At some point I believe I have touched on our little ghetto house, which is neither little, well the rest is true. We bought this house at a time of personal desperation a couple of years and it was basically the price of a car. Of course cars have all their pipes, working electric and windows that work along with doors that close.
Either way, we have spent two years cleaning, fixing and growing to love our house. A couple of weeks ago I thought it would be a great present for my girls to have a new bathroom, one that would be steps from their own rooms, with a nice new shower and water saving toilet and a sweet vanity. I have had to plumb much of this house and while sometimes it can be sketchy, for the most part I was confident knowing that I could make almost anything work. It did not hurt my confidence that we had already worked on this particular bathroom, it being the first one we got working when we were preparing to move in. At that time we had to hook up pipes from the basement, install a new toilet and hood up the fitting for the claw foot tub. For over a year, when I wanted to take a romantic soak, this was the go-to bath.
What I wanted to do was remove the claw foot tub, which was installed one floor up in my tiny but wonderful bathroom. I wanted to run larger supply water lines so the shower would have some good water for girls showers. We tore out the bathroom, all the fixtures, all the flooring, everything. Then we took out the existing plumbing and ran all new water lines from the basement to the bathroom. We repaired drain lines and began plumbing the new bathroom. We installed the new bathtub enclosure, hooked up the complex drain system and poured water into the tub to make sure it worked right. It did not.
So we had to cut out the new drain system, replace it with a newer drain system, put it in place and test it again. Once again, it leaked, which meant some pipe cutting and repairs. Once done, no leak. So we installed the flooring and we were well on our way to getting everything hooked up. Then we started to notice water leaking in the living room, below the new bath.
We again pulled up the tub, this time it was even more work because of the new flooring. We tested it again and could not find a leak source. What was strange is that at that point, no water was running in the bathroom, it had all been turned off after the most recent test.
After a series of tests, I found that while cutting the drain off the tub at some point, I nicked the underside of the toilets drain. Because we had added the floor, there was very little room to actually try and repair the sewer line, which was tough, because the line ran right under the tub, which was now in place. It could not be moved at all.
I tried a toxic glue that I could barely fit into place, but it seemed to hold. We completely sealed up the floor, installed the tile and plumbed the new vanity. It all came together and looked kind of sweet.
Then this morning, a leak in the living room. While the water was now connected in the bathroom, nothing was on, and there were no obvious leaks. Because the floor was now sealed, with tile no less, there were very few options. The one I chose, tear out the ceiling in the living room.
Now, to you non-do it yourselfers, this might sound like a complex issue, but trust me, what you do is find where the water appears to be leaking and stick a sharp screwdriver into it, once you get a stream from the hole, that is where you need to remove ceiling tiles. Now, that all makes sense, unless the water is pooling somewhere else and just kind of flowing to the low power, which is where you put your screwdriver.
Much of the ceiling is now is trash bags. The leak has been found and a large bucket continues to tap tap tap of water dripping from the hole in the pipe above it. When it is done leaking and dried out, we can patch it. Then we replace the ceiling and we are done.
You are thinking to yourself, "hah, you thought you would save money doing this job yourself and now you must be so far over budget and bitter about your idiocy, etc etc etc."
See, I wanted to save money when we came up with this plan. We initially budgeted 1500 dollars for the job, the new tub, the plumbing, everything. Instead we are below budget by doing this job wrong, but by ourselves. The expense that remains unknown right now is the ceiling tiles, but because I was able to save the majority of tiled, I need to replace only 6 of the originals. Those six, plus the glue to install them and then the paint to cover the entire ceiling will probably be less than 100 dollars. So, with a budget of 1500 for the bathroom we are still at about 800. Do it yourself indeed.
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