A wee bit of progress..

We've been working on the bathroom every day that Dug is on vacation and we are seeing progress. We are in the building-back-up stage. Finally! The main reason we gutted our bathroom in the first place was because we had some water issues. The bathtub/shower had been put together poorly and it was leaking into our basement. Not good. The linoleum had some discoloration from water damage, the floor plan was less than stellar and our toilet had seen much brighter days. Oh, and we were using an adjustable wrench to turn the hot water on and off and the shower drain was slower than molasses in a blizzard.

side story-
When you think about things that can be devastated by children, one's first thought does not go to the toilet. But, alas, toilets are not impervious to my young ones. The porcelain throne's first injury was dealt by my oldest daughter. The tank lid didn't sit fully on the tank because the toilet was built in too close to the wall. (One example of the faulty floor plan.) The back side of the lid sat on the tank edge. Daughter #1 leaned on it in a funny way and it fell off. I think she was 3 or 4 at the time. It broke in two pieces. Dug fixed it with epoxy, but didn't realize the tube was for gray and not white. So our poor, white toilet had a jagged gray scar on its tank lid. Injury part deux occurred when Daughter #2 dropped a large glass candle holder into the poor toilet. It knocked out a hole about the size of my index finger in the bottom of the bowl, which proceeded to empty its contents onto the floor. The "upside" was that it had been recently flushed. I was so grateful. Odds like that don't come my way every day. So prior to the gutting, the john had two scars: a toilet's equivalent of a knife slash and gunshot wound. Poor thing. He never saw it coming.)
-end of side story

back to main story:

For defining purposes, when I say gutted, I mean gutted. The only things left standing are the studs and floor. The linoleum and sub-floor had been removed so we are standing on the actual floor boards, which, if removed, would leave a gaping hole into the basement. So, what do we do? Why remove them, of course. Not all, just a few. Some of the floor boards and part of the framing boards had rotted from the leak. With the kitchen wall gone, we had a hole from the kitchen through the bathroom, down into the basement. The picture of my kids peering down from the kitchen counter was taken by me while I was standing in the basement, looking up through the bathroom floor. Or, more correctly, where the bathroom floor formerly was located. They think this whole renovation thing is pretty fun.

Side note: My youngest son, who is three, does not remember there ever being a bathroom there. He wasn't yet two when we destroyed it. In his mind, having a gutted, non-working room in your house is completely normal. Wierd, huh?

Today we fixed the floor. It was so cool. It was progress. We took what was once a hole and made it whole again. (I just reread that, and that's just funny.) What accomplishment. Even though it was small in the grand scope of the entire project, it was still movement forward. And I'm all for forward momentum...

Here are a couple pictures of the beautiful fresh wood stuffs. The first one is from inside the bathroom. We put the new piece of floor in and replaced the missing framing 2x4 along the base of the wall.


This second one is from the basement looking up. You can see where we had to put in 2x4 pieces to attach and shore up the replacement piece.


That's all for now...I'll keep you posted.