Gone With the Schwinn: Carfree home improvement project

Over the years we've managed to get water in places along a bathroom wall that it shouldn't have been - namely the wall along the tub. The wall is tiled part way up and the rest was just painted plaster. When the tile started buckling, we knew we had problems. Cut to present. Two weeks ago my son and I started removing the remaining tiles and saving them. Tell a 9 year old boy he can take a wall apart and you have one excited kid! The tiles came down easily. So we started removing the plaster. Our house is over 80 years old. It was built in the days of lathe and plaster applied in place and left to dry. Except for the section along the tub, the plaster appears to be sound. The area we are working on will have cementboard applied to it.

We worked for a while and then it was time to call it a night. The next day Pete felt sick and a week of sore throat followed. Once he was recovered, we rode our bikes to our local Lowe's and began the purchase of items for the project. Mike, wanting to get his run in, ran over to Lowe's. We met up and found what we needed by way of cementboard. I thought we'd get it delivered until we found out the delivery charge. Time for a plan two! We bought the thinset for applying the tiles, the plastic sheeting to put on over the lathe, the screws for securing the cementboard to the joists, and a garden hose because we needed a new one. How to get this home?

The 25 pound bag of thinset went on the rear carrier along with the garden hose. (Probably pushed the outer limits of that particular carrier.). Everything else went in the backpack and it wasn't bad at all. One Starbucks stop later, Pete and I arrived home. Cue music to indicate the passing of time.

Here we are one week later and Pete asks if we can work on the wall tonight. Yes we can! Cheerful at the prospect of deconstructing more plaster he set to work. Here are some of the results: