The White Sale that should have come with a discount to Home Depot!

Last month, I decided it was time to buy some new towels and rugs for our main bathroom. The towels we had been using were gifts from our wedding. Same with the shower curtain. The rugs were bought for our house in Texas. All were getting threadbare and worn out.

While I was picking out some new colors, my sister suggested that I strip the wall paper in the bathroom and then paint so that everything would match. When we bought our house here in Ohio, the bathroom was not my favorite color scheme, but it was well done and we decided to leave "well enough alone." There were other projects that needed doing and we just lived with it. My sister knows the wallpaper has not been my favorite and so she knew she would have an easy time convincing me to get rid of it.

And so the stripping began. It was easy to peel off and I thought all was going well. Until we found mold around the tub area. Yuck!!

We've dealt with that before in our house and I knew what it would entail to get rid of it: ripping out drywall/plaster. Fun, fun! This was NOT the project that I had envisioned doing this spring. I wanted to just paint and be done and move onto the next project. Billy wasn't too thrilled about have this size of a project looming, either.

My sister and I went ahead and stripped and painted the one wall that was fine - over the sink cabinet.

Then Billy and I started the real work.

This is what the shower looked like before. Notice, we've already stripped the wallpaper up above. A waste of time! Also, Billy had removed a small section of the wall that had the mold. We thought (at the time) we could do a "cut and paste" move to make do.

I have never liked the design of the tub/shower. The walls are covered with a thin plastic wall that is caulked to the tub. Every few months or so, the caulking wears out and water leaks. We have to re-caulk again and again.
Then I peeled back the edge of the linoleum and found more deterioration. We knew it was a little weak here, but it was bad!
We peeled off the thin shower walls and found this behind. Actually, we kinda knew it was bad already but this confirmed that what we were doing was definitely necessary!
We pulled out the old drywall and the lath that was behind. Our house is well over 100 years old and back in the day the wall studs were covered in lath (thin boards nailed close together) and then the plaster was applied to that. Thankfully, this room no longer had the plaster. It makes a HUGE dust mess when it comes down.
We hauled this mess out of the house in trash bags.
Then some help arrived to heave the old cast iron tub out of the bathroom and out the front door. Hooray for help!
Here is the tub sitting on the landing waiting to be taken out the front door.
The empty spot where the tub was sitting. Notice the boards behind are a little moldy.
Jeff had to knock out part of the half wall to get the tub out. Guess we'll be rebuilding that, too.
Half wall is gone and so is a major portion of the floor that was nasty.
Some new help arrived to assist Daddy. Love the new floor!
We are making progress.
So now what's left to do... plumbing, fitting the tub and shower walls in, building a new half wall to house the shower plumbing, putting the toilet in, drywalling up above and around the new shower walls, putting in a tile floor.

So basically, a lot!

We started the demo on Thursday morning and it's Sunday afternoon. It is getting a little old running down stairs to use the bathroom, especially at night. And we have to go to my mom's for showers/baths.

But, I am thankful for a husband who is not afraid of a little construction work now and then. And we also have very helpful contractor friends with lots of advice and cool tools to use! Thanks, Jeff!

Here's hoping I get to shower here before Easter!