The 'Rents Visit - Part One

This weekend my parent's came up to help us with the house. It seems that when everyone can read and watch how slowly you are getting things done, you get a lot more help! Although my father had his heart set on helping getting the garage ready, (which will be a project sometime in the future) we still needed a lot of work in the bathroom and back addition. After mulling over all the possible projects, we decided that getting the new tub trim kit installed and the shower surround ready to tile would be a project that we could use some help on. This was a project that we knew my father would be good at. Since we all couldn't work in the bathroom at the same time, we decided that the other project that needed completing, was wallpapering the back addition. My mother has put up a lot of wallpaper in her time, so we thought with her help, we could finally get that addition started.

For those that aren't aware, the trim kit that I purchased on eBay in March (Trim Kit) did not have the valve with it. I knew this. but I didn't know that would be a problem. I figured that you could just buy a valve. Boy was I wrong. Each company makes proprietary valves, sometimes they have several depending on the model you purchased. And the valve that I needed could cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $120 - $150. No home repair store or plumbing store carried this valve by itself, and I would have to contact Price Pfister and order the valve directly through them. Since my parents were only staying a few days, the only option that was left was to purchase another trim kit of the same make and model that contained a valve at Home Depot. I figured that I could try to sell the remaining trim kit on eBay to someone who doesn't need the valve. Hey it worked on me!

The lesson: My $70.00 deal turned out to be a $170.00 problem.

If anyone wants to change their trim in their shower, it would be in their best interest to buy something that uses their current valve (something from the same company), or buy a trim kit with the valve.

So after a day of shopping for the correct plumbing parts and cement board, my father was ready to install the trim kit.

Here is what the shower looked like when I bought the house... (scroll down to the bottom of the post) Bathroom Before Pictures

I thought about just replacing the tub surround with a white one, but I think ultimately the tub surround is cheap-looking and tile would show that some work has been put into the bathroom. You will also notice that
the tub has greenboard. Greenboard is supposed to resist mold, but you can clearly see where there is mold under the old trim. Now, most people use cement board or Hardibacker in areas where they are going to have a lot of water. Cement board is a little cheaper, so that is what we used.





My father also made two interesting discoveries about the tub. After inspecting the plumbing, he couldn't find where it appeared to have leaked. However, there is clearly some mold on the greenboard. At first we thought that maybe the repair had been fixed, but since the tub surround covered the mold the previous owners didn't know it was there and thus never replaced the greenboard. After some sleuthing, he discovered that there is a small hole in the bottom of the trim plate that covers the handle. This is a hole that all trim pieces appear to have that allows water to drip from behind the trim plate if there is water building up back there. But like everything else in the house, our previous owners has caulked this hole closed. Water built up between the trim plate and the greenboard and eventually molded.

The other discovery that my father made was why there was a giant hunk of caulk in the corner of the tub.



Initially we thought that maybe it was repair of the porcelain. Brice suggested that it was a dam. Turns out Brice was right. The tub was terribly uneven, and as a result any water that dripped on the side on the tub would run onto the floor and leave quite a puddle. Since removing the tub and trying to level it would be a lot more work than we could possibly do, we thought about installing shower doors, or making a better looking dam to prevent this from happening. Lucky for us, my father found the real reason that the tub was uneven. The previous owners took the time to install a nice ceramic floor. They did not take the time to install the floor under the cabinets of the tub. Instead they built the floor around these obstacles. In addition to this, the floor board that was under the tub was non-existent (not sure why) and the tub had fallen into a inch deep crack. Had the tub been on the new floor, or at the very least not on the sub floor, the dam would be unnecessary. We fixed the problem by lifting the tub up with a crow bar and inserting a wooden plank that would prevent the tub from falling back into this hole. Now I can start looking for shower curtains instead of shower doors!

Trim Kit