With the shop area comfortable for sleeping, dining, and other general living stuff, we are now confronted with the issue of a bathroom and shower as the temps get colder. During the summer, the temporarily set toilet in the open air of the upstairs framing worked fine. Pond baths worked fine. Now that we are well into November in the midwest, the colder temps pretty much squashes those bathroom activities. The answer is completion of the master bath...and quick. If we can finish off the master bath, we can lay insulation into the interior walls and heat the room independently with a space heater. This is the next goal. - - First is to set the shower stall. We used a bed of mortar at the base and smooshed it down to create a firm base under the tub floor.
- - - Then, time to bring the tub drain and overflow together with the last opening in the drain line and finish off that drain section.
- - I picked up a pretty nice (and quiet) bath light/fan unit offa Ebay. I don't like the cheap plastic dampers they normally install in bath fans. I also like using solid 4" pipe to vent to the outside of the house, tilted downward so that the condensation that occurs during the colder months will drip outside thru the vent under the eave. We upgrade to a nice stainless, spring loaded butterfly damper.
- ...and install the 4" plastic pipe to the eave (had to use a rubber coupling to make the unusual bend over the existing vent pipe)
- - The pocket door framing is installed. This will be the door between the master bed and bath. For now, we will just run the drywall over the opening and close it off (next trip...I hope)
- - And finally, to meet the immediate need, a temporary, functional shower is installed.
- We use pond water in a 5 gallon stainless pot on a coleman stove to heat up the water. Go ahead and laugh...it works...and it's a helluva lot better than a November pond bath.
