Basement Bath Reno Part I - Installing the Shower

One of the things we knew we wanted to do when we moved in to the new place was a BIG reno in the basement. It was already somewhat finished but we had a few changes in mind – the first being adding a shower to the existing powder room.

Clearly there wasn't space in the bathroom to add a shower, but luckily there was a huge storage closet just behind the empty wall on the left side - plenty of space to add a big shower, with room to spare for a good sized storage closet. 

The only bump in the road was that the wall we needed to cut through was solid concrete - yikes! We considered other layouts but short of moving the whole bathroom, anything else would really cut into the living space. One of the contractors we brought in for an estimate was up for working with the concrete wall so we stuck to the original plan and got started on the work last week. 

The contractor was planning to put in a steel support beam but after opening up the drywall he realized it wasn't a load bearing wall, so they were able to skip that. The hubs had some time off and worked with the guys all week - in fact I may have picked up the jack hammer myself a couple times ;) They had a cement saw too which was a lot faster, but it generated WAY more dust, so they used the jack hammer for most of the demo. 

At this point the rubble definitely had me questioning whether this was worth it - that and all the DUST! We covered the entire basement in tarps and sealed it off from the upper floors with a plastic drop cloth (plus we don't have ducts) but the dust is still everywhere. I have no idea how it traveled up 3 floors,  but pretty much every surface in the entire house is covered in a thin layer of soot. So if any of you are local and want to come help me clean, I'll love you forever :) But I'm trying to ignore all the dirt and keep my mind on the finish line - pretty shiny tiles!

Other prep work included adding a fan that runs through the ceiling towards an exterior vent

 and running the plumbing around to the shower

as well as installing the drain, which I didn't take a picture of because I got pretty bored of all this stuff and went back upstairs :) 

I did have a little fun though when they put down some new cement 

It's already covered up but I love that it'll always be there under the house :) 

This week they've framed out the doorway

and they've almost finished tiling inside the shower. I was completely bummed out when we couldn't use the original tile I picked out - a gorgeous marble subway tile - but its still turning out okay. More on that soon, for now here's a little sneak peek

More details to come as we make progress! For now stay tuned tomorrow for a big giveaway contest!