House in Progress Diary

: Diary | Ideas | Reviews | Shop | About Us

Rub-a-dub-dub...what a cool TUB!

Wow. Tim from Aquarius Limited just came to refinish our first floor tub and all I can say is....WOW

The first floor bathroom was a little, um, unusual to begin with.

When we took possession of the house, the original 1" hexagon floor tile had been replaced by 12" mottled white generic tile. There was a new sink, and a new medicine cabinet and lights (neither were set into the wall...they were just hung ON the wall.) Fake tongue and groove paneling of white coated pressed wood covered half of the walls. And then there was THE TUB.

Periwinkle blue tub from 1951. No tile on the walls around the tub. Just the drywall and old glue. Half of the glass block window had been boarded up.

This is the bathroom we will have to live in for a YEAR while the upstairs is being renovated.

So. We need tile. Obviously. But with new tile...we needed to do something about that tub. Originally, we planned for a clawfoot tub, something very cool. But then we got a closer look at OUR tub.

a) It was a cast iron tub, built like a tank.

b) The floor underneath the tub was...gone.

Yep. You can look straight up from the basement and see the bottom of this tub. I'll show you.

Here is the bottom of the tub and the joists it rests on. One joist had a piece cut out of it that reduced it to about 3 inches. Whoa! Um, that is a bad thing if you don't know joists. My dad and A "sistered" that joist (screwed in another joist-sized piece to the original joist to strengthen it) very early on as best they could with an enormous wall full of cabinets in the way. (Click on the image to see the "big picture")

I was picturing myself taking a bath one day and ending up in the basement. Embarrassed, yet unharmed, because the tub is built like an old army truck.

On second thought, the tub doesn't look too bad. Yes, it is from the 1950's and our house was built in 1914. But it is roomy, and of a simple design and, good golly, I mean, IRON! But the blue. It has to go.

So last night, we bid adieu to our friend, the clean blue tub, and gathered up all 5 shower curtains that protected the walls.

We climbed the rickety stairs to the second floor. This string on the right pulls on the light switch for the hall light upstairs. Classy, no?

Past the old phone with all of the numbers written on the wall around it...

And into the scary, scary bathroom...

Not my favorite room. I killed a big beetle in this room earlier in the month. I keep imagining this headless beetle ghost attacking me in the shower...kind of like a big shiny 6-legged Norman Bates.

Though if something funky happens to the shower pipe, we can always get to it through this handy, dandy "access place" in the wall behind the shower:

HOWEVER! Then Tim came. He arrived right at 9:00 am and set to work. I had read about all sorts of refinishing nightmares...and none of them came true! He was patient and thorough, left the work area neat and clean and did a highly professional job making the tub SPARKLING WHITE! Which will look spiffy with the subway tile and 1" hex black and white tile eventually. By 1:00 pm, he was gone. He had briefed me on how to clean and care for the tub, explained the 5 year warranty, and BEST OF ALL, the tub would be ready for use in less than 18 hours (with careful caulking of the drain and overflow). We're going to wait 48 hours, just to build up our anticipation.

We'd like to thank the folks at Midwest Chemicals who kindly referred us to Tim. (They are also pretty cool...they make the chemicals for tub refinishing, train the professionals and recreate clawfoot tubs in their Lockport shop.)

If you want a real tub and tile refinishing craftsman, contact Tim at:

Aquarius Limited
Tub & Tile Refinishing
Lyons, Illinois
Off: 708/443-5768 Cell: 708/268-1770

Here's what I'm looking forward to taking the wrapper off of (remember to click on a picture to get a close-up):

OLD TUB

NEW TUB

NEW TUB!! YEAH!!!!

Posted by jeanne on July 9, 2003 at 5:31 PM (5)

Looking for More?

	Search for more on 'tub refinishing' on this site.
	Search for 'tub refinishing' on on other houseblogs like this one.
	Search for 'tub refinishing' on Google.
	Search for 'tub refinishing' on Amazon.com.