649 6th

ten days without a crapper

Lot of people have asked how we did it. You think DIY only applies to home renovation? Well for this do-it-yourself, the simple truth is I made good use of office facilities. Not sure why but this causes nervous laughter in some. And it's not like there aren't any functioning drains on the property.

But I gladly trade all the potty jokes and water conservation to regain the ease and comfort of my very own commode. Seen here in demure mode.

What's that beside it? Oh, that would be the new tub. Not a trick of the camera; tub is both shorter and deeper than standard.  Haven't given it the  68 gallon test yet, but if shallow soaks are any indicaton then full depth will be an immersive experience.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.

on the bathroom floor

what a dump

Good demo. No injuries, no unintended property damage, and didn't find much in the way of problems. Reframing tomorrow would be pretty simple, if we hadn't just agreed to pull about half the floor to sister the joists where our 68 gallon tub's about to go. And so the plumber has full access for all the new pipe we're gonna need (yeah, we're ditching the PVC). And while he's at: pull and rerun the steam line to 2nd floor.

Plus we took down the privacy palisade in the back yard. Yep, we're double-timing the job site. Tomorrow while we're decommissioning the toilet, we've arranged to have chain link installed. Everyone's very excited about extended sight lines, collateral gardening, and increased sunlight. Like the man said: good fences make good neighbors.

Shout out to Charles and Douglas for their awesome help today, and to Conor and Nina for the drop in. House feels more like a home every time we get to share it with friends.

deliverance

10 cubic yard card container: check.
White Kohler fixtures: check.
Rough valves for lavatory and tub: check.

I even scheduled an electrician to come next Monday and wire a dedicated circuit for the radiant heat mat we're going to lay under tile floor.

Estimated delivery on the custom finish faucets and trim: July 17. What could have been a disaster for our schedule has been down-graded to a mere inconvenience. Stay tuned for news on how well we manage to rig an outdoor shower.

the bathroom design

Talking to plumber the other day was an eye opener. Seems obvious now, but to hear him say he'd need the faucets to do the rough plumbing made target date for this seem suddenly much further away. We'd been a bit picky with the faucet selection and hadn't quite gotten around to actually placing an order -- for the white custom finish trim plumbing that had quickly become something of a lynch pin in our plan.

That's when I threw myself on the mercy of Catherine at Faucet.com. She'd been incredibly helpful when we placed the fixture order and had given us several suggestions regarding faucets. I found what I was looking for on Newport Brass's online catalog, but was jammed against a looming deadline and the aforementioned white finish. Then it occured to me that the plumber only needs the rough valves right now and that Catherine might be able to fill my order in sections. Sure enough -- the stocked, rough valves are on their way by express delivery and the order for custom finished trim pieces is being filed with Newport Brass. It'll be about 6 weeks before I know how well the design plan holds up to reality.

Fortunately, the toilet won't be out of commission for nearly that long.

triple threat

Here's the line-up for bathroom fixtures -- ours will all be white. Tub is a short soaker, only 4' long and almost 2' deep. Sink has a drop-in installation option, which we'll be using in conjunction with a slatted cedar vanity. I was keen to have a dual-flush toilet, but the online sales-point we used didn't carry any. Shame to see my green leanings so easily flushed down the toilet of convenience.

The terrazzo we liked at tile store were for full counters only so we switched to a 4" translucent, gray glass tile. One of the nice features of these tiles is that they don't need to be bullnosed for edge treatments. Other nice thing is that we got them at cost because they'd been special ordered and then not collected so store is eager to unload them.

start our engines

Had forgotten how much I enjoy sketching a design. We're in the middle of supply purchasing for the bathroom renovation. Fixtures are on order -- we'll post details tomorrow -- and narrowed our sights on slate tile. Sales person at our local tile shop steered us toward a porcelin tile with appearnce and texture of slate over the real thing. Spent much of remaining day mulling an optimized fit for large tiles (12"x12" and 12"x24"), which refined the design plan, particularly the dimensions of tub deck and placement of shower faucets. 

Also realized we're going to need a tile with bullnose pieces to finish external corners of tub deck. Tenative plan is for a white terrazzo with black and gray chips.

Note the floating ceiling. It'll be finished with cedar closet liners as will the wall you're looking through and a portion of the side walls. Full specturm flourescent light will wash down near and far walls and spots will highlight the adjacent walls. Oh and vanity lights on either side of mirror over lavatory. Anything worth lighting is worth over-lighting, but this is also the only fully enclosed room in the entire house.

Demo can't be too far around the corner. We've got a contingency plan for loss of toilet, but further suggestions are welcome.

and then there was one (how many times can I use this title?)

There's been a lot of hesitation lately regarding, "what's next?"

Conventional wisdom has won out and we are moving on to the last and final room in the house before beginning detail work on the upper floors and kitchen.

Logically it makes sense. Why have that last demo mess muck up freshly done finishes? Of course getting the bathroom going is about as logistically challenging as the kitchen; lots of supplies and lots of fixtures. I guess it goes without saying at this point, but we're planning to do it all ourselves. Here's hoping that work details we have mapped out on the white board holds true, and the ONE bathroom we have will not be out of commission for to terribly long. Timing notes and materials details to follow, but here's a first peak at the plans.