In my last post about the master bathroom, I had picked up the baseboards and glued together the two pieces that would form the whole. They were now ready to be installed. I did this along the long walls first, then went into the toilet alcove, where I had a bit of an issue that was a consequence of a poor job of tiling that area. Recall that I had to wait on new tiles to finish that area. When I got back to it, I focused my attention on making sure they aligned well enough with the existing tiles. I didn’t think about whether they were sloped or not. Unfortunately, there was a slope, and one that was too large to ignore. Even though the gaps were behind where the toilet would be, and therefore not especially obvious, I still wanted to see what I could do with them to make it less obvious. So I cut out and fashioned a couple of custom strips of wood and glued them in place to fill the gaps. Although I don’t have a “before” picture, you can see from the strip I put in, that it was not trivial.

Once the glue dries and they area caulked and painted, they will look much better and be virtually invisible.

As you come out of the alcove, the wall makes a turn that produces a rather sharp outside corner. The angle here is 68 degrees. Cutting the baseboard in the usual way would make this a very pointy outside corner, and one that would be susceptible to damage. So I explored creating a three piece outside corner, kind of like what you see below.

However, after many attempts and modeling in SketchUp, I could not get this to work. I believe this is because I have such a complicated profile, a more acute angle, and a sharp (not bull-nose) corner. The situation shown above is intended to deal with a bull-nose corner. It’s pretty simple because the angle is 90 degrees and most of the baseboard is flat. At least that is my sense of it. Perhaps one day I’ll figure it out. Unfortunately, I could not find anything online to show how to deal with such a situation, which made me feel like it wasn’t doable. So I needed an alternative. I decided to create an outside corner block. Kind of like this.

So I started building one. Here are the three pieces before gluing them together.

The two outside parts of the block are built up from two thinner pieces of stock in order to give them some heft. The middle piece ties them together as you can see below after I glued the three pieces together.

With this arrangement, I can simply butt the baseboard to the ends of this corner block. The corner block presents a flat face as you round the corner, making it more resilient to knocks. To dress it up a little, I added a decorative top using basecap. Here it is in the raw.

The block part is painted, but the basecap is not. In this image, I had just glued it together and placed it on top of the block. I then put it in position without fastening it to see how it looked.

The short piece of baseboard that butts up to it in the image above is not fastened either. I just placed it there to see how it looked.

The basecap is not as flush with the wall as I’d like, but it was very tricky to get those angles perfect. To get it to fit just right, I’d have to modify the angle of each of the four pieces by a small fraction of a degree. You can’t just modify one of them because the profiles won’t line up. I decided not to risk it and will let the caulking fill those gaps. It’ll look just fine.

After a bit of sanding and painting, the corner block was done and I could finally finish the baseboard installation. Here are several shots from different angles.

One could question the value in putting baseboard along the entire length of the vanity wall, since most of it will be covered up by the vanity. My vanity has legs, so if you get down low enough you can see it. So I decided just to do it.

Where the baseboard meets the tiled shower walls, I added a return to terminate it nicely. Here’s a closeup of one of them.

In the above image you can see the outside corner block and how the baseboard ties into it. Here are some closeups.

I think it looks pretty good and will stand up much better to knocks than if I’d mitered the two pieces at that corner. And here’s a look inside the toilet alcove.

In the image above you can also see the toilet flange I had just installed in preparation for the toilet, which I did next. Here it is.

And here’s one with the seat up. Sorry, just clean water in there.

This was my very first toilet installation. It was all new to me, and I got kind of lucky with it. The toilet only just fit. The center of the toilet flange is supposed to be 12″ from the finished wall. Mine was 11 1/2″, which was a mistake due to not taking the thickness of the drywall into account. Online, some people claimed they prefer to use 11 1/2″ to get a tighter fit, which gave me some relief back when I first realized my mistake. I was hopeful I would get away with it. In the end, I did, but 11 1/2″ was not appropriate here. I had no wiggle room at all. The back of the toilet is right against the wall, and with my rather beefy baseboards, there is only about 1/8″ of clearance between the baseboard and the base of the toilet. Another stroke of luck was that the tank lid is the same size around as the tank. In my experience, is not that common. I’m used to it being larger, like a lid of a jar. Consequently the lid fits on the tank as intended.

With the baseboard done and the toilet installed, I could now move the vanity into place. Upon doing so, I discovered that I could not push the vanity right up to the wall. The back legs were directly inline with the back of the cabinet rather than inset. Consequently, the thickness of the baseboard prevented it from lying flat against the wall. There was about an inch gap.

I turned the vanity upside down on the floor to explore my options. I was hoping the legs would come off and that I could reposition them, but wasn’t optimistic about that. Since the vanity is quite heavy and would require very sturdy legs, simple screw-in legs were unlikely, which was what I discovered. I also considered cutting the baseboard just enough to let the feet slide in, but I wasn’t keen on that. The baseboard should not need to accommodate the vanity. One day I may decide I want to change it out for another one. In the end I decided to modify the back legs of the vanity to accommodate the baseboard. So I marked out what I wanted to cut, and got started.

In the image above you can see how I traced out the baseboard profile in order to minimize what needed to be cut (keep in mind it is upside down). I wanted to preserve as much of the foot as possible, which wasn’t very much. I started my cut with a back saw, but had to complete it with a panel saw because the plate of the back saw could not take it all the way. The image below is of the other leg.

Once the cut was complete and cleaned up a bit with a chisel, it looked like this.

Here is a shot with a piece of baseboard held up to it so you can see how it fits.

There will be a screw-in pad under the leg, so there is plenty of room for the baseboard.

Although the back legs look like stiletto heals, they are quite strong. They are made of solid wood, so once the vanity is in place, it would be well supported with just that amount of wood. However, I would be less confident if it was moved around a lot. So I decided to use the off-cuts to bolster them. Each leg received the off-cut of the other in order to keep the finished side out. Although you have to go out of your way to see these legs, this makes them less conspicuous should you try.

These were attached with glue and brad nails, which was plenty. However, I decided to add a wedge to fill the gap, just to be extra careful.

Although the support wedge is a different color, it is set in a bit, so from above it is not visible.

I then plugged the hole at the bottom that would receive the plastic pad. I couldn’t simply reuse the existing hole because it was angled. So I glued a dowel in and let it sit overnight before drilling a new hole that would go straight down.

The new hole was then drilled and the threaded insert put into the hole, followed by the plastic pad.

After both pads were added to the modified legs, I was able to move the vanity cabinet into its final location.

The blue tape on the wall marks the center between the where the vanity lights will go. It is now sitting flush with the wall, as you can see below. The vanity will not be fastened to the wall. It will simply sit against the wall like a dresser in the bedroom. It’s very heavy, especially with the marble top, so I am not concerned about it shifting if it is knocked.

I also added the angle stops for the sink supply lines.

I had to widen the opening in the shelf below the right sink to make room for the the drain.

The next task with respect to the vanity, was to put the marble top in place. It is a massive thing and something I could not do on my own. With the help of a couple of neighbors, we managed to put it in place.

The backsplash came in two pieces that simply butt together. Unfortunately, one of them was not quite square, so when I pushed them together, there was a gap. I used my angle grinder to straighten it, after which they came together nicely. I used silicone to secure it to the marble top, then applied a bead of silicone at the seem between the top of the backsplash and the wall. That should hold it. I didn’t want to apply silicone to the back of the backsplash to adhere it to the wall because I wanted to minimize any damage to the wall should I choose to change out the vanity some day. If I ever did need to remove the backsplash, the bead of silicone between it and the wall would only require minimal repair to the drywall, if any.

The faucets were added next.

After that, the drain and supply lines needed to be hooked up.

With that done, I now have a functioning bathroom. The vanity lights and mirrors still need to be added, along with other bits and pieces (like towel rods, etc.). At the moment I’m not sure whether I want to have a single large mirror or two smaller ones. Decisions like this can be made much later, even when I’m living in the house, so I will put them off so that I can start work on the guest bathroom.

One more thing before we go. In the June/July post I talked about installing the hot water heater. At that time I had not yet had my work inspected. During this month I had the inspection done, but failed. I needed to add a pressure relief valve between the main supply line and the hot water heater. I was under the impression the relief valve that came with the tank was sufficient, but the inspector informed me that it was for relieving pressure when the temperature was too great. The valve I needed was to relieve pressure when the water pressure from the city fluctuates. That is, at different times of day it can change. An adjustable pressure relief valve is needed to keep the pressure consistent. So I have since installed it, as shown below.

As you can see, I tee-ed off the main cold water line (purple primer everywhere). The PRV has a dial at the top of it (left in the image above since the valve is installed on its side) that is used to adjust the pressure to what you want. If the pressure exceeds that, the excess will flow out the line going down and out of the garage.

This was just inspected, and I passed. So on to the guest bathroom.

Returning my attention to the master bathroom, the objective was to make it a functioning bathroom. This did not mean it would be fully finished; only finished enough that I could use it if I was living in the house. So I did not intend to go so far as have the baseboard done and entrance door installed.

I began by painting the previously primed walls. I used the paint recommended by my designer and was very happy with the choice. It was a color match of Sherwin Williams Alabaster. I got it at Home Depot under Behr Dynasty with a satin finish.

You’ll also notice from the pictures above that I installed the outlets, switches, lights, fans (toilet and shower), and A/C grates. All are new, except the light in the toilet alcove and the A/C grates. They just needed a bit of cleaning. I thought the original light fixture I installed in the toilet alcove was perfectly fine for that location.

Another thing I did was reinstall the sun tunnel. This took a bit of work. In an older post I mentioned that I wanted to relocate the sun tunnel to be centered on the entrance hall. After making the required changes for that, I just left it dangling, to deal with another day. To be perfectly honest, I was not looking forward to putting it back together in the new location. In the new location, the tunnel part only just reached, leaving some gaps in the reflective foil part on the inside of the tunnel. So I was going to have to come up with a way to patch it. Furthermore, the face-place (the part that surrounds the diffuser) was a bit yellowed, so that would have to be addressed. After scuffing up the surface of the face-plate with some sand paper to prepare it for primer, I gave it two coats, followed by two coats of clear satin. I was very pleased the result. It looked brand new. In between coats, I worked on the diffuser, cleaning it up.

With the faceplate dry, I installed it. That went better than expected. A little widening of the existing opening and it went into place nicely. I then pulled the tunnel part into it and fastened it in place. I used heavy aluminum foil and some foil tape to patch the gaps, which worked like a charm. You’d never know it was patched. I then put the diffuser in place and it looked just great – as if it had always been there. Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures of the process. I was too focused on solving the problem to think about documenting it, so you’ll have to settle for this description and the final result you see in the pictures above.

I originally thought I’d set the shower pan next, but after some thought I decided it would be better to first put down the underlayment for the tile flooring in the main part of the bathroom. The plan was to create a curbless shower, which meant that the shower pan would have to align with the surface of the main flooring. By putting the underlayment material down first, I would have an actual target to shoot for rather than a theoretical target where I’d have to calculate the height of the shower pan including the additional height of the underlayment and thickness of the thin-set mortar. So I started on that.

The underlayment material is a product by the company Schluter, and is called DITRA. It is a polyethylene membrane with a fleece on the bottom. It serves to separate the tile that will go on top from the concrete slab beneath. By separating the tile from the slab in this way, you reduce the likelihood of the tile cracking as a result of minor slab movement. The DITRA membrane is installed directly to the slab using thin-set mortar.

Before mixing up the mortar, I unrolled sections of DITRA and used scissors to cut it to fit the floor.

I cut two large sections first before tackling the more fiddly bits. Here are a couple of shots after the dry fit was complete.

With that done, I mixed up the thin-set and adhered it to the floor. Here are the results.

With that done, I turned my attention to the shower pan. The shower area is recessed about 4-1/2″ below the bathroom floor. I will be using a Schluter preformed shower pan that provides a consistent slope from the edge to the drain. The preformed shower pan is 1-1/4″ thick and is to be placed on top of a flat surface. This means that I must raise the recessed shower area by about 3-1/4″ so that when the preformed pan is placed on top of it, it aligns with the bathroom floor. To do that I used dry-pack mortar, which is a 4:1 mix of sand to cement. It is mixed with just enough water to make it like wet sand you would play with at the beach when building a sand castle.

I mixed the dry-pack in buckets and dumped them into the shower area one at a time.

I ended up using 13 55lb bags. When I started this, I was using a single bucket, but switched to using two buckets and dividing the contents of a single bag between them. The contents of the bag almost completely filled a single bucket, making the mixing precarious. It was difficult to avoid spilling some of it onto the floor. Also, that full bucket was really heavy. By using two buckets, I was able to mix the contents more aggressively and each bucket was easier to lift. I used a dolly to move the two buckets from where I did the mixing to the bathroom, so I only had to carry each bucket from the entrance of the bathroom to the dumping area. Still, at the end of the day, I was feeling it.

After dumping the contents of the buckets, I used a small garden hand trowel and concrete float to spread it out. After 13 trips, I brought it up to this level.

I used a 2×4 as a screed, a level (of course), and the concrete float to smooth it out. It is just shy of the desired height, but it is pretty flat. Once cured I thought I’d use a self leveling compound to bring it up just a bit more, but after thinking it over I decided not to do that. The bed was pretty flat and level and I only needed to bring it up a tiny bit, so I decided to use the left over DITRA I had to cover it. Also, note the 4″ collar I have around the drain, that proved to be a mistake, which I’ll discuss shortly.

The next day, after the thin-set used to set the DITRA membrane had cured, I placed the preformed shower pan in place just to see how it looked and lined up with the edges of the bathroom floor.

This is about as tight a fit as you want, so I was happy with that. It remains a bit lower than the bathroom floor, but better that than high. Also, I think I know how I’m going to transition from the floor tile to the shower floor tile, so having the shower pan a little lower should be okay.

Back to the 4″ collar issue I mentioned. I made a silly mistake when I put that in place. Instead, I should have used 5″ PVC pipe as the collar. This is because the Schluter drain widens from the 2″ opening that connects to the drain pipe to just over 4″ near the drain opening. This means that it will not fit into the space I created around the drain pipe you see above. Fortunately, if I remove the 4″ collar, I should have just enough room to make it fit. The issue then became, how do I remove the collar. It is well secured within the dry pack mud bed. After some thought I realized that once I cut the drain pipe down to its final level, it will be below the collar by enough to allow me to use my inside pipe cutter to take off just enough of the collar to make room for the drain. So that was how I proceeded.

To cut the drain to the desired height, I purchased a new inside pipe cutter specifically for 2″ PVC. Unlike my current cutter, which is like a mini saw blade that you slowly move within the pipe, this one removes the section of pipe in one swift motion. More importantly though, it makes a straight cut, which is helpful when trying to ensure the drain is level. Before cutting the drain down to final height, I tried it out by first removing a section to make sure it worked as expected.

After that I did it again, but this time to the final height, which was a couple of inches below the floor. The entire drain installation was dicey and had my full attention, consequently I forgot to take pictures of the intermediate stages. So my description will have to suffice.

After cutting the drain down to final height, I cut away the outer collar to about the same height as the drain pipe. This worked, but was not as simple as that. The drain pipe was not perfectly centered in the middle of the collar. Because I was not expecting it to be a tight fit, I didn’t give that much thought when I put in the mud bed. Although cutting away the collar provided most of the room I needed, one side was still too tight, so I had to grind away at the hardened mud to open it up a bit. This was very time consuming and frustrating. I managed to get the drain level, but it’s not perfect. I’m sure it will be fine, but this is why experience is so important. It shouldn’t have been this difficult. I’ll do better next time. Here is the drain after it was glued into place.

The drain flange is supported by a Styrofoam ring that is placed under the flange and packed with thin-set.

This was left to cure overnight. To complete the waterproofing, I put down the preformed pan and sealed all remaining gaps and seems using Kerdi Band.

The drain flange is completely surrounded by the preformed pan, but the interface between it and the pan only becomes water tight once the donut shaped Kerdi membrane is fixed in place using thin-set.

Once all the thin-set is cured, the shower pan was filled with water to make sure there are no leaks. You can see the red plug in the drain that will be used for that. The pan was filled as high as it could be without water flowing onto the bathroom floor, as shown below. Although hard to see, there is water in the pan.

It was left for 24 hours and the water level checked to make sure it remains the same. I scheduled an inspection and it was approved.

With the shower waterproofed, it was time to start putting down the floor tile in the main bathroom area. Before doing this, a lot of thought needed to go into how to lay it out. I used SketchUp to try several approaches. The first attempt was to simply lay them out right beside each other, as you see below. I thought it looked pretty good, so it remained a contender.

In the first try I made no attempt to clean up the layout to match the floor plan, which is why there are tiles extending outside it. In my next few attempts I played around with shifting the columns. I tried a 50% offset (not shown), followed by a 1/3 offset, shown below.

In this layout, I have a full tile at the entrance and the tiles are offset by 1/3rd with a stair step pattern from right to left. I didn’t go with this because it introduced too many small tiles as you can see at the top and by the entrance.

So I modified it slightly to have the stepping go up from the center row to the left and also go up from the center row to the right. Look closely and you’ll see what I mean.

Also notice that I flipped the center row so that the full tile is now on top. This made better use of the tiles, reducing the number of small tiles. I played around with several other layouts, but liked this one, so I decided to dry fit it to make sure it worked as modeled. Unfortunately, it did not.

As you can see, this would lead to a 2″ sliver along the west (left) wall. That would not do. The reason for this discrepancy between the dry fit and the model was that the model assumed the tiles were 24″ square. In reality they were 23 3/16″ square, which over several columns produced the gap at the west wall. I thought about simply shifting the entire thing over to close the gap, but then I’d lose the nice centering of the center column on the entrance. So I went home and updated my model to account for the true tile size. I also accounted for the 1/8″ grout lines. This is shown below.

In the model shown above, I abandoned the step up pattern and instead used an alternating 1/3rd offset. This made even better use of the tiles, with virtually no small tiles. I also shifted it over a bit to close the gap, and to my surprise it didn’t look bad. So I decided to try dry fitting this layout.

Yes, the center row is not perfectly centered on the entrance the way I wanted, but it is pretty darn close, and perfectly acceptable as far as I am concerned. There will be a door on the left side as you enter, so this will make it even less of an issue. Laying out tiles often requires compromises, and this is one of them. Another that came about during the dry fit was that the column against the west wall that leads into the alcove did not quite reach the wall inside the alcove, leaving a gap. To account for this, I changed the offset from 1/3″ (essentially 8″) to 7″, which is what you see above. I think it looks fine, so I decided to use this layout.

I began setting the tiles by establishing the center row, using 1/8″ spacers.

I then continued by setting only the full tiles after that. Only after most of the full tiles were set (all but a couple to go down in the alcove) did I start making cuts.

In the image above, the full tiles are actually set and the others that required cuts (those surrounded with with the spacers) were just dry fitted. I used both a wet saw and a score and snap tile cutter to make the various cuts. In this shot, I had not yet gotten to the area around the entrance to the toilet alcove. Before this I realized that I would not have enough tiles to finish the entire area and would have to order another box of tiles. There are 4 tiles per box, and I was shy about 2 tiles. Since one cannot guarantee a perfect color match when placing a subsequent order, I made sure that the tiles from the new order would be in the area surrounding the toilet, making them less conspicuous if there was a noticeable color difference.

Here are the tiles set before I ordered the ones required to finish in the toilet alcove.

In the image above you can see I have one tile that extends into the toilet alcove. I actually have another from the original order that will take it right up to the wall, but I did not set it because I ran out of thin-set. Rather than mix up a small batch of thin-set for one tile, I would set it when I had some left over thin-set while setting the shower floor tiles. So the only area that will receive the new tiles will be left of that row – not very much!

You can also see in the images above that I started arranging the mosaic tiles for the shower floor. Since I would have to wait for the additional floor tiles to arrive, I began working on that area next.

I started by cutting and dry fitting the tiles.

The dry fitting process helps me decide exactly where I will start my tiles. Originally I had the tiles starting right up against the left wall (no partial tiles). With this arrangement, when I encountered the drain grate (covered in blue tape in the image above to protect it) I would have to cut the tiles on all sides to accommodate it. By moving the tiles over a bit (what you see above) to align with the grate, I’d only have to cut the tiles approaching from the top and bottom. Unfortunately, it meant I’d have only partial tiles against the left wall. Another compromise.

With that decided, I cut out the tiles to complete the dry fit and was pretty satisfied with the look. However, before I could set them in place, I had to build up the transition areas so that they would meet up with the bathroom tile and provide a more gentle slope down to the shower pan. I did this by building up those areas with some left over DITRA.

I then started setting the tiles, beginning with the front edge. Normally one would start from the back and work forward, but the most critical part of this process was the transition from the bathroom floor to the curbless shower floor, so I decided to set that first and let it cure over night before pressing on.

I kept the dry fitted tiles in place where possible as I was setting the front row to use as a visual guide to ensure I remained on course. The added DITRA was very necessary and it, along with the thin-set, allowed me to get the mosaic tile to meet up nicely with the large format tile. That was the biggest challenge met. The next would be getting the grate set to the same level as the tiles that would surround it.

I was a bit nervous about setting the grate and tiles that surround it. I really needed to get this right, otherwise I’d be dealing with drainage issues forever. The grate itself needed to be set first (using thin-set), then the tiles after. Once the tiles were placed and while the mortar was still malleable, I could press down on the grate to ease it into alignment with the tiles. After that, I could add the four smaller tiles (two above, and two below in image below).

I was happy with the way it turned out. I had intended to continue setting tiles, but decided to stop and let it set up overnight before proceeding, to ensure this area would not be disturbed. I used the remaining thin-set I’d mixed up to set the remaining large format tile in the toilet alcove.

I then pushed on to complete the setting of the mosaic tiles for the shower floor. It’s not perfect, but I think it’ll be fine. From what I understand, grouting helps disguise many of the minor issues. I hope I’m pleasantly surprised.

I learned a lot from this, my inaugural tile installation. Tiling is a real skill. This took me way way longer than someone with experience, and many lessons were learned. I hope to improve in my future attempts.

I removed the blue tape from the grate just so I could see how it looked. I’ll cover it again when it’s time to grout.

Following are images of both the floor and shower tiles set. I will not grout until the walls tiles in the shower and the remaining floor tiles in the toilet alcove are set. I don’t want to be standing and working on a freshly grouted surface. Those tiles have been ordered and I await delivery at the time of writing. I had intended to post this only after the grouting was done, but since I may be waiting a few days and it is the end of the month, I figured this was a good place to end this post.

The master bathroom is getting some serious changes made to it from what I originally intended. My initial plan was to include a tub, kind of like this:

But after some thought I decided not to include a bathtub. I originally purchased this tub:

This tub was acrylic. It looked nice, but was not substantial. A cast iron tub was more what I had in mind, which would cost a significant amount more. After some thought, I decided it didn’t make sense given the cost and limited use it would get. I haven’t had a bath is a very long time. It would sure look good as the center piece to the bathroom, but in reality it would not be used very often and would just be something I’d end up cleaning far more than I would use it. So I decided to pass on it. I sold the tub on Craiglist.

The new design without the tub will look something like this:

One of the first things I needed to do was remove the PEX lines I had for the two vanities that were originally going along the west wall (wall on the right in image above) and reroute the vanity wiring. Below you can see two blue and two red PEX lines, and to the right of them is wiring for the vanity.

Here is a shot after I removed them.

Notice that I’ve just pushed them up into the attic for now. I will eventually bring them down into the wall once I know what vanity I am getting. This is necessary because the vanity I choose will dictate where the lines need to go. I will pull the hot and cold lines originally intended for the bathtub up into the attic and just leave them there. Although I don’t have a use for them, I don’t see the point in pulling them out completely. They will remain routed to the Manabloc, just not hooked up. If, someday, I find a use for them, I won’t have to climb up there and run them (just reroute).

You’ll notice from the image above that the ceiling is no longer in place. I decided to pull down all the drywall on the ceiling in the master bathroom. This was primarily motivated by my desire to reposition the sun tunnel. It was installed in a position that was not centered on the entrance to the master bathroom, so I always thought it looked a bit odd. To fix this I would have had to create a round opening in the ceiling, maybe a foot or more to the right (as you look at the image below), then patch the original opening. That would be a tricky proposition.

There was also another other issue that contributed to my decision to pull down the ceiling.

I also intend to move the attic access from where it is now in the large closet to the entrance hall to the bathroom. Having attic access in the closet would severely limit what I could do in the closet with respect to cabinets, so I needed a better location, and I think the hallway will do. That change required some ceiling demo too. I wasn’t entirely sure where to put the opening within the hallway. After demoing the ceiling, I was able to get a better idea of it. I decided I would put the opening near where the A/C vent is shown above. So I’ll reposition that vent to a more suitable location.

In doing this demo, I removed the wall that had been framed between the shower and the large closet. This wall was secured to the ceiling by sandwiching the existing ceiling drywall between the top plate and the joists. With the drywall removed, I that wall will be rebuilt and attached directly to the joists before the drywall is replaced (assuming I use drywall). Here is an image of that area after the wall was removed.

Below you can see the north wall and ceiling after the demo. You can still see the PEX intended for the bathtub, which, as I mentioned, I’ll pull up and store in the attic. You can also see where I rerouted the wires (yellow for outlets and white for lights).

With the ceiling removed, I have much more flexibility with respect to positioning of ceiling lights and vents. Although I did not originally intend to remove the ceiling, I’m glad I did.

Following the demo, I got to work re-framing the wall I pulled down.

I also added nailers in anticipation of the drywall and ceiling work that would come.

These were a bit tricky as it involved many very acute angle cuts. I attached 2x4s to the top of the top plate so that half of one of the 2×4 was overhanging on the outside and half of another overhung on the inside. This will provide a good amount of surface to attach the wall and ceiling covering.

Next I moved the A/C vent and centered the sun tunnel, as mentioned above.

The A/C Vent will now reside on the other side of the door (when framed), providing more direct A/C to the bathroom. The sun tunnel required a bit of surgery, as I had to remove part of an insignificant board between the rafters that prevented me from putting it where I wanted. I then added a couple of nailers between the rafters to create a square to firmly capture the circle and provide something proper to attach to. In the image above, I have inserted the circular flange and used a couple of clamps to hold it in place until the ceiling is installed and I can attach it permanently.

Now that I am no longer locating the vanity sinks on the west wall, the drain that leads to them is no longer needed, so I pulled out the shovel and started removing the dirt to get access to the drain. To my surprise, the pipe had several cuts which would have happened when I hired someone to cut out the concrete. Fortunately, I was pulling out this pipe anyway, but it made me look closely at the rest of the pipes. Although I didn’t take a picture of the cut pipe, here is an image of the area after I removed the cut portion. You can see the cut lines in the concrete on the left half of the image.

Having seen the damage to the pipe I removed, I had to check the drains from the toilet, where the same crew removed that concrete too. Sure enough, it was damaged.

Notice the cut across the pipe in the top half of the image and the scoring near the bottom. There is also significant scoring from the concrete saw in the middle of the pipe along its length. So this had to be pulled out and replaced. I was planning to open all this up for the inspectors, so it’s not like it would have gone undetected. It’s just a nuisance really.

Below I show how I used my reciprocating saw to cut out the damaged section.

The pipe you see to the right is what was left of the drain from the original toilet location. That is now just a dead section of pipe. I capped the end, which was probably overkill. Here is the new pipe.

After this I called for and inspection to get the okay before filling in the trench. As I was waiting for the inspection, it occurred to me that the drain location for the vanity was kind of far from the wall. So I measured the distance and, sure enough, it was. After all, it was positioned to service a bathtub, not a vanity sink. Although the vanity cabinet would cover it, it would still be right there as you opened the door under the sink. So when the inspector arrived I discussed this with him and he agreed it needed to change. Essentially, what I did was restore the drains to what they were when the house was built. Here’s what I mean.

This is much simpler. The drain to the original tub remains capped, but that is the only extraneous pipe in the system. The inspector, who was a plumber for more than 30 years, recommended I use the black flexible rubber couplers you see. These made all the difference when trying to squeeze the pipes into position. The next day I ran water through the pipes with no evidence of leakage. Later that day the inspector returned and gave me the green light to fill in the trenches.

To fill in the trenches, I have to have the soil treated for termites, cover the soil with a plastic barrier, and install rebar before I pour the concrete. I called my pest control guy right away and arranged to have them come out. It would be a few days, so I got to work preparing the rebar. This meant drilling holes and cutting and arranging the rebar in a grid pattern. Here’s what I came up with.

Note that in the images above, the rebar is not attached yet. That will happen after the soil has been treated and the plastic barrier has been put down. So I removed the bars and set them aside so they would not get in the way as the soil was treated.

After the soil was treated, I put down the plastic and secured the bars, then summoned the inspector to give me the okay for the pour.

The inspector gave me the okay, so I mixed up the concrete and started filling in the trenches.

I used almost seventeen 60 pound bags of concrete mix, and mixed it together with water in a 5 gallon bucket. I gradually added the mix to the water at the bottom of the bucket and used a small trowel and a mixing drill (with appropriate bit) until the texture was right. This was a lot of work. A concrete mixer would have been ideal, which is what I used the last time I did this. But that required I rent a pickup truck in addition to the mixer because my vehicle is not big enough to transport the mixer. The inspector was the one who suggested I use the 5 gallon bucket, which worked just fine. It was a bit slow, but didn’t involve a long drive and the hassle of renting.

I left the concrete to cure for a week before I resumed work in the master bathroom. I would be drilling screws into some of it when I put up the walls around the toilet, so I wanted to make sure it was well set. I also needed to get together with Jennifer (the designer) to settle on the vanity, mirrors, and lights so that I know where locate the electrical boxes and make any adjustment to the drains (in the wall) while they are still accessible. She would not be available for a couple of weeks, so I turned my attention to the kitchen while I waited (you should jump to Kitchen – April 2023 now if you want to follow the April 2023 time line).

After finishing up the work I wanted to do in the kitchen, I returned to the master bathroom where I felt comfortable that the concrete was fully cured. So I framed the toilet alcove.

Recall that I had done this a long time ago, and when I removed the walls to redo the plumbing, they came down in two fully assembled pieces. However, rather than simply reinstall these two pieces, I pulled them apart and started from scratch. I did this because I am a better framer from when I first did it and wanted to do a better job. I am pleased with this. Below you can see where I added some more framing (nailers) to help with drywall installation, added the wiring, and pulled the cold water line down from the ceiling where it had been patiently waiting for so long.

If you look closely to the left, you can see that I took this picture after framing the entrance door. I actually forgot to get a picture of the wiring I added to the alcove, so took it while I was capturing pictures of the door framing, which I got to right after the alcove wiring was done. Here are a couple of better shots of the door framing.

There is quite a bit of space above the header of this door, so I’m thinking of adding a window in that space. I think it would provide additional light during the day while not affecting privacy.

I will end this post here because I must wait for the delivery of the vanity I purchased for this bathroom. I need that to arrive so that I can get specific measurements so that I can determine where to locate the water supply lines, drains, and electrical. It is not expected to arrive until early May, so I might as well wrap up the April post here. However, before I do, here is a pic of the vanity I purchased. It is a dual sink, 84″, white oak free standing vanity.