Bathroom Renovation #2 - Rebuilding The Floor

As we removed the concrete and the planks between the joists supporting it, we couldn't believe what we saw. How was this bathroom floor and all its weight being supported? The joists were completely rotten except the bottom inch or so. In fact, one of them fell on its own once the concrete was removed. We were hoping we would only have to sister one or two of the joists and the rest would be fine. Instead, we knew we would have to replace all the joists.
It was weird walking into the basement and looking up through a large hole into our old bathroom.The job wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for all the cast iron plumbing, electrical, and other spaghetti hanging from the old joists. We had to support everything from below as we removed the old joists and made the new ones. This also meant we had to weave our bodies around all these pipes as we worked. Pain in the ass! Two days later we had our new floor.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Concrete Removal

After our Christmas vacation we arrived home with Bob as planned. We used my friend Branden's hammer drill with it's spade bit and broke up the concrete between the joists.
What a back breaker! The concrete was about 6 inches thick, super heavy, and required constant trips outside to a pile we started...Cutting through the ceramic tile was scary as the pieces flew like broken glass. After a while, the concrete dust was ridiculous. The basement floor, looking through what used to be the bathroom floor, looked like the surface of the moon, covered with concrete debris. Eventually we removed the last of it.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - The Concrete Decision

Once the tub was removed I noticed a split in the concrete slab that had been poured between the bathroom floor joists. The split allowed me to shove a crowbar between the layers and I began ripping up a 1.5 inch deep layer of concrete the ceramic tile was attached to...Now I could finally start to see what we were dealing with. Below the 1.5 inch concrete layer was about 4.5 more inches of concrete. But worse yet, the joists surrounding the concrete appeared completely rotten from nearly a century of concrete moisture. Sensing I was way over my head in this project, Melissa and I began posting questions on Do It Yourself forums. I marked up the following picture (looking up at the bathroom floor from our basement) to help describe our bathroom floor construction to the various contractors that would hopefully respond to our questions.In addition to the concrete and rotten joists, we also found rotten wood all around the plumbing side of the tub we removed.Most of the responses to our DIY posts recommended removing all concrete to get the weight off our poor house and to allow us to create a stable, solid, flat floor. So we abandoned our previous plan of using self leveling compound to fix the sagging, cracked concrete floor and decided to remove the concrete.

I knew hiring contractors to do this would be expensive and take a while to find good ones. I also have a hard time trusting contractors and sometimes feel they don't respect the rest of the house. I suggested to Melissa that we drive her dad, Bob, down with us from Ohio after our Christmas visit (and fly him back several days later).

We've worked several projects in the past with Bob, including building a backyard storage shed and pergola. Bob tends to work quickly and figure out complicated construction solutions with sound knowledge and he typically does it without overspending on materials. We called Bob, showed him the pictures of our bathroom problems, and he agreed to offer his help.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - The Cast Iron Tub

The first thing we had to do was remove the cast iron tub. It was in bad shape and had already been re-glazed at least once. On the advice of my friend, Al Hess, I took a sledgehammer to it and broke it into pieces Melissa and I could manage. The first attempt proved it was not going to be as easy as I hoped...

Once I started hitting it in weaker areas it got a little easier. After several hours of cursing and banging my brains out, we finally got the beast out.

Mahogany Vanity Finish

A long time ago my dad recommended using Minwax's Wipe-On Poly, mainly because it eliminated the worry of brush marks. But for this project I figured I was ready for something more ambitious. I picked up a copy of Bob Flexner's Understanding Wood Finishing book in search of a better finish. I convinced myself I wanted to fill the pores of my mahogany with colored paste wood filler to bring out the grain and provide a smooth finish, give it a wash coat, then brush on a polyurethane finish. But after experimenting on some scraps with the paste wood filler I quickly bought a bottle of good old Minwax Wipe-On Poly and gave up most everything Flexner had taught me. Oh well. I'm definitely an amateur.

As easy as Minwax makes it, I still hate finishing. In order to protect the mahogany from the bathroom's wet environment, I wiped on seven coats, including sanding with 220 grit between the first three coats. The first three sanding sessions were aimed at filling the pores with the wipe-on poly. Flexner said this would work. I sanded the final coat down to 1500 grit using mineral spirits to keep the polyurethane from clogging the fine paper. I guess it worked. Man do I hate finishing. What are you doing this weekend, Eric? Sanding and varnishing...again!

Mahogany Vanity Construction

In preparation for the renovation of our second bathroom, Melissa and I did some research and determined all the available bathroom vanities out there are butt-ugly and most are poorly made. So naturally, I decided to make one myself. After careful consideration we decided it was worth buying a vanity top, however, rather than put up with all the maintenance that would come if I built a wooden sink top. After lots and lots of searching we found a timeless white porcelain top that was within our budget. I took it’s measurements and designed a four-legged vanity cabinet, with adequate storage and support.

Next, I researched types of wood and decided on African Mahogany for its water durability, color, availability, and price. After much agony and decisiveness, I picked up a piece of 1.5” and a longer piece of ¾” Mahogany and here is what I came up with…

I routed out tongues around the edges of panels…

…and grooves on the edges of frame pieces…

…I abandoned my usually pocket hole joinery technique and bumped it up a notch in join strength and cosmetics by using the BeadLock System to create mortise and floating tenon joints. I was heavily influenced by test results in a Fine Woodworking book that indicated mortise and floating tenon joints were the best mixture of strength and ease of construction.

In the end I decided I didn’t like the system because it depended on too much eyeballing pencil lines and it was nearly impossible to clamp the jig tight enough to keep it from moving while drilling. However, it did allow me to adapt it to many different wood widths…