Basement Bathroom Reno, Part 1 - Before

Some of you have been hearing about this for a while, and I finally have some photos to share.

If you haven't heard, here's what's going on: Our house was built in the '50s, and at that time, we're guessing that the basement bathroom was simply "roughed in" to be completed later. When it was completed later on... well... it may not have been exactly to code.

You see, we've found over the past few years that when the shower drain backs up, it backs up under the shower pan and out across the bathroom floor. When we mentioned that to the contractor, we found out that in many homes of the same vintage the shower was never actually attached to the drain pipe. It just sits above the pipe, with the assumption that water will eventually flow into it.

That's when we decided that the shower needed to be torn out and replaced. Which eventually kind of had the domino effect of needing to replace the flooring, and - as long as that was going on - fixing the low ceiling, and (why not?) replacing the other fixtures.

We started shopping for this back in March. The demo happened about 3 weeks ago. We found out last week that some parts are back-ordered and may not be here until June. So... For now we're in the "during" stage. But the following photos are from the "before." (Please note that this is not the original before, when the room was "creamsicle" orange, with a darker orange below the rail and a light orange above it - with '80s gold/blue tile. It became peach to coordinate with the new floor tiles a few years back.)

Can you tell that the ceiling comes halfway down the window?

Apparently I was alert enough to take photos before my shower one morning. 

The wall to the right (which makes this entire space about 4 feet wide) is a drywall wall built to enclose the shower (see next photo).  

The shower stall was framed out to look "built-in" - but when the shower stopped working (luckily, just before the reno was to start), we realized that all of the plumbing is IN that wall. No way to fix it without ripping it out.

Current floor tile was peel-and-stick, but I kind of liked it. 

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting some during pictures and - hopefully soon - I'll post some after shots, as well. I have to admit that I'm really excited with how it should look when it's done. I think you'll like it.