The clean scene

So as you know we are well into it now and without a bathroom. We promised details about how we are staying not so stinky and here they are.

When we were planning the reno we knew that we were going to have to figure out a plan of how we could keep clean so that we would still have friends and a job by the end of it all. With only 1 bathroom and that 1 room going away it was going to be tricky to say the least.

After some serious thought, Margaret came up with a plan.... we could put a big Rubbermaid bin in the basement with a sump pump in the bottom to pump out the water, hang up some plastic curtains, run the hose from the laundry tub and voila a shower would be born. When we described this to our contractor we got kudos for ingenuity but they didn't think it could be done. Ha, never say never.

After they gave it some thought they came up with a variation on a theme and the shower was born.

A 3 foot square shower basewas placed on some boards to lift it off the floor, a sealed drain was put in the bottom, 3 plywood walls attached and screwed into the floor joists to keep it in place, attach a wooden dowel to the front for a curtain, connect an old shower head to the wall tied into the hot and cold water lines, connect up a sump pump that drains to the laundry tub, and a shower is born :) When the site manager said that "in all my years of construction I have never had to build something like this", Margaret felt vindicated in her original plan.

As most of you know, our basement is not that tall (maybe just over 6 feet). With the shower raised it doesn't leave much room for tall folks but it is still doable. It may not be pretty but at least we are clean