So- remember our photos of the original bathroom? If not, let me refresh your memory. 🤪
So- I’m not sure if the pictures tell the story well- but that shower is tiny! And that toilet is a super squatty potty, tiny as well! Also when a 6′ 4″ guy like me sits on it- my knees are smashed into the bathroom door- No Buenos! Plus nothing puts the last three letters in class like a bathroom with a shag carpet floor. 😆 So right away we knew what we wanted to do- the plan was to remove the the carpet, the toilet, and the shower, build up the whole floor, and turn the whole bathroom into a shower.
I researched toilets endlessly- and due to the placement of the hole that the toilet had to go on I ended up having to order the cheaper model of the toilet I really wanted due to clearance to the wall. It still turned out to be a great toilet though. Here it is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007TQJTFK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I was stoked that it was a much taller toilet.
So when it arrived I tore out the carpet, the toilet, and the shower. I have to apologize about the lack of photos on this one- but back then we didn’t know we would be sharing our story one day. 😊 I cut strips of 3/4″ plywood and mounted them around the outside edges and throughout the middle to support the new shower floor.
Then I templeted and mounted the new floor into the supports and around the edges.
I also mounted a small strip of plywood at the door to prevent water from spilling out. I had mapped out the hole placement for the toilet and shower drain so I drilled those into the new floor. I then installed the new shower drain. With my recently developed rookie level fiber-glassing skills, I fiber-glassed the whole shower floor and ran it up the walls a bit. (I know- it’s not the prettiest… don’t judge me! But it works perfectly!)
Once the fiberglass had set I did a second coat- and when that had dried and cured I painted the whole bathroom floor in bed liner. (The same we had used for the rest of the interior, that had the Kevlar chunks in it, so it was extra grippy.)
After doing a few coats of bed liner, we painted the bathroom walls and the inside of the bathroom door in a few coats of Gaco. Once that dried I installed a new toilet mount ring, and had to build an extension to run down into the original. My hole was a little off by a hair, so it took some routing and sanding to get it to all line up perfectly.
Once it was all set we installed the toilet. (Which we sprayed in the same hammered steel finish and clear coated it as we had done the other trimmings in Serenity in) We installed the toilet sideways into the bathroom so there was plenty of leg room.
We taped off and sprayed the sink and the skylight trim in the same fashion.
I also modified and mounted in a corner shower caddy over the sink for storing all of our bathroom goodies!
We bought a stainless shower faucet and hose and installed them. Then last but not least we mounted a shower curtain bar over the door and a toilet paper holder. I installed a stainless steel grab bar in the shower. Later I would install this pant hanging rack on the wall to store and hang our towels. The bathroom is now officially awesome!
I had picked up a few the ADA grab handles like you see in the picture above- so not only did I install one in the bathroom for safe showerings and sittings, but I installed one outside the entry door too. They are both rock solid and such a nice feature!
Geoff Murphy 1/27/2020