Getting plumbed

The plumber made his first appearance at our remodel Friday and got right to work getting the drain pipes setup for the new bathroom and the sink hookups in the old bathroom.




Hookups for old bathroom vanity




Drain pipe for new bathroom vanity




Shower drain




View of vanity drain and new exterior light hookup (relocated about 8 feet to the left of previous location)




Close up view of removed roof section where new bathroom will connect to house.

The plumber will return Monday to finish the hookups to the old bathroom and set the new tub in its place.

Location:Dunsmuir Ave,Ventura,United States

Tub arrives

The last couple days the work has been focused inside the bathroom area and on the upstairs deck where the bathroom will be extended almost ten feet from the current edge of the house. Inside they removed the wall and pocket door separating the two sections of the old bathroom and prepped the area where the new tub will go:









Outside the cut into the surface of the upstairs deck and started adding reinforcing wood planks and also prepped it for running waste and electrical lines.





The also cut out the roof overhang in the section where the bathroom will be extended out.





And from the inside:





When they are done the roof line will look like this:




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Dunsmuir Ave,Ventura,United States

Old bathroom gone

Today was the first day I really felt we had reached the point of no return. Today virtually the entire bathroom was gutted. The only things left were a few towel racks, a toilet paper holder, the shower head, and the ugly lights above the vanity, all of which will be removed eventually in favor of new fixtures. Everything was taken out through the opening created by cutting out the stucco outside the smaller portion of the bathroom. The opening was covered up by two large sheets of plywood.



Where the old vanity and mirror used to be.




Toilet gone




Tub gone




Pocket door, small vanity, and mirror removed.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Dunsmuir Ave,Ventura,United States

Concrete pour

Made some strides today. First the city gave us their second blessing in as many days giving Duane, our contractor, the green light to fill in the giant holes he and his crew dug for the reinforcing pillars and rebar.

Before filling:








During filling:




After filling:



Here the kids are doing a little concrete art:












While the inspector was inspecting and during the concrete pour Duane and his crew began the upstairs demo by taking out the exterior stucco. This is where the new bath will connect to the old bath. The small frosted window in the middle of the cutout will be saved and be used in the new bath facing south.





They also reconnected the water line to the kitchen so for the first time in three days we can actually do dishes. Oh wait, maybe that's not so good.

Before being disconnected:



Without water:



With water:




It was necessary to disconnect the water because a support beam had to be installed right where the water lines cross (note the new beam in the two bottom pictures. A slight cut had to be made into the beam to allow the water lines to connect and not bulge out.

Tomorrow the workers will bust through that upstairs section and into the house, beginning the interior demo by taking out just about everything in the old bathroom, including toilets, vanities, mirrors, lights, tub, etc.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Dunsmuir Ave,Ventura,United States

Week 2 - Exterior demo continues

We are into week 2 of our remodel and the workers continue to hammer away outside. They've removed a large section of stucco from the outside of the house by the downstairs bathroom in order to install extra support for the additional weight from the upstairs bathroom. They will have to remove another section of stucco outside of the family room wall for the same purpose. They've also dug large holes immediately below these areas because the new supports will extend several feet down into the ground and through the concrete foundation. It's taken them a few extra days to do this because the foundation was about two feet thicker than what the initial house blueprints had indicated. So it's been a very noisy few days with the jackhammer constantly pounding and 4 ft long drill bits screwing into the concrete.











Fortunately we passed our initial inspection by the city this morning so things are looking good. The contractor expects to pour concrete to fill these holes later this afternoon. More stucco will be removed by the downstairs bathroom to make room for the large support paneling that will attach to the top of the steel supports screwed into the foundation (last picture above).

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Dunsmuir Ave,Ventura,United States

Demo begins!

After what seemed like an eternity our long awaited bathroom remodel project has begun. We started this process back in January, selecting a contractor and meeting with him several times over the course of the next two months finalizing a plan. Duane, our contractor, drew up some blueprints and after consulting with an engineer and making some minor adjustments submitted them to the city for approval. The city took an annoyingly long six weeks to issue the permit to begin work and we are now off to the races.

We took advantage of the downtime during the permit process to purchase several thousand dollars worth of bathroom materials, including a 13x10 ft granite slab for our two brand new vanity countertops, four sinks and four faucets, one bathtub, and two tilting mirrors. We've picked out, though not yet purchased, all the tile, the glass for the shower, shower fixtures, two toilets, two large medicine cabinets, and lights.
Turns out that the delay in starting the project was beneficial, not only because it provides us time to pick out the materials we wanted to use, but also because we had a couple late season storms that dumped some rain here.
So now we are ready to go. Days one and two have been exclusively outside prep work. The outside stairs leading from the upstairs deck to the back yard are being removed. We rarely used them and the wood was rotting quite a bit so the decision was made to get rid of them. Removing the stairs will also allow us to get another six inches of space in our bathroom extension on the deck. The workers are also prepping the area for the installation of sheer panelling that is needed to support the added weight of the bathroom. That work included cutting into the stucco and digging several feet below the house where the support beams and panelling will be installed.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Dunsmuir Ave,Ventura,United States

The Problem Bath

Our Concorde style house is one of many in our neighborhood that share the same exact floor plan. For the most part they are well designed and laid out. Generously sized, roughly 1800-2200 sq ft. 3 bedrooms (including a large Master), 2 separate living spaces downstairs including a full size living room with a fireplace and a den that leads into the attached garage, a decent sized kitchen, and a huge back yard. Our house being on a corner lot benefitted from a slightly larger lot size than average but even the standard lot size afforded a generous yard (both front and back). Our house also benefitted from an expansion that a previous owner had done to the den, which added over 200 sq ft to the existing space. It was this extra space in the den along with the huge yard space that had me sold on this house right away.

But...the upstairs bathroom "situation" was almost a deal breaker for Lisa. It's probably the oddest bathroom ever designed. Technically, it counts as 1 1/2 baths, with a pocket door separating two sections, the larger of which has an entrance from the hallway and the other an entrance from the master bedroom. The room is situated between the master bedroom and the middle bedroom, which currently is the kids room. The portion of the bathroom that exits to the hallway is the "1" of that 1 1/2. It has a long vanity (but only one sink), a tub shower, and a toilet. The other section contains a small vanity with one sink and a toilet.




This is the larger portion of the bathroom. Toilet is to the right and not pictured.



This shows the pocket door dividing the two sides.



This is the smaller portion taken from the master bedroom.

The idea, I'm sure, was to provide as much bathroom space to all three upstairs bedrooms and at the same time give the master bedroom something resembling a master bath. I get what the developers were trying to do but it just doesn't work, especially when guests are staying with us. During these times we have to close off the small portion of the bathroom to give the guests access to a private bathroom so they don't have to make the trek downstairs in the dark. But they still generally use the downstairs bathroom for bathing, which is inconvenient at best. And pretty soon the kids will be needing a bathroom of their own for use during the night.

So what's the solution to this oddity? We considered two ideas. The first was to make use of the existing space and possibly stealing a couple feet from the master bedroom to create two separate bathrooms. This wouldn't really give us as big a master bath as we wanted but was vastly superior to what we currently have. The second and somewhat more radical proposal was to bust out the outside wall in the small bathroom and use up about 70 square feet on our upstairs patio which have never used for anything but a few plants.




Our upstairs patio. The closest rectangular window is above the vanity in the small bathroom.

After consulting with our contractor, who subsequently consulted with a structural engineer, it was determined that the second and more desirable proposal was structurally possible. Although significantly more costly this would give us a lot more space to work with and allow us to leave our roomy master bedroom untouched.

So the plan, which just this last week finally got all the necessary approvals from the city (after almost 6 weeks), involves replacing all the fixtures, both vanities, toilets, and the one tub, with all new stuff. Both vanities will have granite countertops, each taken from the same slab:





The wall with the pocket door that separates the two sides will be filled in. The larger side will the have the same configuration as it does now, just with new everything, including a 6 foot double sink vanity, vessel style faucets, and two tilting oval mirrors.

The new master bath will be amazing. The sole entrance will be from the master bedroom. As it does now it will lead into the small portion with the toilet, but a right turn will take you into the newly expanded section on the upstairs deck. Immediately upon entering the new section there will be a frameless shower to the right with a small bench inside. On the west wall will be a 6 foot double sink vanity. Above the vanity will be two separate mirrored medicine cabinets recessed 4 inches into the wall. Each cabinet will have two lights on either side. There will be one additional light inside the shower.

Demo is set to begin this coming Tuesday and the work is expected to take two to three months.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad