Home Remodel Project Gone Seriously Wrong

Janene decided to pull a Mikey a while back - like at least six months back, and pulled off the wallpaper in our master bath. The plan was to modernize our bathroom. It seemed simple enough. We have a very small bathroom. How hard could it be, really? A little bit of paint here and there and we would be done. So after three months of not being able to choose a color, we went to Maui with Chelane. There, we found a bathroom in a restaurant that Chelane recommended (the restaurant, not the bathroom)

The bathroom had our dark wood doors and gave us some ideas. We took some light maple wood that Shon got at closeout from Home Depot. It was sitting outside waiting to be burned in his firepit when I rescued it. I could see that it could be made to match the wood on our bedroom set. I found a SnapOn tool bench top made out of stainless steel as well as a stainless steel light fixture.

 Lowe's was closing out the sink and Janene and I picked out the tile and mosaics for the walls. I recessed our old baroque medicine cabinet and changed the frame to look more modern. We even got some travertine tile left over from Heather and Joseph's home.

 Shon gave me the ideas for the electrical outlets and switches. For Janene, I built electrical outlets into the drawers of the cabinets. Now she can leave her blow dryer plugged in inside the drawer and it doesn't clutter up the counter. We can even put the iPhones, iPods and camera battery chargers in there. If I had an electric razor, it could plug into my drawer.

 We got all done with the remodel and I took the pictures above to show what we had done. The next day I noticed that the newly installed toilet was leaking. There was nothing to do but remove it again to see where the leak was. With the toilet gone, I could see that the plumbing flange was cracked. I must have given the bolt the old Phillips turn. (that's the last turn where the bolt snaps from being overtightened - I learned it from my dad.) I had to cut the pipe from the inside and I came up with this great idea to use my small router.


Woodworking tools to do plumbing work! It seemed like such a good idea at the time. So I was lying on my stomach inside our 4 foot by 5 foot bathroom (on the new cool travertine floor). I turned on the switch and the next thing I knew, there was a rotating router (25,000 RPM) with a carbide bit bouncing around that little room, taking chunks of travertine off the floor and porcelain off the wall tile,and spreading a red liquid all over the new floor. I couldn't figure out what pipe I had cut that was full of red paint. It was only after the router had cut it's own power cord in a shower of sparks that I realized it had also taken a chunk of my hand with it.

So.... that is how I got to go see our new baby Haven at LDS Hospital - after a small detour to the emergency room. The rest of the bathroom finish was delayed another couple of weeks while my hand healed. In the end, I was very blessed to have the damage be so minor. No bones were broken, no tendons were cut and no permanent nerve damage was included in this adventure. Janene replaced the damaged tile and the toilet no longer leaks - and we finally were able to pick a new paint color. "We may not be fast, but we sure are slow".