Bathroom renovation series part 2

Deconstruction continues...


Peeling away the layers more layers are found. In the image below you can see white tile that was under the grey, and even some turquoise tile showing from beneath the white. Actually, these two layers still remain, for someone someday to discover when they get sick of how we renovated the bathroom.




Gutted. Let's just shove those wires and the propane line up into the roof. I think it was about now that the contractor said "Are you sure you still want a window in your shower?" I answered, "Absolutely. Don't take my window away!" We love having that window in the shower because the bathroom has no fan and it vents out a lot of steam. Also, in Summertime we leave the window completely open all the time and it offers the best view in the house (ah, from the toilet) - the backyard. My man calls it Horse TV when a horse is in view.

Another contractor later said, "Are you sure you want to keep that window?" and I had to repeat myself. Don't take away my windows!





This is where the tub was, but we don't want a tub. We asked that the waterlines be left accessible for the next family who lives here who will probably want a tub. On the left wall here you can see new waterlines added for our washing machine's new place. Also you can see they've insulated all the copper pipes.




Then they poured a new base, but not after finding a lot of moisture in the wall from the drippy furnace. Hm...would our insurance cover water damage?

Can you guess?

No. Of course not. This damage was not proven to be caused by faulty plumbing, so we had to come up with another 5K Euros to have water damage fixed. You won't believe how they do that in Germany. How do they fix water damage in America? I believe they remove the damaged part and replace it, right? And since homes are made of wood, this patchwork process works I suppose. Well that is not what happens here.




The old fixtures lay on our grass weeks before I finally said "Please get rid of the garbage" and they did. I don't see the tub here and I never did. I suspect it is being used as a livestock water tank, cuz farmers around here are that classy. (I found 4 bathtubs in our creek when we moved in. They're still there, covered in weeds.)




Oh yes, this is a little bit of magic that I simply had to have. I don't know what it's called in English, but it's a 8-inch deep half-wall structure made for hanging a toilet and sink. It creates a shelf along the entire wall.  I wasn't too picky about what I wanted in that bathroom, but my #1 must have was a wall-mounted toilet. And I got it: )




Temporary toilet. I am guessing from experience they learned that they drip concrete mix and such on everything while they work, so during the majority of the renovation we had this toilet. The switches behind it are the typical German system of two flushes - one with more water and one with less. Since they didn't install the plates for several months, we got good at sticking our fingers into the slots and manipulating the flush that way.




Finally. These are the photos you've all been waiting for! What the heck is going on here?




Yes, they've bored holes in the outside walls of our bathroom and entry way room, and stuck oh, what would you call them in English? Hot metal pokers? J says, "Thermal sticks!" *lol* Why are they heating up our walls? They are trying to remove any moisture. This heating of the walls with sticks took 3 days, and smelled really bad. It was almost bad enough I thought we couldn't live here during those days. Cooked wall smell.




The name for this process is Horizontalsperre.



What happens after the three days of wall cooking? Oh how I wish I had a photo of that. Cuz you probably won't believe me when I tell you. They bring a huge vat of hot wax and shoot hot wax into every hole, filling up any crevices. That was when the smell got better - hot wax isn't so bad. But they sure spilled a lot of wax all over the place.

I just found out that in America, this is called jet grouting, used for containment of radioactive waste sites. No kidding.

Jet Grouting with Molten Wax for In-Situ Encapsulation of Radioactive Beryllium Waste

Wow.


After the waxing of the holes, they scraped up the bigger drips (it's a very messy process) and then they eventually came back and spackled the holes - but as you will see later it looks like a child did it - it's not smooth, you can see where each hole was, even now. We painted over it but it needs to be completely resurfaced. Unfortunately that is not in our budget.

OK we're almost past the ugliness and into goodness, trust me.