
Well, it looks like the "Dustbowl 2006" tag needs to be changed, to "Dustbowl, Ad Infinitum". When I finished the laundry room Justin asked me if I was really likely to work on the bathroom during the hot, sweaty months of summer in Baltimore. I conceded that it was not likely that much would get done, so we just closed off the back of the house and tried not to think about what was back there until the weather cooled off.
This is what it looked like when we left off:

Finally, after all of the trips of the summer (San Diego, Colorado, Australia, LA, Washington, France), and a bit of time to regroup we cracked open the back door, dusted off the power tools and I got back to work.
For this project I have mostly worked on my own, and when I can snag Justin we work together. It has been really frustrating at times, and has been a much slower process than it should be because I am limited by my size, my strength and the fact that I only have two hands. I would love to have a laborer to work with, but have not found a way to do that without feeling like I was putting myself at risk. Driving up to the 7-11 and picking up a day laborer doesn't seem like a clever thing for a woman alone in a house to do, and posting to Craigslist doesn't seem significantly better. So I have slogged along, albeit sloooowly, and with more swearing and bruises than is strictly necessary. It was a huge boon for me, then when John came to work with me for a week. (During that time, we got the joists and the subfloor down, hung the pocket door and tore out the old back door and built the frame for the new door to go in.)
FLOORS:
So, when starting back up after the summer break, I had to start with finishing the demolition, tearing out the last of the floor and drywall. Once the floor was out, I needed to build a new system of joists, to create a level floor. The room was originally built as a porch, with the floor sloping to the back for water to run off of it. Add to that a significant left-leaning sag as our 135 year old house has settled, and it made for a seriously warped floor. In the corner where the shower now stands, the new joists were about an inch above the old ones, while in the opposite corner (where the toilet will be, to the left of the back door) the new joists are nearly five inches above the old ones. It was a ridiculous job; tedious, frustrating, and difficult. After several false starts, it did finally come together, and the day that we layed down the subfloor was so SATISFYING!
This picture shows the original joists exposed, the pink strings are marking the point that we had to build up to in order to make the subfloor level:

This picture is of the new joists, before the subfloor was put down:

Subfloor! It's staring to look like a room:

DOORS:
When we decided to move the bathroom into a larger room I decided that I wanted to have a stand-alone shower, as well as keep the tub. In the old bathroom we had a shower curtain hanging around the clawfoot, which meant that you had to step up a couple of feet to get into the shower, and baths always ended up feeling a bit claustrophobic. In order to keep the tub and cram in a shower we had to put in a pocket door, as a regular door wouldn’t have room to open and close freely.
This picture is of the pocket door installed, and of John, who was brave enough to work with me for a week:

There is also a back door that opens onto a deck that overlooks the garden. We had to replace this door for a couple of reasons: the old door didn’t fit well and leaked into the house, which had rotted out much of the frame and floor below it, and anyway the door and frame needed to be taken out when the floor was leveled, as the bottom would have been about four inches below the new floor, also as it is a southern exposure and some of the best light comes from that side of the house we decided to put in a glass door (which will be frosted so that we don’t show our states of undress to the rest of the neighborhood), to let in the light. John and I took out the old door just in time for a major storm to come in, so we had a fun time working with torrential rain and 60 mile-an-hour wind gusts being kept outside with nothing but contractor bags and staples.
A picture of the hole in the wall before the door was installed:

VENT:
Our old bathroom didn’t have any venting at all, and would get seriously musty in the summer, so I was determined that if we were going to do this much work on the room, at least it wouldn’t be a mold hazard when we finished. Installing the fan and ducts was a bear, as I ended up needing to cut through supporting beams on a load-bearing wall in order to get access to the great outdoors, as well as cut a hole through the exterior wall of the house. As with every other task in the project, it was tricky and dirty and a real pain in the ass, but in the end it all worked out.
INSULATION:
This was a big one, as Justin and I are committed to making our house as energy efficient as possible. We insulated every possible surface; putting down a layer under the floor, so that the heat can’t rise from downstairs, installing soffits under the roof, and insulating the ceiling, and putting insulation in the outside walls, and foam anywhere that we could see light coming in through the outside walls.
DRYWALL:
Much like our floors, the walls were also extraordinarily uneven, which could not be ignored when we were putting in the doors and framing the shower. This meant that all of the studs needed to be furred out so that would be level from floor to ceiling. The wall that has the window in it had a nearly three inch slant over an 8 foot span. That meant that on every stud that existed, I attached a new 2x4 that was even with the old one at the top, but stuck out beyond the old one by nearly three inches at the bottom. Once the new framing was built, Justin and I hung the drywall. Our neighbors Marc and Lynn helped us with the ceiling, and we are so grateful for that.
SHOWER:
The shower has been a crazy project, and will get its own post soon enough. Suffice to say that I had to build the frame, which needs to be level in every direction, and square. I can’t fudge this one too much, as we’ll be tiling the walls and base, which will show if anything is off. I am also building my mortar shower pan, rather than installing a prefab one. It is harder this way, but will allow the shower base to also be tiled, which will look so much better when it is finished.
Here is the shower pan with the first layer of mud, before the liner was installed:

Finally, here's the room so far:

STILL TO DO:
-tape and mud the drywall
-paint walls/ceiling
-paint bathtub and radiator
-hang cement board in the shower
-pour the last layer of concrete for the shower pan
-install shower door and window
-tile and grout shower
-install toilet and sink
-install floors (bamboo, in case you’re wondering, or even reading anymore)