Eric stayed home on Monday and continued demolishing the full bathroom while Dan, our contractor, started tiling the half bathroom. That's where we'll start our pictures.
So far, so good. He started discovering a good bit of rot, but we were totally expecting rot.
Oh man, but this was bad. And as you can see in the bottom picture, it went under the tub, which was an issue we had filed under, "It could happen, but we really hope it doesn't because that's a cast iron tub, dang it!" And you know the only way to remove a cast iron tub, don't you?
There is no such thing as salvaging a cast iron tub, you just have to bust it up and remove it in pieces (that jagged white thing is part of the tub). We were sad to see it go, but we also had come to terms with the fact that it might have to happen before we even started. So we shed a single imaginary tear and moved on.
That white rag you see on the left hand side of the top picture is where our toilet is supposed to be. My co-workers and I had a good laugh about this picture as we imagined what it would be like to be sitting on the toilet and suddenly fall through the floor into the crawl space. Seriously though, it could have happened.
All of the sub floor had to go. Then, once we exposed the joists, Dan decided that most of the joists had to go as well. And yes, you're looking into our crawl space.
We knew going into this renovation that it was going to be pretty bad, but walking into your house and seeing this still makes your stomach churn a little bit! The good news is that we're done pulling stuff out and stuff is starting to go back in, including new and solid joists and sub-floor.
Although this job has taken a little longer than we were expecting, I'm happier with my bathroom looking like this and knowing that there is no more mold and that our house is structurally sound.
So how do you keep this from happening to your house? Hire a professional to install your toilet. The previous owners of this house were big on DIY, but perfectionism wasn't one of their strong suits. Here's a picture of our half bath toilet's wax seal:
Although sort of gross looking, that wax seals the toilet and keeps any water from leaking out.
Here's the toilet from the full bath:
It's no wonder that water was rushing out under our floor every time the toilet was flushed. We're not sure how long this toilet was leaking, but you saw the results.
And just for the fun of it, here's a picture of our junk pile:
More later...
Sal
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