Bathroom Remodel Bathtub to Curbless Walk In Shower Time Lapse

Hey guys, Zach here with Zim Construction bringing you another remodeled project. In this video I'm going to show you from beginning to end a bathroom that we recently finished up. I just want to start off by saying thank you to everyone who left me some feedback about narrating versus just letting the time lapse play out. Overwhelmingly you guys enjoyed the narration and me talking through the project so I'm going to do that this time. The goals for this bathroom were to have it be a shower wheelchair accessible bathroom. The story is quite heartwarming. The client of mine is doing this all for her mother who lives with her. They really want to give the mother as much independence as possible and by allowing her to be able to shower independently is a huge step in that direction. So the design for this bathroom came completely from the client. I had very little input. She had a lot of goals that she really wanted to accomplish and I wanted to do my best to help her achieve those. So the first step in doing a wheelchair accessible bathroom is the zero entry shower so that a wheelchair shower wheelchair can just roll directly in there. So in order to do a zero entry the drain must be the lowest point and so in order to get that I actually had to cut out the existing subfloor embracing and create blocking so that I can lower that section of the floor. As you can see here I'm adding some two by fours reinforced allowing the first layer of the subfloor to be put in as low as possible. It's quite unfortunate during the process of this they only have one bathroom on their property and so for the last three months they've had a porta potty on the outside of their house in the driveway. So just imagine what they had to go through in order to do this project. She was hoping to get this project done by herself and had several people that were going to help her out and all those contacts ended up falling through unfortunately and it got to the point where she needed to bring in someone and get it done as quick as possible because the three to four month time period was just not working for them. So here I am putting in some more of the subfloor cut out individual slats and of course everything is glued and screwed down very securely. We also included a small bench that was more used as an accessory platform or a small shelf. It was only seven inches wide we wanted to leave as much space for the shower wheelchair to be able to go in there and roll around. We wanted to do a big dividing wall because of course no door in this we didn't want anything that would obstruct the shower wheelchair to roll in there. So here we are putting in the half wall reinforced to all the studs and joists. One of the main design elements that my client wanted to add was the glass blocks. So there's several different places we included these glass blocks as you will see here in a little bit but in this case the best route to take was we actually made the glass block windows separately to then be installed later around these frames. So since they weren't being put in place it allowed us to get all the way around them make sure every part was sealed and done properly. It was really nice because after this was all dry the install went super fast it was almost like adding traditional windows. Here's also a great shot of the porta potty in the driveway that they had been using for the last several months. All these things actually were purchased from Lowe's and throughout the project almost all of the materials were already purchased also. So she had all the tile everything all the blocks ready to go for us which was great. You know there were a couple adjustments I had to make just so I could use materials that I'm more familiar and comfortable with. So the three places that we actually included blocks is one in this dividing wall and then another place was here in this old window. We actually removed the old window completely redid all the framing to include those glass blocks as well as included a small shampoo shower niche. So here I am adding some of the framing in order to put the glass block window in. We of course went from the outside and made sure everything was sealed and insulated and cleared. The third spot you will see here is actually in the exterior wall above the main door in the bathroom. So here we are adding some blocking around the shower pan so that the pan liner does not just fall into the walls has a place to be secured to and and waterproofed. And of course after the pre-slope we added a pan liner. This was attached all the way around and of course glued to the three piece drain that we used. We also added cement board on the floor and here I am mixing up the dry pack mud for the shower pan. The mud got a little bit wetter than I wanted to but it all actually worked out great in the end making sure to add that quarter inch per foot of slope to 4-pop drainage. One of the design elements that the client really wanted to include over the shower niches we added one underneath the blocking in the window as well as another one on the half wall. She really liked the arch look with tile which added for quite a bit of intricate tile work but in the end it turned out great. Here we are adding all of the Durrock cement board. A huge design piece that she really loved that she's seen on some of her travels around the world was the floor to ceiling tile look. So the entire bathroom is going to be covered in tile from floor to ceiling all four walls even up and around the door. As you can see we're putting all that stuff in and those of you eagle-eyed viewers will notice we forgot to add insulation back in on this interior wall but don't worry we went back and took those off and added the insulation back in there. Gluing in the shower niche. Here's a quick shot of us finishing up that insulation and reinstalling that cement board. Doing some last minute Durrock work around everything. She had purchased so much Durrock that we didn't end up needing to use anything else it was just at that point we had plenty so we ended up just keep using that. And of course after the Durrock was all installed we added the mesh tape around all the joints and then used a quick drying thinset as a barrier for sealing up all of those seams and joints. A couple pictures of where we were at. She was getting very excited this is one of the most rewarding projects ever just from where everything was going and how things had started and the difficulties that she had run into all the way through to the finished project every single day she was so excited i mean there are tears and laughs and joy and it was it was so rewarding to work with someone who's so appreciative it was such a joy working with this with this client in particular of course she made us cookies and lunch and and zucchini bread fresh from the garden and what an incredible experience so it was really really rewarding to have her see each step of the process and what was involved so of course we left a gap between the bottom of the shower pan or the top of the shower pan and the bottom of the cement board i'm not going to go into too much detail about how to waterproof a shower there's content all over youtube on right and wrong ways to do that i will tag some of those good youtubers in the description below if you have any other questions so the process we went with was the durock and red guard red guard is a product you can purchase from home depot works great all of the joints and corners got three coats brushed on all of the surfaces actually get rolled on in two coats on that and it's quite easy to install pretty straightforward it's very very similar to painting except you do not need to be as precise it is all going to get covered up as you can see here it painted on the first coat of all the joints and then i go back and roll everything on and then just continue the process until each spot has their desired here is the last coat all finished up and looks quite pink but what's great about this project or product is that you know exactly when it's dry as it turns a dark deep red as you can see right here so what's great about red guard is when it's finished and dried you could actually shower right now as is completely waterproof the tile at this point is just a great way to divert some of that water and of course it looks nice and and adds for the longevity of the of the shower so we're starting with the main wall on the right side as well as some of the more intricate details along the shower niche i'm using some thin plywood as spacers to hold that section of the tile up while the thinset can dry underneath it all of the borders around all the windows and tile niches had a bullnose round over which has its pros and cons but in this case it turned out really nice of course both sides of the dividing wall had a little window to cut out i also used some screws to hold up some of the bottom pieces of those outlines and of course went back and caulked all the screw holes we are moving our way around the entire bathroom the floor was not perfectly regular throughout the entire bathroom so what we did was did a perfect level line of a cleat all the way around and then installed the tile on that cleat and then went back and added the bottom row very last so here we are in the shower putting on some more of the tile we did the entire bottom section first and then we have a decorative mosaic tile that goes in one continuous stripe all the way around the bathroom and also inside the shower niches one of the main design elements that she really wanted to include was the shower niches also lined up with that main stripe as you will see here but that the stripe went perfectly through the center of the shower niches which caused for some grout lines to be in some different spots but overall it turned out great i am working on the outside of the dividing wall pretty small and tricky pieces try to make everything look great each grout line is lined up perfectly you might be able to see on the right side of the screen a green laser line it is one of the most crucial tools in my opinion on making sure that all your tiles are straight and lined up and level grout lines match up by having this tool makes it so much easier you can set your first row and then line up the laser on the grout line that you want to match up and then every row after that has a great starting point of course every single tile in the bathroom is back buttered which that means the thin set is applied to the wall as well as a small thin layer tied to the back of the tile so that when they are pressed together there's complete coverage all the way around after the first several rows had some time to dry now i'm going through and adding the mosaic stripe process it's pretty nice each piece lines up with the one previous so work work your way around cut around the corners and the stripe needs some time to dry to go through and add the other arch around the process that we decided to go with was by dividing the long stripe up into five small sections this worked great and allowed for integration of the rest of the tile super nice shots a little out of focus unfortunately but here we are starting the other section of tile above the mosaic stripe this is where the laser comes in really handy and once you get your first row set up then our column i should say each once the first column is set up it makes the rest of the process super easy because the each one lines up with the one previous and all of the grout lines throughout are lined up of course i used a tile leveling system the houses in our area are old and have moved and shifted and warped and so all the walls are not perfectly straight so adding this leveling system makes our lives so much easier so one of the main features is that they did not want to include a vanity or sink actually in the bathroom itself she wished to have that section in the closet outside so that she her mother could roll her wheelchair right underneath brush her teeth wash her hands do all those things separately without impeding in the space in the small bathroom we didn't get the finished countertop process but he was pretty proud of his work and was demonstrating the strength of it now here we are lining up the tile that we placed in later and drilling out the hole for the sink and the faucet she also included a new exhaust fan as one of those great ones that just looks like a recessed light but actually has room for air to move around the light bulb itself great little product and added to the elegance of the bathroom as you saw earlier in that closet all of the plumbing was done previously before we had ever showed up so that made it made our jobs really nice but even moving around that window and some of the more complicated areas was still crucial that we kept all the grout lines lined up again you can see that green light for with the laser and also another challenge that came along with this step in the process was making sure that the tile from one side of the dividing wall lined up perfectly with the other side and you can see there i actually miscut a piece and had to kind of recut it made an archway as you can see right there that that tile unfortunately the camera stopped recording at that point to finish up this wall but i really wanted to highlight that one of my favorite parts was around all those glass block niches in the above the doorway so because there was so much surface area and so much grouting to do we actually started some of the grouting process while i one of us was setting the rest of the tile so one of us is grouting while the other one is finishing up the dividing wall with the bullnose along the side and the top the other one is going through prepping for grout and starting to grout some of those cleaning out those joints making sure all of the spacers are pulled out almost all of the tile besides the bullnose and the mosaic stripe were a 12 by 24 inch tile even the tiles along the floor the floor had a different pattern as you will see here in a little while so after all of the tile along the walls was finished up you can see that cleat next we went to the floor so the way i like to do bathrooms is having the floor tile actually go underneath the wall tile so the wall tile is sitting above the floor tile so any water that does hit the wall and drip down will then just drip straight down to the floor and go right into the drain as opposed to going down in between the floor tile and the wall itself one of the main goals in building this bathroom was that when the house ever gets to be sold or the design needs to be changed to not necessarily allow for just wheelchair accessibility was we wanted to design it so we can make those changes so eventually someday we could easily add a glass door to this shower and as well bring in the the sink and vanity back into where they would traditionally go all of those things would be it would be fairly easy to get done so here i am putting in the pebble shower floor pebbles are great minimal cutting have a couple spare sheets and you can literally just cut out the ones that you don't want and insert the small pieces and small rocks where you need to go the goal is to try to make as few cuts as possible to make it look natural at all of the the pieces were meant to go there so at first i did a quick layout of where i wanted everything to go and removed everything and brought each section in piece by piece to ensure perfect coverage and alignment throughout the entire floor again there are some design elements here that we wanted to keep of course by the shower we needed to have the uh that direct cement board on the floor but the client wished to have the transition between the hardwood on the outside of the bathroom and the bathroom tile itself to be as small as possible so we did not add that cement board throughout the entire floor and added a little bit of a ramp as we continue grouting i one of us is adding the final bottom row to the rest of the tile this was a lot of surface area a lot to be grouted another design element that we wanted to keep consistent was the grout color so the same grout color is throughout the entire bathroom so the tile floor the walls the mosaic and the pebble shower floor so the client picked a color that she felt worked well with all of those i think she made a great choice and it looked looked great we added some grout to the outside of the pebble floor so that the wall of the shower could be put on top again like i mentioned before any water that does drip down the wall will hit that tile floor and then hopefully work its way to the drain as opposed to seeping its way up underneath working my way out of the shower and around i was back buttered like i said before the floor was not perfectly level and flat so these pieces were quite custom in order to fit along these ebbs and flows of the floor but also to look nice and finish up that grout line along the pieces that go above it we drilled out a nice hole for the toilet water supply to try to make that as seamless as possible again one of the great tools to use when adding in intricate tile pieces like this is you put the tile backwards and mark each side then when you bring in the tile after it's been cut it lines up perfectly by flipping the tile over again there's videos all over youtube showing this process and the benefits of doing it that way here we are now that all of the tile is finally set we are going through and getting everything routed up and getting ready to be finished of course after all of the grout was done and dried we went back with a sealer the 511 impregnator works great so another aspect of the job was finishing up the trim work around what used to be a closet but now is the sink vanity area added some casing around that doorway and doing some door trim while one of us is finishing up grouting that countertop one of the main aspects that i was asked not to complete was any of the painting so the client really enjoyed painting and that was something that did not need to be done in order to make the bathroom accessible so once we were finished she was able to get all the paint and everything she needed i did help as much as i could with guidance and and in preparation here i am adding some nice trim detail around each of those blocks that were included above the door we tried to get a trim that matched the trim around the rest of the house very simple curved curve design and as we're getting finished up here i am setting the sink she wanted a vessel sink type setup this works great for her mother she has full use of her right hand so we did everything we could to keep light switches and the faucets on the right side so that she could use those independently there's a lot of measuring and designing that went into this and and here is the finished product of course i mentioned the paint is going to be so the sink pours right in there makes it really nice her mom can just lean right over brush her teeth wash you know what she needs to get everything done and of course there's a handicap accessible toilet but here is what the customer saw on the final walkthrough it was so rewarding for the customers they were actually outside and so excited to hear that sound they had been almost four months now without a usable toilet on their property and so to be able to use a toilet is you know one of those things we take for granted but they were so so excited the shower handle everything was all installed testing it out as you can see there there's a little bench we use some of the same floor tile for the top of the bench the niche block wall all the way around the wood look floor and then they're going to add a shelf or an armoire type scenario there so that they could do you know their morning routines and things like that this project was ridiculously fun quite challenging there were some new new aspects to the job and overall it turned out great the client was ecstatic they were using it as soon as the grout sealer was dry and they're just beyond ecstatic i was so grateful to be able to be a part of this project and and help them out and get this thing finished the design turned out great i have to say the client had a great eye and and working together with her throughout the design process was great very rewarding to see all of her ideas and design come to fruition it turned out clean straight but had that warm warm spanish feel is kind of what she was going for i think worked great so i just want to thank you so much for watching this video and if you guys have any comments or questions or feedback i'd greatly appreciate it if you left those down in the comments section below if you enjoyed this video i would really appreciate it if you hit that like button and if you want to see more videos like this and project time lapses i have several kitchens bathrooms and basements coming up so if you would please hit that subscribe button and also i post as videos as often as i can remodels only can go so quickly so if you wouldn't mind hitting that little bell so that when i do post you get that notification thanks so much again i really appreciate you guys taking the time to 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