Since I like to do long posts, I will give a bit of history on this house:
Apparently this place used to be a peanut farm and there was a house over 60 years ago that burned down and a new one was built in its place. I believe the oldest portions of this house were built in the 30s or 40s and some additions were added in the 60s or 70s. We bought the place in the mid 80s.
There are three bathrooms in the home-- one of which had avocado green tub, sink, and toilet. My bathroom fortunately had white fixtures and has a blue and white theme. The wall panels are fairly thin plywood printed with a blue and white striped texture.
The nicest thing in the bathroom is my cast iron tub.
Unfortunately, for some reason the people saw fit to put carpet in the bathrooms (probably because they did not actually use any insulation in the house and it likely got very cold in winter).
My shower/tub originally had a panel with a mural of ducks and a pond or something that looked pretty nice. In 1992 we transferred overseas for what we thought would be a short stint but ended up being stuck overseas for nine years while the tenants from hell mucked about in our house.
When we returned we had the carpet removed and had cheap linoleum installed. There appeared to be some damage to the floor and we didn't realize there was no subfloor in the one bathroom. The flooring guy poured some white powder and put water on it to try to repair some of the damage.
After the floor in the adjacent bathroom broke, dumping the avocado toilet on its side (with my brother on it), my toilet started leaking under the linoleum-- I could feel the water under the linoleum.
I pulled it up and discovered that the toilet had been installed over the carpet and that the carpet had been soaked (I guess the wax ring died/leaked) and it soaked the floor. Fortunately I had a moisture barrier and subfloor, but the top layer was ruined. It seemed to be only one plywood board (which happened to go under the wall).
I wish I'd had a picture of my old toilet. I actually liked the look of it, but it did not flush efficiently.
Here is what I saw when I removed the toilet.
I peeled back the linoleum which was sticking to the floor (it was not ever glued down but the water made it stick)
I removed the piece of carpet which left the carpet pad underneath
I removed that and you can't tell from the picture, but the wood underneath was the consistency of mud
I scooped out the mud-like disgusting wood and started clearing it away from the flange
It took me a long time but I finally managed to chisel the board where it went under the walls and remove it.
Now, I am no carpenter and I had never embarked on a project like this by myself before. My father always helped me with my projects, but he passed away suddenly during this project, so I was on my own. (Before I actually chiseled the old floor out, we didn't know about the little plugs you could put in the toilet flange to keep out sewer gases and other crud and the plumbing backed up and flooded the bathroom multiple times-- making the floor really disgusting. I subsequently learned about the plug and put one in). The type of boards used in the original floor are no longer available as far as I can tell so I used 1/4" luan (not sure on the spelling) per the recommendation of a friend.
Here is the new board next to chunks of the old
My bathroom was quite cluttered
Apparently this place used to be a peanut farm and there was a house over 60 years ago that burned down and a new one was built in its place. I believe the oldest portions of this house were built in the 30s or 40s and some additions were added in the 60s or 70s. We bought the place in the mid 80s.
There are three bathrooms in the home-- one of which had avocado green tub, sink, and toilet. My bathroom fortunately had white fixtures and has a blue and white theme. The wall panels are fairly thin plywood printed with a blue and white striped texture.
The nicest thing in the bathroom is my cast iron tub.
Unfortunately, for some reason the people saw fit to put carpet in the bathrooms (probably because they did not actually use any insulation in the house and it likely got very cold in winter).
My shower/tub originally had a panel with a mural of ducks and a pond or something that looked pretty nice. In 1992 we transferred overseas for what we thought would be a short stint but ended up being stuck overseas for nine years while the tenants from hell mucked about in our house.
When we returned we had the carpet removed and had cheap linoleum installed. There appeared to be some damage to the floor and we didn't realize there was no subfloor in the one bathroom. The flooring guy poured some white powder and put water on it to try to repair some of the damage.
After the floor in the adjacent bathroom broke, dumping the avocado toilet on its side (with my brother on it), my toilet started leaking under the linoleum-- I could feel the water under the linoleum.
I pulled it up and discovered that the toilet had been installed over the carpet and that the carpet had been soaked (I guess the wax ring died/leaked) and it soaked the floor. Fortunately I had a moisture barrier and subfloor, but the top layer was ruined. It seemed to be only one plywood board (which happened to go under the wall).
I wish I'd had a picture of my old toilet. I actually liked the look of it, but it did not flush efficiently.
Here is what I saw when I removed the toilet.
I peeled back the linoleum which was sticking to the floor (it was not ever glued down but the water made it stick)
I removed the piece of carpet which left the carpet pad underneath
I removed that and you can't tell from the picture, but the wood underneath was the consistency of mud
I scooped out the mud-like disgusting wood and started clearing it away from the flange
It took me a long time but I finally managed to chisel the board where it went under the walls and remove it.
Now, I am no carpenter and I had never embarked on a project like this by myself before. My father always helped me with my projects, but he passed away suddenly during this project, so I was on my own. (Before I actually chiseled the old floor out, we didn't know about the little plugs you could put in the toilet flange to keep out sewer gases and other crud and the plumbing backed up and flooded the bathroom multiple times-- making the floor really disgusting. I subsequently learned about the plug and put one in). The type of boards used in the original floor are no longer available as far as I can tell so I used 1/4" luan (not sure on the spelling) per the recommendation of a friend.
Here is the new board next to chunks of the old
My bathroom was quite cluttered