Phase I Demo - Complete

I am happy to report that the first phase of our bathroom 'reno' is complete'. Well when it comes to the shower anyways [and that's what our main focus is on right now since it is the biggest project within the master bath]. I'm actually surprised at how fast we got the demo accomplished. Granted we started working on it in bits and pieces, since last Sunday... but than again we both still work full time so all in all we have made good progress.

Or maybe it was that chocolate cream filled donut I had this morning that kept me going...yum.

First things first. I started ripping the tile up off the floor and to my amazement it wasn't AS hard as I had originally, and mentally prepared myself for....or so I thought. Josh got most of the walls down [in big chunks] so I figured I would tackle the floor and any remaining remnants.

Boy... did Josh get off easy on this project.

After killing myself removing the floor tiles, in chunks, I noticed that there was a large abundance of thin set. I might not be an expert and this might be our first official 'DIY' project, but Josh and I watch Holmes on Holmes [love that show] enough to know that, that is just way to much thin set. I mean it was super thick and that's not even the best part!

After removing all the floor tiles, we removed the rubber matting and ... Hmmm... what's that!? Oh... that's MORE thin set.

At this point Josh and I were a little puzzled. At first glance we thought it was concrete but than after a few good swings of the hammer we discovered it was not concrete, but more thin set.

It was like we were digging for buried treasure and what was the buried treasure you might ask? ANOTHER set of floor tiles. I am totally not pulling your leg and I totally did not photoshop that picture. These people who did this shower over, instead of ripping up the OLD tile that used to be there... they went ahead and tiled OVER it. And the best part? -These were contractors who did this!

Mike Holmes... where are you when we need ya!!

Here is a little 'diagram' to show you why our water pressure in this shower was just completely horrible. See the hot water pipe? It's small... This photo doesn't even do it any justice. It's small like pinky small. Well see the main pipe? It's bigger... a lot bigger than the hot water pipe. So when you turn your hot water on you have this tiny little pipe that the hot water has to go through... than it trickles out into the main pipe, thus creating a low pressure flow out of the shower head. Josh can't wait to tackle this one!

I really have no words for this other than... really now... ::shakes head::

But everything is now ripped out and torn down.... along with the 6 layers of floor we ripped out also.

I am just happy the demo is done because that means we can move forward to Phase 2 - Installation.

It can only get better right!?