A little blog for a restless mind

Bathroom Renovation My Way

Yes yes, I'm sorry it's been so late since my last post. I'm busy working and having fun. And cleaning up behind those nasty plumbers from the last post. Do you want to know how I do bathroom stuff? Right.
Somewhere around 10 months ago my mom complained her electricity bill was unusually high and she thought it was all boiler's fault since it was over 30 years old. Even she didn't know the exact age because it's been there since she can remember.


So then, I bought a new boiler. But that wasn't enough. The old boiler had to be taken down and the new one mounted. I decided to do it while mom's working so I could be free from all the criticism while working.
Since the old boiler was so old, all the pipes leading in and out from it coroded so heavilly I couldn't disconnect it in any sane way. So I got the help of my crazy sister to disconnect it in an insane way. Saw it off!


Yeah baby, go wild on the pipes!


After I disconnected the old boiler I used some of that ol' WD40 to unscrew the nuts holding the boiler on the wall, took it down, and threw it out. But there remained two couples of screws protruding from the wall, one couple used to hold the boiler in the upper part, and the other couple of bolts used to hold the boiler in the lower part. My sister was all for sawing off those protrusions, too. But I'm more for quality work, so I wanted to get them out of the wall. I chiseled around one of the upper bolts to see a bit more.


And then it occured to me: the holes for bolts were drilled straight through the wall and bolts inserted and fastened from the other side of the wall! The other side being the living room. So I went into the living room and instructed my sister to hit a bit on the bolts and I'll try to see where exactly they'd come out. Well, a light stroke caused the wall to bulge a bit, so I said to her to just go crazy and hit it through the wall. Ahm, I didn't anticipate it would cause that much of wall to come off. This is the upper part.


This is the lower part.


And this is what remained on the floor. You can see two couples of bolts, each couple attached to a piece of metal that held them in place.


Oh, and this is the chiseled part.


Since it was getting late I had to fix those huge holes fast. My mom was coming home soon. Well then, to the shop, buy some mortar and plaster! First, I put on a layer of mortar.


But while I was working, I heard some nerve wrecking shouting.


It was my mom, who came home, saw the state of the bathroom, and got angry. I wonder why.


She even threatened me to better fix everything or else...


So I resumed fixing the walls, in a rather fast pace. This is how the living room came out.


And this is the bathroom part. You can see that there was no paint behind the boiler. The old boiler was indeed probably there since the house was built. Somewhere in the 1960s, I believe.


Oh, those two holes in the upper part are already holes where the new boiler was going to be attached. Yes, I was thinking of everything. Anyway, after mortar and before paint there usually comes a thin layer of plaster. You see, mortar is coarse, but you need something fine to stick paint onto. This is how the living room looked like after being done with plastering.


After plastering the living room and the bathroom, I and sister painted the bathroom and the small patch in the living room, mounted the new boiler and I connected it to the pipes and electricity. This is how it looks like now.



The new boiler in operation.



So... If you've got a bathroom to repair, want a bit of fun, and pay good, you know who to turn to. ;) Forget those plumbers. They're yucky, wasteful, and take a lot of time.

posted by AlesS @ 1/27/2006 02:48:00 PM