Repair-It

Also I found a dime from 1967 under the old vanity. Probably fell in while the house was originally being built. This goes with the boot prints on the wood wall paneling in my great room.

Took care of raising the floor area where the old vanity was built in, and also did the first floor patch/leveling.

For the vanity area, I cut a piece of plywood to fit and screwed it down. Then I cut a piece of cement board (Hardiebacker, 1/2") to fit on top of that. I applied a layer of thinset with a notched trowel knife and laid down the board on it, and screwed it to the plywood below. It is just below level so I can make that up with my floor patch product I think. To cut the Hardiebacker, I scored it heavily with a utility knife then broke it by pulling UP, as recommended.

The vanity will cover this area up but I plan to tile under it so I still need a proper floor.

First layer of floor patch. I decided to get premix rather than the Henry 555 stuff. I think this will be fine and it's way easier for an amateur. Also fixed an area by the vent. You are supposed to mist the surface with water and I forgot to do that on this part.

I knocked these tiles loose when removing the old vanity. I finally pulled them off the wall and I will continue scraping the old stuff off the wall (and tiles) so I can put some thinset on there and get them back on the wall. I'll grout after that with something matching, hopefully. I will update the outlet to GFCI with a new cover (and new covers for the light switches) when I am done to further modernize this bathroom.

Tiles back up. Thinset in place: Grouted! I used pre-mix sanded grout. This was my first grout experience ever. Tip: you will have to press really hard to hydraulically force the grout into the joints. Use a ~45° angle in both axes (along the joint and against the wall). Scrape off at a 90° angle and then sponge accordingly. Depending on how hard you press with the sponge, it will determine how deep or shallow your grout lines are. I tried to match the rest of them and actually it looks pretty damn good. I feel somewhat confident that I could replace the toilet paper holder or towel rack and repair any tile issues that may come from those jobs. I think I have some spare in the basement and I'd bet you can still buy this stuff anyway.

Floor work began today.

Some before shots: My floor patch/leveling job.

Arrived around 9am. An hour and 15 minutes later, finally started dry laying tile. That tool there is a tile cutter and it works like this one in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXiZ1ghd5Fs

Fast, neat, clean, silent. Basically it has a carbide wheel that rolls along the tile, scoring it and then you press down to snap off. It was pretty amazing. They only used the wet saw for corners and stuff like that.

10:40am. Working around the toilet flange. 11:30am. Dry fit enough pieces to feel comfortable working the rest of the job. They mixed up partial bags of the mortar at a time. And they used the best stuff (some kind of flex agent like latex which will help with my uneven floor). 1/2" trowel and he still had to back butter some pieces, and slop some down on the floor in places. He also had to pull up pieces a few times to add more since he wasn't getting full coverage on the tile (critical to avoid cracks later). He was very diligent and careful. 11:45am. Back section of the bathroom all laid down. The cat was content to be near all the work. 12:10pm. More slow work on the cement board that I put down where the old vanity was built into the floor. But his care was worth it as the pieces line up pretty well. Side note: about this time, he mentioned that if he was working on my kitchen instead, he would have been done by now. The kitchen works like you'd expect: use the notch trowel to lay some mortar and slap the tile down (even on the vinyl floor). Bathrooms are a whole different deal. Funny little story: Ian was very interested in the laser line tool and kept looking at it. I told him he shouldn't look at it, and he immediately went to grab some shades, which he said would allow him to look at it. I told him those were his welding goggles. 12:30pm. Working his way out of this starter area, in which he used an entire 50 pound bag of mortar. Yup. 1:30pm. Looking good. Made his way past the shower. The whole threshold issue. I am anxious to see how this looks after grout tomorrow. Starting to look good here. And it will be 100x better with grout. And a vanity. 1:45pm. Only 3 more pieces to go for the day's work. In his defense he did skip lunch. 2pm. Done laying tile for the day. Plan for tomorrow: mix up some quick setting mortar. He will add the latex agent. Also, grout. And possibly some kind of solution for the raised tile next to the threshold. And I think cleaning/polishing the thresholds so they look nice.

Day 2.

Arrived around 10:15am.

11:30am
First (still wet) grout pic: 12:30pm
Used fast-setting mortar for the last tiles. All tiles are now down. 4:30pm
Grout complete. May touch up places the following day (today). I would have really struggled to do this myself. Not because it's tile but because the floor had level issues. I could have poured that floor leveler as previously mentioned but I would have been over my head in that, too. It requires very precise water consistency and you have to work fast. The floor still isn't perfect but watching a pro labor over details knowing it would have taken me 3x as long was enlightening.

The younger brother is coming today to do a few things:
- Polish both old marble thresholds (maybe the upstairs, too)
- Sponge off any grout haze, and any other grout spots that may have dried on the tile
- Touch up any grout areas, as necessary
- Help trim the closet and entrance door, as necessary (the new tile is higher)

On the list for this room near term:
- Install toilet
- Install vanity and top, and faucet
- Replace toilet paper holder, towel rack and robe hook (back of door) with Moen Darcy matching brushed nickel accessories (will match the sink faucet and hopefully further distract the eye from the lime green tile) - this will require some patch work on the wall, which I am prepared for
- Replace ceiling light fixture with a rubbed bronze piece to match the vanity light
- Scrub the dirty wall grout areas with Soft Scrub and a stuff brush to help everything look new(er)

Rough numbers, probably looking at about $3,000 for what I will have into this bathroom by the end. 56% of that was in the professional floor installation. I could have done it for $2,000 if I did the floor myself, and even less if I used cheap Home Depot tile. Either way I think that is a cost effective bathroom update.

And not to bog the thread down with financial justification, but a full bathroom remodel baked into the price of the house (probably would have added $10-15k of market value) would have cost an additional $71.60/mo for 30 years (at $15k market value aka purchase price) and a total of almost $26k including interest. Versus 3 grand out of pocket, pay as I go. Just for one remodeled bathroom. Add other remodeling and you can see how that quickly gets out of hand, hence my preference for the pay-as-I-go approach (un-updated but cheaper house). For my situation, this is ideal.

Old light: New light: I got fancy and installed new switches with dimmer wheels for both the main light and vanity light. They work great with LED bulbs. I had to pick up a ground at each electrical box since the old switches were ungrounded (for shame).

Can't say I miss the bare bulb fixture, which has all the ambience of a crack house in the city.

I also updated the switch covers, and upgraded to a GFCI outlet by the vanity.

Original stuff: New stuff: Excuse the funny angle. Trying to save the vanity reveal for another post.

Toilet post.

I did not do as well for pics here because the work was messy, I was tired and it turned into a bit of a fiasco.

Quick summary of work to be done:
- Install new flange in floor
- Connect to old plumbing
- Put new bolts in flange
- Put wax ring on flange
- Install toilet

In reality, these are the steps I took:
- Cut pipe from basement
- Glue 3" coupler, using ABS to PVC cement
- The plan was to install a new PVC flange, glue a piece of PVC into it, and slip that into the coupler. We changed plans and I will explain later.
- I had the tile guys tile up to the old ABS flange. The plan was to drill holes in the new tile and concrete so the screws could bite into the plywood subfloor. This plan was complicated by the fact that the pipe was much closer to one side of the hole than the other. Below the front section, there was pretty much just air. Nothing for a screw to bite into. So with the tile overhanging the hole, I figured the flange could rest on that. Then we would add plywood below the screw.
- So we laid the new PVC flange on the tile, lined it up with the pipe below and were going to mark the holes when...we realized the new flange was kind of thick. You are supposed to install the flange to be flush with the finished floor, not above. So we went back to the store to get a different flange style. This was still PVC, but instead of being 100% PVC, it had a stainless steel ring around it with holes for mounting, and the johnny bolt slots. It was a little thinner. The issue is, the bottom of the toilet may not accommodate a tall flange + squish a wax ring. So the concern is the toilet may not get all the way to the floor. But I did some research on this and apparently this isn't as big a deal as we thought. Based on my research, plenty of guys install the flange on top of the new floor. The real danger is when the flange is BELOW the floor. That's when you have problems. But flush or a little above is not an issue. So we continued with the new flange.
- We lined it up and marked the holes. Instead of drilling, which we decided would be incredibly difficult (porcelain tile is HARD, HARD stuff), I decided to break out the 4-1/2" angle grinder. I got out the ear and eye PPE and went to town. I used up at least an inch of the grinding wheel and it made an incredible mess, and odor. I had to switch to a thin grinding disc and it took many attempts to grind the tile down to where the screws would have a clear shot through the floor.
- After all that mess and noise, I switched to concrete drill bits to drill through the poured concrete floor. This was a pain but easier than grinding the tile. Eventually, we had a clear shot with each of the six mounting screws straight down.
- Because the pipe is offset in the hole, we had to make up a new piece of plywood to fill in the hole. That way the screws had something to bite into. Without this, half of the screws wouldn't do anything.

This pic is of everything done, but from the bottom up:
Original ABS pipe, PVC coupler (green glue), PVC pipe, and that goes into a 3" furnco (will get to this later).

The point is, this shows the plywood filler piece we made. It is secured nicely to the subfloor above with 1-1/4" Deckmate screws (my favorite). Notice how it fits tightly around the furnco. The flange from the top. I would fit this up, try to put screws in it, and determine where I needed to keep grinding (or drilling the concrete). Hence the pencil marks in the floor. Yeah, this part was a royal pain. I guess this is a good time to introduce the next issue that happened when we switched flanges. The original plan, again, was an all-PVC flange with a 3" pipe glued in. We had that measured, cut and glued up. When we realized that flange may be a bit too thick, we switched to this one. Except instead of accepting a 3" pipe, it had an outlet the SAME SIZE as a 3" pipe. WTF! Hence the furnco. So what you see here, is the reverse of the stackup I went over before, which is:
Top flange, furnco (outside), PVC pipe, PVC coupler (outside), original black ABS pipe. After all that, it was pretty painless. Here it is with the six mounting screws (I had to use 4"!!), and the johnny bolts installed. Then put the wax ring on (I got one with the built-in reinforcement and sort of a funnel to better mate with the flange pipe in the floor). Next drop the toilet down and tighten the nuts. I worked them evenly until they stopped. No issues. I still had to shim the bottom, despite my hope that the larger tiles would have provided a leveling effect at the toilet. Shims. I had to do this when I first put these new toilets in last April so I was used to the procedure. Just shove in without actually bringing the toilet up. I score it with a utility knife, then remove, score more and break off (a vice works nicely). I probably put like 8 in, so the toilet would be evenly supported. This detail is critical, as it prevents toilet rocking, which can affect the wax ring seal and lead to leaks. It is worth it. I used composite shims which are strong and will not rot. We probably spent the entire afternoon Saturday into the evening just getting the flange situated. And didn't drop the toilet on until Sunday morning! But it is done and everything works with no leaks. I'm a little disappointed about the furnco (rubber coupled with worm gear clamps) but my father-in-law assures me they are good. Onto the vanity.