Day 1.5 bathtub remodel...aka arms are killing self

Am trying to convince arms to work hard enough to write this post *_* Last night was Day 1.5 of our bathtub remodel!!!......We didn't really start till about 5pm so I'm calling it a half day. We are planning to bust out another half day tonight after work! (Here's Day 1 in case you missed it!)

I really want to get the new bathtub installed by the end of 'Day 2', but we had some work to do first to repair that vent problem we'd discovered under the drain. Clearly there was no current leak (we found no wet spots anywhere despite the showers David and I took just prior to demolition-derby), so it must have been a pre-1983 leak with an old tub that did this old damage. Hence I busted out my arm-contorting cleaning skillz with various dustpans, trash bags, headlamp, and eventually scrub bucket and green scrubby pad.

I looked up when David chuckled with amusement taking a photo of me :)

In that photo you can also see the sheet metal we bought in the vent aisle at Lowes to patch the holes. After I'd gotten everything sparkly clean and completely dry, we commenced with endless bad duct tape jokes a team effort to get the sheet metal lined up and securely duct-taped down!

Oh yes as you can see, I also rubberbanded some plastic wrap over the drain hole to keep my nose out keep debris out of the drain.

Then, as you can see in the first photo, we opened up the new tub to test out how it fits and what exact placement we wanted! It has a polystyrene foam pad underneath for added support, so the instructions say to install it directly over the subfloor and make any leveling adjustments needed with shims. Fortunately for us the subfloor under the tub turned out to be freakishly level! (Perhaps from the tub install back in '83?)

But we also realized we wanted to demo the last of the drywall around the tub before installing it - we're going to use cement backerboard and then tile around the tub, so that drywall had to come out. Which brings us this far!

I clean up freakishly well at the end of each day...it helps me feel
less chaotic about the whole process! 

Annnd yes that is a list on the wall to encourage ourselves and keep track of our progress...

I love list!! (Yes list singular...anyone else dorky enough to still make Anchorman jokes??)

This photo was before we checked off the vent repair and the drywall demo! It reads:

- initial pipe repair (CHECK!)
- demo old tub (CHECK!)
- clean and repair vent (CHECK!)
- install drain (have to decide if we want to adjust the drain placement at all - ie, shift the tub a bit left)
- demo tops of drywall (CHECK!)
- install tub
- do new plumbing
- install cement backerboard (build up wall around plumbing)
- tile
- grout
- any additional pipe repair elsewhere to fix hot water problem??? (hope not hope not)
- enjoy!!

Last night we also planned out our 'pipe tree' system, bought those supplies, and read through those install instructions and the drain install instructions. So tonight we should be able to install the drain, build and install the pipe tree and finally install the new tub! Optimistic? Yes. Hopeful of hot water?? Double yes! :)


Lastly I want to mention that I love any comments from you all!! I have been trying to figure out how to write a little pre-comment-section blurb in my blog template to say that. Because of how many hits my blog receives per day now, I get 1-3 spam comments per day that I go through and delete :P But you are a quiet bunch (which is fine!) so I may or may not get excited and read any comments that I get aloud to David! :) I'd love to hear any of your experiences with bathtub remodeling, or leaky plumbing, or is it annoying to get day-by-day updates rather than one longer post at the end with the project all photo-d out?? Or what shower curtain should I buy for new shower?? (Ah the important questions) It will have to be at least 70" since we're going to have a wider opening (still a 60" tub...I plan to build out a little ledge on the right end...it should make better sense soon...)