Impromptu Bathroom Reno Part 1: The Beginning of a Disaster


Within the last year our life has been a little bit chaotic. Between school, work, kids etc it's been a very busy and trying year. We live in a small 2 bedroom apartment in an old house in a small town. The house is at least 100 years old. So like other Century homes there are bound to be hiccups and repairs to be done. 

It was the first week of back to school and my poor neighbour downstairs woke up to water in his apartment. I can tell you this isn't the first time it had happened. Much of the plumbing is old copper pipe and due to the water being so hard out here, the pipes with time will burst and break. It was unfortunate for him that it was a similar section of pipe that had burst and his newly repaired ceiling would need to be replaced again. 

I had only just been awake for a few minutes when I heard the unhappy words of my neighbour. I went to see and low and behold there was water on the bathroom floor. I quickly sopped it up and tried to adjust my eyes to see where the water was coming from. I couldn't see it but I could hear it. So I run outside to the basement and shut off the water to the building. I message my landlord to let him know only to find out he is on holidays in Europe. He works out calling a plumber and assures us someone will be by within a couple of hours. 

There's a knock at the door and I'm thrilled the plumbers are here and they are going to fix the problem and we can get back to our regularly scheduled lives. When I opened the door it took a lot to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. These were the scariest/weirdest people I had ever seen. "Don't judge a book by it's cover" I thought and welcomed them inside. They come upstairs and ask for me to turn the water back on so out and down I go and come back for them to tell me they need it shut off again. Out and Down I go. They had to cut a piece of our tub surround to look behind the wall. They then asked what was on the other side of the wall as they wanted to cut from all sides. (Insert GASP here). After about 30 minutes of them cutting random holes in my bathroom walls they let me know the problem was fixed. The line behind my shower had sprung a leak and they fixed it. They leave and I'm left with a mess and a bunch of holes. 

A week later we got a new tub surround put in, the only problem was they ran out of caulking near the bottom of the tub. No problem I ran to the local hardware store and finished it up myself. I pride myself in being able to either repair or do things the average mother couldn't. Caulking is not one of them. My Darling Hubby Pointed it out when he go home that night. 

This was early in the week, fast forward to the weekend. It's Saturday Morning and my hubby says he is going to fix the terrible caulking job I did. So we make everyone have a shower as it will be off limits for 24 hours. While in the shower the tub surround began to come away from the wall, and by come away I mean the panels all fell taking the drywall with it. It lead us to discover that the drywall in behind was rotted out and would need to be replaced. We immediately sent pictures to the the landlord and asked him if he wanted us to do the work. We couldn't wait for this, we only have 1 bathroom. He gave us the go ahead and that's where it began.

~Mommy Dearest

Comments

  1. Ugh...bathroom renos suck! Years ago, one spring break I decided to rip the weird shiney coating off our walls...we ended up with a huge mess that took months to finally get it back to usable again.

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  2. I really sympathize with you! I have heard of horror stories or busted pipes and the like. Not fun!

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  3. Ooh, sorry for the plumbing trauma. That sounds horrible. I've had a few plumbing emergencies in my day. They are not at all fun or glamorous.

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  4. Oh no! That sounds awful! I hate having troubles with the plumbing. It always ends up being so intrusive and messy!

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  5. I don't like unplanned renovations because it usually comes with a cost. Sorry you had to go through that during this busy time too!

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  6. Ugh... there is nothing good about a bathroom reno under those circumstances.

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  7. You're so brave!!! I would love to redo our bathroom but i'm so terrified of what could happen!

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  8. That sounds awful. It is lucky of your landlord that you guys are willing to fix it. I have never taken on any home remodeling project.

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  9. WE want to do some reno in our house but the bathrooms scare me lol We will be doing our kitchen though and I have a feeling it won't be super easy

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  10. Wow this sounds like a total nightmare. It kind of reminds me of an apartment I lived in where one night I found water pouring out of the ceiling and into my bathtub. There was huge leak upstairs which was never properly fixed. A few months later I had mold and some kind of mushroom growing out of the ceiling. It was disgusting.

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  11. Oh my goodness! How awful. I couldn’t imagine. I hear it’s really brutal to do bathrooms so you are truly brave! Would love to gut one of ours! - jeanine

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  12. This sounds like an awful situation but wonderful it should be fixed soon! A bathroom renovation in the middle of December sounds tough.

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  13. it's so hard to remodel without all the things that are going on in your life

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