Bathroom Updaates Are Not For the Weak
I am presently a good 14 hours into a bathroom update (not counting the exhausted sleep of last night). This should have been a simple one day event.
Nope. Not in this house.
As some readers may know, anything troublesome in this house has its base in water. This project revealed another level of that problem.
I ventured into the project with the idea of pulling up the old vinyl because, due to some odd staining, I believed there to be mold growing beneath it. The other simple part of the project was to replace an old, water-hogging toilet and faucet. The vinyl was stubborn and finally came up but left its felt backing stuck to the subfloor. Apparently someone had used what I like to call "adhesive-from-hell".
So off to Lowe's to find an antidote to adhesive-from-hell. That accomplished the goo was applied. Oddly enough even after using the entire bottle and three hours of waiting and scraping nothing was happening. Upon closer inspection a "mushy" area was pulled up and VOILA! the full scope of the insanity was revealed.
Some moron had decided to use drywall as the subfloor (actually midfloor) in the bathroom. Drywall, the stuff that will hold on to moisture for a few millennia. So OF COURSE there was mold growing in it, sitting under the vinyl the stuff never had a chance to dry out.
At this point I feel it is important to remind one and all that I have asthma and that mold is my primary allergen. You can understand my aggravation at this discovery.
The day started at 9:30 a.m. It was not until 10:00 p.m. that the drywall floor had been fully removed, mold killer applied and allowed to dry and the toilet installed. The only tile installed so far is the part under the actual toilet. Nails holding the drywall in were spaced (and I kid you not) two inches apart all over the floor. I have removed some but for most merely pounded them the rest of the way in, having the innate and somewhat cartoonish fear that pulling up just one more nail would send me and the fixtures into the basement. It had, after all been a Wyle E. Coyote kind of day.
It is now 9:15 on Day 2 and I am waiting for the mold killer solution to dry so I can finish the tile, put back all the baseboards and consider whether or not I want to kill myself installing the faucet or let that sucker go for another week. I probably had a touch of tendinitis in my hammering forearm and God knows the lower back is non too happy with me at the moment. But I have Advil and what's left of a three-day weekend so this too shall pass.
Nope. Not in this house.
As some readers may know, anything troublesome in this house has its base in water. This project revealed another level of that problem.
I ventured into the project with the idea of pulling up the old vinyl because, due to some odd staining, I believed there to be mold growing beneath it. The other simple part of the project was to replace an old, water-hogging toilet and faucet. The vinyl was stubborn and finally came up but left its felt backing stuck to the subfloor. Apparently someone had used what I like to call "adhesive-from-hell".
So off to Lowe's to find an antidote to adhesive-from-hell. That accomplished the goo was applied. Oddly enough even after using the entire bottle and three hours of waiting and scraping nothing was happening. Upon closer inspection a "mushy" area was pulled up and VOILA! the full scope of the insanity was revealed.
Some moron had decided to use drywall as the subfloor (actually midfloor) in the bathroom. Drywall, the stuff that will hold on to moisture for a few millennia. So OF COURSE there was mold growing in it, sitting under the vinyl the stuff never had a chance to dry out.
At this point I feel it is important to remind one and all that I have asthma and that mold is my primary allergen. You can understand my aggravation at this discovery.
The day started at 9:30 a.m. It was not until 10:00 p.m. that the drywall floor had been fully removed, mold killer applied and allowed to dry and the toilet installed. The only tile installed so far is the part under the actual toilet. Nails holding the drywall in were spaced (and I kid you not) two inches apart all over the floor. I have removed some but for most merely pounded them the rest of the way in, having the innate and somewhat cartoonish fear that pulling up just one more nail would send me and the fixtures into the basement. It had, after all been a Wyle E. Coyote kind of day.
It is now 9:15 on Day 2 and I am waiting for the mold killer solution to dry so I can finish the tile, put back all the baseboards and consider whether or not I want to kill myself installing the faucet or let that sucker go for another week. I probably had a touch of tendinitis in my hammering forearm and God knows the lower back is non too happy with me at the moment. But I have Advil and what's left of a three-day weekend so this too shall pass.
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