The 80/20 Rule

We're this close to having the bathroom finished. The tub got refinished yesterday. The vanity got hauled up the final flight of stairs last week (thanks, Scott and Bob!). The transom window went in a few days ago. And everything got plumbed in today. We've almost got a working bathroom again! Apart from some cosmetic work with the trim, paint, and molding we're just about done.

Which really means we've got about four more weeks of work ahead of us.

The transom was waiting on special brass hinges that we special ordered from a salvage place in New Orleans. Once the hinges arrived, I could finally mount the window in place above the bathroom door. When you open it, it rotates around its center axis so that it doesn't bang open or shut. We'll probably leave it open most of the time.

Once that was in place, we could mount the ceiling fixture, as you can see above. This will be the main light for the room, and the switch you'll naturally reach for as you walk in. Above the light is a ceiling medallion to give it a finished look.

The vanity is in place now, and almost ready to use. It's got a black granite top and backsplash (coming soon), and chrome-plated brass fixtures. Later on, we'll hang a mirror on the wall just above it.

The tub got finished yesterday, the toilet has been working for a while, and the heated floor and tile were done last month. So as far as fixtures go, we're pretty much finished. The two built-in cabinets still need to be built from scratch, and I'm sure that will take a few weeks. But they're not strictly necessary, and in the meantime we can accommodate guests.

Sorry, Scott and Bob. You missed the working bathroom by about five days. Better luck next time. But thanks for the help!

Rub-a-Dub-Dub 2

...a man and his tub.

Here's how you refinish an old bathtub: You stand back and let the expert do it. What'cher lookin' at right here is Doug. Doug refinishes bathtubs (and sinks and toilets) for a living. Doug is very good at what he does, as you will see.

It's a two-step, two-day process. On Day 1, he deliberately ruins the old porcelain coating of the bathtub by etching it with acid. It's a water-based acid, so it's rendered harmless by the time it runs down the drain. The acid "opens up the pores" in the porcelain, according to Doug, who looks nothing at all like a hairdresser. Then he patches up the chips, nicks, dings, and imperfections in the porcelain with special putty. When that's done, he sprays the tub with new porcelain coating, sort of like spray painting but way messier and smellier. That explains all the paper and drop cloths in the bathroom and the fan strategically mounted in the window. We left the fan running all day to get the fumes out of the room. Whew!

Day 2 is pretty simple. He cleans up his mess and polishes the new finish with a buffing compound. After that, you're all done! The tub looks as good as new, maybe even better. All clean and shiny, with no chips anywhere. Good stuff.

After Doug was done, I put the hardware (drain, strainer, etc.) back on. Some of the original drain hardware was a bit too old and nasty to preserve, so I replaced it with shiny new hardware. But naturally, the old parts used nonstandard threads, so we had to get creative to make the new hardware mate up with the old. Now it all fits beautifully. We're almost back in business.

Heavy Metal

A bit of trivia: this tub was manufactured by the American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corporation of Louisville, KY. Says so right here.

A quick search shows that the company was formed in 1899 through a series of mergers with earlier companies, some dating back to 1857. It later formed a partnership with American Radiator Co. in 1929, and the resulting company eventually shortened its name to American-Standard, the name we know today.

The firm's "research facility" and "modern and extensive laboratories" are located in Louisville, where this one was made. Maybe it's an experimental bathtub.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

...we've blackened a tub.

Getting the bathtub through the bathroom door was a trick in itself. Now we want to refinish the inside and outside before we put it back in. For the inside, we've called in the ceramic-refinishing experts. They'll be here in a few days. But the outside? Bah! We can do that ourselves!

This is a big ol' cast iron clawfoot tub that weighs about a million pounds. It's all we could do to move it a few inches outside the bathroom door, where it's been resting on its side like an animal with its feet in the air. As you can see, the outside of the tub was painted gold at some time in the past, but the paint ran and left streaks. It's also tarnished a bit since those glory days, so there's some cleanup required there, too.

We're faced with a dilemma: we want to clean up and repaint the bathtub, but we can't move it anywhere. It's blocking the small hallway, but there's really nowhere else we can move it. It's certainly not going downstairs, and it doesn't make sense to move it back into the bathroom yet while we're still working on everything. So we're going to paint it in situ.

To that end, I made this little impromptu paint booth. We taped up plastic drop cloths to cover the walls and floor. My shop vac provides air evacuation of a sort, and I've already got a good filter mask. Add in a couple of rattle cans and we're good to go!

The first day was spent scrubbing the outside with steel wool. That took off some of the old paint and loosened up some rust and other crud. Once the tub was nice and smooth I vacuumed up the dust and wiped down the tub. Painter's tape protects the porcelain rim of the tub and the claw feet. (Kathy will refinish these later with silver leaf.)

Of course, I can only paint one side of the tub at a time, so I spray on a few light coats, wait 48 hours for it to dry, then flip the tub over on its other side and repeat the process. The upstairs smells nasty with paint fumes, but the weather is warm and the windows are all open, so the dizziness goes away quickly.

So far, so good. In a few more days we should be able to move the behemoth back into its berth and start plumbing it in. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be ready to use by July 4th, so guests will have to make do with the downstairs shower for another week or so.