Another Day of Sports and Bathroom Remodeling

The first thing on my mind when I woke up this morning was my throbbing foot, which reminded me of the bathroom project waiting downstairs. I stepped right on a nail while trying to remove the baseboard trim-long story. I guess that's what I get for wearing flip flops and redoing bathrooms. Here is a picture of the project just as we started stripping the wall paper.

In case you are wondering, yes, that is paint over the paper. When we moved in I couldn't tolerate the circa 1983 country printed wall paper so I painted over it. It was a temporary fix and worried about how difficult it would be to strip off later, but I did it anyway.

Stripping wall paper is simple if you know how to do it. I used a spray bottle of water on this bathroom and in the past have used a 1/3 vinegar to 2/3 water mixture on other projects. The key, getting the paper wet enough that it scrapes off easily. I peeled off the top layer but the bottom layer was more stubborn. I sprayed it until it was fairly soaked. Waited about two minutes, and then scraped it off with a handy little paper scraper from Lowes. (It comes with a scorer too. Very useful if the water just can't penetrate the layers of paper. Scoring little holes allows water to penetrate behind the paper.)

Removing the toilet and sink with vanity was not as hard as I thought it would be. Luckily Landon helped by reading tutorials online and following the steps. He has issues with textures so there was no way he was touching anything gross. I got to do those parts. Removing the toilet exposed the grossest stuff by far. The wax ring was horrifying and I was appalled by the gross stuff around the toilet and what had absorbed into the floor and sub-floor over the years.
The floor is all cleaned up now and I stuffed an old hand towel down the hole temporarily.

I would like to get the layers of floor (two layers of vinyl over two different layers of sub-floor) but Cal and Landon have a football game today and Evi and Lily have swim team, so I have to get moving. I have to admit that I am a little stressed about getting the floor out easily. I better find the big crowbar for the job.

Oh yeah, I have to call a plumber too. It looks like I kind of broke the plastic drain pipe while ripping the sink and vanity from the wall at 4:00am. Don't tell Dave.