Big time progress over the past couple of days, though it was looking grim late Thursday afternoon…

The tub we ordered came cracked, which was a massive bummer. The tub took 3 weeks to arrive so getting a replacement direct from Kohler was out of question. I made a few calls to the local pluming supply houses and found one that I could pick up the next day. What a major relief. What looked like a back-breaking delay turned into just a day and now we will hopefully be tiling in week.

Late afternoon on Friday I got started by installing the tub. I have never done this on my own so it was a bit of a learning experience. I had to install the overflow and drain on the tub first, then set it into place and mark the location of the drain pipe. After doing this, I removed tub and installed the p-trap and reducer coupling to take the drain pipe from the tub. This was a pretty serious task. Not only did I need to do that, this tub requires a wet-mortar bed underneath it to give the tub floor some support. So after making sure all my pipes lined up, I removed the tub again, mixed up a fair bit of mortar, spread it on the floor and finally for the last time dropped the tub into place. It felt great to get that beast into its final resting place.

After the tub was locked to the joists with some clip, I furred out the studs with some strips of wood so the cement board can sit over the lip of the tub. With that complete I started stapling in the roofing felt into the alcove. The felt is there in case any water ever gets behind the tile and cement board. With the felt in place I finished the alcove off by installing the cement backer board, its the same stuff that went on the floor.

I wasn’t done yet, this morning I put up the last remaining pieces of drywall and commenced mudding all the joints in the drywall and thin-setting the joints in the tub cement board. By the middle of next week I should be painting, which is flippin awesome.

I’ve got my work cut our for me over the next week, but this is the point where we starting peddling downhill. Have a great Easter/Passover weekend you guys.

-M and L