Drywall is the Xanax of renovations...

Well after many delays which I won't bore you with...wait..who am I kidding. If I had to suffer, so do you:

Delay #1 - Pipes that I couldn't leave alone.

In the process of doing the reno I encountered two supply lines that looked like they could go any day. Sea foam green is not the colour you want copper pipes to be.

So completely outside of my reno plans I had to replace them. Then there were the other two pipes which I screwed may have affected as well. Are any of you old enough to remember camping as a kid in a canvas tent? You know the ones where if it was raining and you dared to defy the commandment of your father and touch the canvas you created your own little interior waterfall? Weren't those fun? Well if you're stupid curious enough to rub the lightly corroded sections of a copper pipe to see how bad it is you do the exact same thing. So I promptly created two pipes with pinhole leaks. Yay me. These also had to be replaced.

Delay #2 - Lazy morons

My bathroom has a linen closet with a 30" bi-fold door which I was replacing (frame and all). When I tore the trim and frame off I discovered a truly neat fact - the framing was done by lazy morons. They framed for a 34" door, decided that was too big, stuck in a 30" door and made the 4" inches up with 2" of shims on either side of the frame. I'm serious. There was like a whole cedar tree of shims in there. I would have taken a picture but I was afraid that some rubber boot wearing, tree hugging, Duckworth Lunch eating granola would hold me responsible for deforestation. And if you get the Duckworth Lunch eating reference you are both cool and a little old and obviously local. Needless to say I wasn't using a cedar tree to fix the issue. No I'd do something incredibly daring and novel - I'd stick a freakin' 2x4 in there and shim it like a normal person. But oh no, that would be too simple. Turns out that every 2x4 in the bathroom is not the standard nominal 3 1/2" but actually 3 3/8". I don't even know how that could happen. What it did mean was that I am very lucky to have a large cabinet saw and a big workshop to rip the studs down. Having put another stud in the opening I both fixed the issue and saved a whole cedar tree. However the only shims I could get were the really long ones so after I trimmed them I probably killed two cedar trees. Whoops.

Delay #3 - The other taps broke

Yup. I go to brush my teeth and find that there's no pressure coming out of the taps in the ensuite bathroom. There is however lots of water running over my toes. Indoor sprinklers are not on my list of new features I wanted to add. I checked twice. Not only that but the cheap screw-type shutoff valves didn't work either so I had to shut the water to the house off instead. As an important side note allow be to impart you with this little tidbit... $5 shutoffs from Canadian Tire are shit less than the best.  They will leak, they will fail. They use a screw with a rubber gasket to make a seal and the screw is plastic. The combination almost certainly guarantees failure if you have to turn it off and on more than once in your lifetime. Get a ball-type shutoff valve with a lever not a screw (Dahl is a great brand). They seal well, and pretty much don't wear out.  But I digress, back to the story at hand. The failure of the taps and shut-offs meant that instead of working on the bathroom I was renovating I had to disconnect the ensuite taps, pull the sink, replace the taps, get new connections and shut-offs, put the whole thing back together and only then could I get back to the main bathroom. Except now that I'm back in the office I pretty much chewed up my whole night on the ensuite and have no time for the reno.

So, with the delays over I started drywalling the bathroom. The ceiling was already done so it wasn't too bad doing the walls except for one which had 5 cutouts for a receptacle, light and plumbing. That was a little more tricky. I had originally planned on putting a strip of Aqua Tough drywall  (a sheet rock product rated for use in wet areas) on either side of the bathtub alcove (as if there is going to be any water build up that's where it will be from splashes in the tub or not having the shower curtain pulled all the way) and then cement board for the actual alcove itself. I even put one piece of cement board up. One was enough.

Cement board is totally waterproof and mould cannot grow on it. Aqua Tough is highly water and mould resistant, but not waterproof and not mould proof. So why use Aqua Tough instead of cement board? Because cement board is a real pain to work with. It's cement. It's not just a catching marketing name. Even 3x5 sheets are very heavy, you need carbide tools to score or cut it. And if you have to drill openings the dust is insane. And if you need to trim a sheet down a little, well, good luck with that. Aqua Tough is a gypsum based product, but there is no paper membrane (the paper is what mould loves to eat) and it's rated for contact in wet areas specifically showers. Since I'm going to put Kerdi waterproof membrane over the backerboards anyway, I don't see any issues from using Aqua Tough and it's just so much easier to work with than cement board. That being said, if anyone wants to buy some cement board at a good price it's ridiculously easy to work with and extremely light. The cement name is just for marketing, really it's made from fluffy stuff from NASA. Honest.

So here I am with all the drywall and Aqua Tough on the walls and the doors framed out and the bathroom is starting to look like a room again not a full-on demolition site.

Standing there in that moment I took my metaphorical Xanax and felt calmer knowing that it was starting to come together. Then I got a splinter in my foot from the plywood floor and called myself an idiot for walking in there in my bare feet anyway.

Next step, adventures in mudding and taping sheetrock. Thrilling stuff I know. Will I mix it to the right consistency? Will it set up in the bucket before I get a chance to put it all on the walls? These and other thrilling questions will be answered in my next post. Same Bat channel, not exactly sure what Bat time...