nothing. We'll figure something out though.  It will likely be something custom built by our builder.  He seemed to have some ideas.

And the non-drywalled portion of this wall is going to be a built-in storage unit from IKEA. 

Two of these beside each other fill the space between two studs perfectly. 

Lots and lots of mudding and taping and then it'll be our turn to paint, tile and lay some flooring.  I can't wait!