Ethel's Shower Obsession and Project
"Lemme 'splain. No - is too much. Lemme sum up." -- Inigo Montoya, from
_Princess Bride_ by S. Morganstern
Lemme sum up. About five months ago, we saw water marks showing up in
the ceiling tiles in the Fuhbawl-Watching room. Investigation showed that it
was a leak in the shower in the master suite, above; and the leak was NOT in the
drain, but was in fact a leak in the floor pan of the shower.
Now, a rational person (or a man) would say "Let's find a way to fix the leak in
the floor plan." But a female, lacking a Y chromosome, does things without ever
asking "why", so KimPuckett immediately decided that we should remodel
the bathroom.
Further investigation showed that that wasn't a prudent thing to try to do, what
with the expenses already scheduled for this summer - two major services to the
trucks, Silas' flying to Alabama to go to
Space Camp, and our trip to
New England
and the Maritimes
So we settled for tearing out the old shower, and putting in a new one.
First, we ripped out the tile on the old shower walls, and the walls themselves, getting
down to the insulation and studs...
Then, we took up the tile from the floor - whups!. Guess what, mortar, and then yet
ANOTHER layer of tile under that - obviously, somebody has been through this "let's
fix the shower pan leak" thing before.
So we had to rip out that second layer of tile, and then break through about three inches
of concrete; we then installed a new drain, and it was time to start rebuilding the shower
from scratch.
So we had to put down three inches of new concrete, and scree and level it off with a slight
slope back down to the drain, then put down 4 mm plasic liner, and put in the backerboard on
all the walls and mortar in all of the cracks and screw holes...
then another inch of mortar on the floor on top of the liner, and scree and level THAT...
...and now we've laid out the gridwork on the walls, and put in the 1x4 strapping one foot
off of the floor, so's we can actually prepare to start Putting In Tile.
Next comes the first few rows of tile, against the back wall - since this is the first time either
of us has done any tiling, Ethel does it, since she's the competent one (I'm more the spiritual type)
UPDATE - 8 August - with innumerable trips to Home Depot, lots of dollars, lots of Ethel standing in the shower
hollering and me on the back deck running the tile saw - and the walls are finally completelyd tiled.
Note the detail work, the decorative bordering and the two shower shelves installed (one with a Cherry
Diet Coke :)
UPDATE - 16 August - the end is in sight. Now we've got the walls and door frame grouted, and
the floor and curb tiled (but not yet grouted).
UPDATE - 26 September
Now we've finally got almost everything done. The tile is tiled, the grout is grouted, and we even
have hardware.The hardware turns out to have been the hardest part; all of our plumbing fixtures
are made by Kohler, which is supposed to be *good*, but *very proprietary*. And we didn't know
until after we got the walls up that KOHLER DOESN'T MAKE BRUSHED NICKLE FIXTURES.
So we had to adapt, overcome, improvise.
Only the kind of folks who read Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" want to
hear about the gyrations I had to go through to get these handles on the wall.
What's left is the door. Maybe another week - maybe another month - maybe another dog?
LAST UPDATE - 14 October 2004 - LAST UPDATE
Done. Now we're done :)
Hardware up, door on, regrouted, resealed. Done :)
by Fat Charlie the Archangel