Refreshed Bathroom - One of Those Snowballing Projects

I almost titled this post "This Old House" or possibly "The Money Pit."  Here is the story from the beginning.

As you all know, we've owned this farm for the last four years and the house was condemned when we purchased it.  From the beginning we've never gotten the only bathtub to drain properly.  Mark has gone through at least two bottles of professional drain cleaner...with no luck.  Well, last week it stopped draining - completely.  Beside the tub was a clean out port - an OLD cast iron clean out.  The tub also was plumbed expecting the water to drain out of the tub and then the water had to flow UP through the clean out  - VERY poor design indeed.  Mark did not want to tackle re-plumbing this as he has had experience of trying to fix old pipes; sometimes it just crumbles when touched and causes more issues.  Here is a before photo of the bathroom - four years ago:

Cleaning didn't change this busy bathroom

Well, he found exactly what he feared - a real mess.  The drain issue was a physical shower head swivel joint inside the drain pipe (someone before us had to have dropped it in the drain), which plugged it to the size of an eraser head - which was plugged too.  It took him about six hours to re-plumb and retrofit the piping.  Then he closed and repaired the 9" x 14" access hole in the bathroom floor.  I happily told Mark, "Don't worry, I'll lay new vinyl - I've never done it before but how hard can it be, it's a very small room."  You can see where this is going, can't you?
 
I went to the local flooring store and they had nothing that matched the current wallboard (faux ceramic tile - very busy pattern).  I found wood-looking vinyl that, I thought, would not look HORRIBLE.  Since it was a wood pattern, the boards had to run the length of the bathroom, so I had to purchase twice as much as I needed.  I hated to spend the extra money but I figured that if I really goofed, I'd have enough for a back-up! LITTLE DID I KNOW...

I brought it home and it still clashed, Mark suggested that we paint the wallboard - here we go - slipping down that slope.  We went back to town and chose a solid color paint that matched our towel, rugs, and the new flooring.

I painted the walls, watched Y-tube videos on vinyl installation, and felt ready to take on the challenge. The videos said that you can either make a template or measure/cut a little big and then trim when you have it in place.  I chose to measure/cut and then trim in place...well...that was the worst choice as there was not one straight wall in the bathroom, so when I took the already cut, slightly-bigger-than-the-measurement piece into the bath to make sure it fit...it did not - a caulk joint would not cover the gaps.

Mark was very sweet to put up with all my swearing.  He said, "And you kiss your grand kids with that mouth;-)?"  I had even measured twice - I swear that the walls moved!!!  Well, this time I drove to town again and bought brown paper and created a template... I learned to ALWAYS USE A TEMPLATE!!!

I cut the new piece from my now-happy-I-bought-extra vinyl and was ready to install it. Mark bought me two grooved plastic trowels - a narrow one to dig the glue out of the small bucket and a wide one to spread the glue on the floor.  OMG - I had no idea just how sticky vinyl glue was!  In short order, I had glue on my fingers because the plastic trowels bent so you have to have your fingers way down on the handle to move the stiff glue.  I then had to try and lay the vinyl with sticky fingers and make a few small trims along the way.  At one point, I had glue on the base floor, my trowel, my fingers, and I was suppose to lay the vinyl down and smooth it and fit it in around items, like pipes...with one hand???  I tried and got the small trimmed vinyl stuck to my other hand. Now I had glue on both hands.

The video made it look so easy! Every time I spread the glue on a section of floor, I had to stop, walk down stairs (Mark had to take the bathroom sink out to lay the floor and replace the vanity) and wash the glue off my hands.  I had to stop and laugh when I opened my hand to set down the exacto knife and it, too, was stuck to my hand.  I had to ask Mark to remove it from my gluey hand. I was afraid that Mark might find me glued to the floor!

SO - all this started with a plugged drain and now we have newly painted walls, a new vanity (which we had planned to replace), floor, lights, and mirror - the only original item is the tub.  This project REALLY got me out of my comfort zone and I've now walked only one mile in the shoes of a vinyl laborer - and I TOTALLY respect them and their work.   Here is the finished bath room - for some reason, even with the longer vanity, the room looks bigger!  We are happy we did it.