The Full Monte

Things have changed radically since my earlier plan to do a minimal repair rather than a full renovation of the back section of the house.

During my final preparation before laying down the lines of tiles over the fractured areas I became more and more unhappy as I noted runs of hairline cracks in other sections of the floor.  On the night before the tiling I decided to have one last stab at finding someone who would take care of the floor.  It was now or never because in  the morning I was to begin my work.

Before Dismantling

Before Dismantling

I picked up the latest issue of The Darlington Review, a monthly community publication and found a small advertisement of Titan Tiling.   The next morning I telephoned and spoke to Brad Tucker, the principal of the small company.  He visited that night and I gave him a quick tour and history of the house and what I had done with it then we went to the back of the house where I showed him my problem.  At the end of our discussion he told me that he would do the job.  Wow, was that music to my ears!

Two days later I received his quotation which was less than I had expected and accepted it with no hesitation.  His task was to remove the tiles from both the porch area and bathroom, then screed the floors with a layer of cement to level them out, then tile them.

I couldn't believe my luck.  At the last moment I had found a solution to my floor problem, and better still, Brad isa Darlington man who lives at Sandover road, a short walk from my house.  This changed everything.  It gave me confidence that transformed my vision of what I wanted to do with the bathroom.  I wound up with the exact same plan that Paul had suggested weeks earlier but had terrified me because it meant complete re-tiling of the floor and setting up new drains through the concrete floor: completely gut the bathroom, set up a large walk-in shower were the toilet is, put a new toilet where the shower is, and replace the ceiling and walls.

Brad told me that he would not be able to start my job for at least a month, and I replied that the delay was fine with me because I would be away the next week antifouling my boat in Fremantle.  I told him that on my return I would prepare the porch area by clearing out the room of furnishings (principally my large spare refrigerator) and stripping out the wooden floor skirtings and vertical scotia in the corners.

Brad and Christian working in a cloud of dust

Last Thursday I sent a message to Brad confirming that I had completed the porch preparation as planned, was headed back to Fremantle, and that I would hold off on stripping down the bathroom until he could give me a week's notice of the start of his work.  I didn't think much of it because I did not expect to hear from him for weeks.

Floor Joiner

On Friday evening I was amazed to see a message from Brad suggesting that he begin his work on Monday.  This was unexpected and I was unprepared for it but one lesson that I've learned in life, particularly in sailing, is to take it while you can.  After getting over the shock I told Brad that a Monday start would be OK.  Instead of installing the new solar panels on the boat I returned to the house on Saturday and that afternoon removed the wash basin.  On Sunday I removed the shower.  Paul came by that afternoon.  After removing the glass panels from the shower I almost cut the fiberglass enclosure with an angle grinder in order to get it through the bathroom door but decided to wait until Paul arrived in another hour in case he wanted it.  Lucky I held off because he could use it for a temporary shower for his uncle who would be visiting from England in the spring.  Paul, the experienced builder, figured how to get the fiberglass shower through the door in one piece where I with all  of my knowledge of geometry had failed. 

Cabinet Out and Glass Off Shower

Shower Out

We then talked about the project.  Paul will help me to do the plumbing, including cutting through the concrete floor with some sort of a diamond tipped saw.  He will also install the new walls and ceiling and design the shower. 

Brad and his young helper arrived yesterday (Monday) at 7.30 AM and were soon at work chipping out the floor tiles with small jack hammers.  The slope of the new floor in the bathroom emerged as an issue and Brad asked me questions about the shower and its drainage that I did not feel competent to answer.  I sent a text to Paul and to my relief he telephoned within minutes and soon Paul and Brad were communicating about how things should go.  I won't go into the details but the floor slope and drainage issue was resolved and Brad's brief had been extended to include tiling the shower walls up to the height of the west wall of the shower (the lowest point of the sloping bathroom ceiling.) 

At about 3 PM Brad had finished the removal of all tiles and putting steel  fasteners across the larger cracks in the floors like giant staples.  ("Will it work?" I had asked him on the night of his first visit.  "It worked on my floor." he replied.)  By then I had removed all fixtures and wood trimmings from the bathroom as well as the partition wall that had separated the toilet from the shower.  Brad left with the understanding that it would take 1 or 2 weeks for Paul and I to have the walls in place and the plumbing set up.  When we are ready he will return and screed both floors then lay the tiles.  The day before his return I will remove the old toilet and will rely on visits to the toilet in the Darlington community centre a short walk up the hill from my house.  (For emergency, I've staked out a secluded spot up the hill from the garage so that I can dig a hole in the moist soft clay and pretend that I am camping.)

Removing Partition Wall

After the departure of Brad and Christian I finished the day by dropping the bathroom ceiling, which was a nasty job were I was showered by years of dust, cobwebs, and rodent droppings.  This and the wall removal had involved electrical work but I was confident in doing this since I had helped wire the room in the late 70's.

Today I will strip the bathroom walls and removed scores of nails that remain in the wall studs and ceiling rafters.  Then as usual I'll spend an hour or two cleaning everything spotless to remove all vestiges of dust from all surfaces.

Temporary Bathroom in Laundry

The laundry will be my bathroom for a while.  I set up the bathroom wall mirror side ways across the water taps and now have a shaving mirror in Cinemascope.  Last night I had my first "bath" in the new facility and it went extremely well - better than I had expected.  It's like bucket bathing on a boat but better because I have a limitless supply of hot and cold water. Washing my hair and head over the trough was easy and I gave myself an excellent shampoo.  From the neck down it was a sponge bath out of a bucket.  I rinsed myself with a sponge as best as I could but then I realized that it was now dusk so I filled up a bucket with warm water, turned off the laundry light, then stepped outside onto the granite paving and poured the bucket of water over me.  Excellent!   The warm water had staved off the cold so I was able to shave in comfort wearing my bath towel. 

It'll work.