Bathroom Saga...

For some time now, we have been concerned about the softness of the floor around the commode in our hall bath. One day, mid-October, I was cleaning the floor around the commode and as I leaned on the commode to wash the floor beside it, I heard a "crack" like rotted wood snapping.

I decided it was time to investigate. I put up this sign on the door and closed the room down. 

It's really hard to keep your hand off the knob when it's such a habit to use that room! :) :) :)

So the next evening, we pulled up the linoleum and Dan removed the commode. And this is what we found.......serious termite damage.....AND LIVE termites!! :O

The room sat like this for a few days till Dan had a chance to explore and see how far the termite damage had gone. We were hoping not too far!

In the mean time, the termite inspector came out and sprayed the live termites.

When Dan was pretty sure the damage went under the shower, they began tearing out the wall between the commode and shower.

He had to cut the shower in pieces to get it out of the bathroom door!

I will take a break here and explain our living conditions, for those who don't know.
We moved to FL in 2005 and Dan worked as a missionary chaplain under GEMS for two years, then he was hired as an OPS(little pay and no benefits) chaplain, for the next 6 years. Part of our support was to live in the front part of the ministry house in Blountstown. When Dan got hired as an OPS chaplain, we were able to continue living here. Now that Dan is working at a private institution, we were able to continue living here, just paying rent now. We are so thankful for this!!

So, this project is falling on the ministry and as an attempt to help the ministry fund this project, we volunteered to do what work we can and we also set up a GoFundMe account. The bathroom project alone is going to cost close to $2000 then we will also have to replace some carpet. Please consider how/if you/your church family/your business could help this ministry. Every few $$ helps! GEMS does not have a large bank account and supports 8 chaplains and their families monthly. Your help would be a blessing!! :)

So, onto the project. We could tell, after removing the shower, that the floor damage continued under the vanity. After removing it, we also found mold/mildew behind the vanity and on the floor.

This is a pic of the rotting wood on the bottom of the vanity.....seems there had been a water leak in there at some time!??

Most of the top layer, the most damaged part of the floor, tore up.....

Mold/mildew behind vanity....

So then we pulled up the hall carpet outside the bathroom door and found more mold/mildew under the carpet padding. The floor out there was also loose, which just required some new screws to hold it down......no more squeaky floor outside our bedroom door! :) :)

Closer up of hall floor. :P Yuck!

Because the worst of the termite damage was right at the wall that connected to Danny's bedroom, we pulled up his carpet too and discovered more termite damage in there. Thankfully it wasn't a big area, and we found no live termites there. But some of the boards were almost completely eaten up!!

So, Danny's bed and "stuff" got moved into Tamara's room.
(we are waiting to get a quote for carpet, hopefully next week, then he can move back into his room.)
We will all be ready for this project to be over. :)

I will say, I think the kids are enjoying this temporary arrangement....I hear them talking quite a bit after lights are out at night! :)

More work in the bathroom......tearing out the sheet rock to check for wall damage. Thankfully there wasn't any in the walls. You can see where Dan cut out some of the bad flooring.

Tearing out the bad boards in Danny's room....

This is what they looked like!!

Down under the house, putting in some reinforcements and then putting in the new flooring that had to go under the wall separating Danny's room and the bathroom.

Having fun in the midst of it all! :)

New plywood in the bathroom....

and in Danny's room....

Drew Ayers, a contractor friend from church, came out and checked out the project and gave GEMS an estimate to finish it. It was approved, so this week the plumber came and changed the plumbing a bit to put in a tub, instead of a shower. The commode will also be at a different place and we will have to put a little smaller vanity in, but I think it will be SO nice to have a tub in there!

Drew came on Wednesday and put up new sheetrock and textured it. He will be back Monday to paint.

We were SO blessed by a good friend in GA, Mark Peachey, who offered to donate tile and his time to lay it!! He will be coming next Saturday! After that, the plumber will come back and install the commode and Drew will put in the vanity. Then it should be mostly finished!! :)

We will be getting a quote for carpet this week. The carpet in the hall and Danny's room need to be replaced, but we may also replace the carpet in the other two bedrooms. We are really hoping it will be approved and we hope to see a difference in the amount of dust in the house and sinus issues!! :/

Hope to post more pics soon!! :)