Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Son of a ......

I thought I would do a little home repair project this weekend. Nothing to big, just recaulking the tub/shower. It definitely needs it. And since I'm getting the bathroom window (which is in the Shower!?!?) replaced in about a month, I thought it would make it look a lot nicer.

The bottom of the surround has been bowed out since I bought the house. Well the reason is because the plaster wall was disintegrating behind it. So when I pealed off the old caulk, a shower of plaster chunks literally rained down into the tub. I must admit that my dad and I kind of thought that's what was happening, but we didn't realize how bad it actually was.

I talked it over with my dad and I decided to try a "quick fix" to see if it would hold. After knocking out as much loose stuff as I could, I cleaned the edge up and put some liquid nails type caulking behind the surround. Boy was that messy! I couldn't get the tip of the caulk gun far enough up into the opening, so I ended up squirting a whole bunch of it into my hand and spreading it myself. Yuck!! Then I laid a 2x4 along it and wedged another one between it and the side of the tub. I left it that way until Sunday night. When I removed the 2x4's I expected it to just pop out, but surprisingly it held. I decided to wait until the next morning to caulk to see if it would hold through the night. It did, so early Monday morning, I was recaulking the tub.

To my sorrow though, when I got home last night it had not held. The surround had popped back out. My Dad's coming over this weekend to look at it, and I'm thinking we're going to have to take the whole thing out and replace the plaster with drywall. The kind specifically made for bathrooms. So in the mean time, I slathered more caulking along the hole hoping to at least close it up temporarily so I can take a shower until we get it fixed.

Guess the house got jealous that I spent so much money on fixing the car last year that it thought it was it's turn. :o)

I had wanted to "SOMEDAY" gut the whole bathroom and re-do it. However, that day is not today! Would be nice though.

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