Demo Day 1: karate kick the commode

I can tell you this.
I WILL be booking my first ever hot stone massage immediately following this damn renovation.
if I have any money left after everything is said and done. sssh! don't tell mark!

So we hit the bathroom hard, literally.
Smashing and scraping and prying each and every damn tile off every wall.

But not before removing the medicine cabinet, sink, 6 mirror panels and nasty wallpaper.
The original plan was to (nicely) remove the toilet and salvage it.
Well, Mark got all pissed off that the bolts were rusted on and he karate kicked it into pieces.
It was the highlight of my weekend.

Saturday morning I went to Home Depot and purchased a couple of pry bars, a pair of goggles and face mask, and the odds and ends to add back to the bathroom after it's all pretty.
This included two mirrors; one for over the sink, a toilet roll holder, shower head and water valve, and fancy hand-held sprayer combo. 

Now, here are the steps in pictures to start chipping away (pun intended) at a bathroom.

First, remove all your fun little space takers from the space and dump somewhere that the cat will more than likely pee on:

2) Watch your husband curse to the Heavens while he nearly electrocutes himself taking out the bathroom fixtures. Carry each piece down the stairs and toss into the back of his work truck:

3) Start violently ripping off the old lady wallpaper and feel satisfied with it's demise:

4) Put your goggles on and tap tap taperoo at each tile. Drop some on your toes and wince in pain. Fill up 10 buckets worth and make 10 trips outside to dump everything.

5) Die a little inside when you realize the fucktard who installed the tiles used liquid nails instead of mortar for half of the space. (the yellow splotches are liquid nails. the white is mortar)

side note: those of you that don't know...liquid nails is a tacky substance that doesn't scrape off when it is being removed. Most would recommend a heat gun and a bunch of muscle to get the job done, but when it starts removing the concrete behind, it's time to consider a different approach. At this point we aren't sure if it's worth the time and effort to do it ourselves or just tear out all the drywall and plaster and have the professionals install new. What's another $400 to the project...ugh.

7) Listen to the pangs of Mark smashing the drywall of a wall that shouldn't have been removed.
Die inside again.

8) Come to a stopping point after you realize rusty toilet water seeped into your gym shoes, even though there is still wallpaper glaring at you:

After 6 hours of smashing and removing and shifting and gutting, clean up what you can and revel in the fact that you only sliced one finger open from a sharp tile.

 Day 2 in the next post!