Adventures of Tyrone Villa - Bob Villa's illegitimate Son
Episode: Gut and remodel the Black Brady Bunch's Bathroom .
Man, I just finished with a doozy of a project. Background info: My dad actually built our house himself with some help from an electrictian and plumber to doublecheck his work and sign off on it. Other than that he did just about everything else. He built this house back when I was about 9 years old. So that makes the house about 30 years old. There have been very minor updates to the house, like new carpet in the living room, and new flooring in the kitchen. Other than that it is freakin out of style. My brothers, sisters and I have been commenting about remodeling the kitchen and the main bathroom for about 4 years. We would keep talking about doing it, over and over, and nothing was getting done. SO..... I took it upon myself to be the project manager/foreman to remodel the main bathroom(because it needed the most attention). I recorded dimensions of the room, and cabinet/countertop and took a trip to the local Lowes to get pricing on all of the supplies that would be needed to revamp this room. (Did you notice I did not say Home Depot. I try not to spend a dime there, but sometimes you may not have an alternative) So I priced cabinets, flooring, new bath tub, faucets (sink and tub), vent, paneling around tub, and light fixtures. I called my notified my siblings about the project and when would be the best time to do it. (My dad was having knee surgery on Oct 25, and he would be out of commision - Perfect !) So we scheduled the remodel for Oct 25 -28, because he would be in the hospital recovering for a few days, and my mom would be there with him too. Perfect !
he he he !
One of my intelligence officers notified me that mom wanted a linen closet in the bathroom if it were ever re-done. So I was able to find some really nice cabinets and linen closet here in Austin and would just have to drive them there.
OK, Oct 25 is here(I drive 4 hours to get there) . My brother has already completed the preliminary demolition. Everything has been removed from the room except for the toilet, tub and cabinet/sink. We remove the cabinet and sinks that night and get prepared for work early in the morning.
Oct 26th, I remove the toilet, and wait for the plumber to arrive to fix the flange in the floor that the toilet connects to. He arrives, fixes the flange , replaces the water supply valve for the toilet and we have him to replace the faucet for the tub also. We start working on creating new panels to replace the old panels that surround the bath tub. I assemble the new cabinet and drawers. I set the new counter top on top of the cabinet and notice that it is too deep. WTF ! We have to regroup and take it back and buy another one that fits. We notice that water is not drying up on the floor from when the plumber replace the water supply valve for the toilet. We investigate and discover their is actually a leak coming from the foundation. OMG ! This is a show stopper. We call the plumber and have him to come back out the next day.
Oct 27th, Plumber arrives and we investigate and were able to cut and cap off that water supply and then run a new water line from the bathtub over to the toilet. It was easy since we were down to the studs anywhy. OK, now we can start rebuilding the bathroom now. We install the new bathtub surround, and I planned to go with the same faux tile paneling at the bottom half of the wall as a kind of Wainscoting that is capped off with a chair rail topper and we texture the top half of the walls and paint. My nephew did an outstanding job of texturing the walls, and we paint later that night. Next we install the new vinyl flooring. I know what you are thinking eww...vinyl floors, but they are peel and stick flooring that look just like tile and it looks really good. The cabinet is installed, then the counter top and fixture. I install the toilet, and we install the linen closet. My brother and I troubleshoot a problem that had not been fixed with the vent/light for years and get that working.
We finish up some details and we are done. My mom returns home from the hospital (nursing my dad) that night and she sees it for the first time and she crys tears of joy. My dad is going to come home the next day. Now, to give you some info on my dad. He is a simple country guy, who is set in his ways and he does not want anyone making changes to his house. He doesn't realize that his sons are very capable in the home improvement area. So this whole thing is a surprise for him. We let him know that we have a surprise for him when he returns home. He arrives and he sees the bathroom and he was quite happy and surprised. He could not believe that we did so much in so little time and it was really nice looking.
It was a great task to take on. I am not sure if I would do it again, it was alot of work and frustration. Not everyone has the same work ethic (including siblings). Durning the process I got into a argument with my brother in law, and he got up and drove back to Houston. (We still havent spoken since) He is a know it all a$$hole, who I just finally had enough off and told off. I guess he was not expecting that from me. lol
Well that's my remodeling my parents bathroom adventure.
Man, was that too long of a story...... :-)
Note: A special thanks to my Wife, my two brothers and my sister and her husband (my 4th brother).
This is Tyrone Villa, signing off....Until next time... measure twice...cut once.
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