4BR, 3BA Fixer-Upper

Welcome to our 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom house. It's only got two bathrooms now 'cause this one is gone!

The 3rd-floor bathroom was always kind of... strange. It wasn't as bad as the old 2nd-floor bath (which bordered on creepy) but it was never our favorite. For one, it was carpeted. Who carpets a bathroom? For another, the fixtures were tucked under the gable with a steeply sloped ceiling, so headroom was always a problem. Finally, the plumbing was a bit odd, with the toilet raised up on a four-inch platform to accommodate the drain pipe. A throne, indeed.

All of that is no more. We've stripped out the room to the studs, removing all the wiring and fixtures, except for the heavy claw-foot bathtub, which stays. I've cut away most of the galvanized supply lines, although there's still some more to go. The heavy cast-iron drain pipe is joined with oakum and lead, which should give you some idea of the task.

You can tell this bathroom was an afterthought because the hot and cold pipes were run on the outside of the house. You could see the twin copper pipes running all the way from ground level up to the 3rd-floor roof. Very ugly, and the pipes got pretty cold in the winter. Plus, the pipes were narrow: just 1/2-inch copper, so there wasn't much pressure, either. A kludge from start to finish.

The carpet came out first (we wore masks and gloves, because, well, ick). Underneath that was linoleum tile. I think it's real Linoleum, too, because it's thick and heavy and brittle, kind of like Bakelite. And under that is the now-familiar redwood tongue-and-groove floor.

Unlike previous rooms, we're not going to polish and preserve the redwood floor here. A hardwood floor in a bathroom strikes us as almost a weird as carpet (though probably more sanitary). Instead, we're going to try our hands at tile. We've got little black and white hexagonal tiles all picked out, which should give the room a bright, clean, and period-correct look. The claw foot tub stays, of course, but we're moving it to the other side of the room, and we'll relocate the new vanity and new toilet. The room won't get any bigger or have any additional fixtures but we're hopeful it'll be a lot more inviting.