The Story of a Bathtub...

...and how it almost killed my husband and three of our friends.

Weekend number one of demolition, we had three of our friends come over to help us work on dismantling the restrooms. I arrived quite a while after they had been working (due to babysitter constraints) and found myself mildly disappointed at the progress.

In case we haven't made it clear, the individual that built this house had no intention of it ever being taken apart and did everything to the most extreme. This weekend was the first disappointing blow of how long this project really was going to take us to complete.

Six Twelve came equipped with two full bathrooms on the second floor. The extent of this remodel started off as an overall gut job. The toilets needed to be replaced, the pedestal sinks were busted and needed updating, while we we're at it, we'd go ahead and update the tubs as well. The toilets were removed, the pedestal sinks were removed and as far as we could tell, we could just start busting everything else out.

So Phil picked up the sledge hammer, pulled back and let the tub have it.

And it did not move. It did not crack, it did not budge. In fact, it probably caused more damage to Phil's shoulder than he caused to the bathtub. Because it was cast iron.

"Oh, you can just bust out cast iron," you say.
"Well, suck it, no you can't," we say.

There was no way that the tub was coming out of that bathroom in pieces. It would have to come out as one piece. OK, now that we knew how to attack it, no big deal, right?

Wrong. That tub was recessed into the tile floor by two inches and into the tile walls by another couple of inches. Are you freaking kidding me?

This was becoming a disaster of increasing proportions.

After HOURS of busting out tile, and lifting and pulling and straining, the tub was out of the bathroom and sitting at the top of the stairs.

Please tell me you see where this is going.

Four guys, two and a half hours later, and a 1,000 lb cast iron bathtub we're standing at the top of my staircase engineering a way to get it downstairs.

This bathtub sat in our living room for a week. A week. It was insanely heavy and while we (they) sat on the porch, drinking Gatorade and recovering, we discussed the option of refinishing the second bathtub. Turns out its a perfectly fine bathtub. Thankfully, they started with the master (the one I really wanted replaced).

The bathroom is currently empty, except for a sub-floor and the new wiring, just waiting for my new bathtub. I've decided to go with a free standing tub, in the same place the last one was, under the triumphal archway I suppose.

Hello gorgeous.

I know there are a lot of people out there that aren't bath people. I'm not one of those people, bring on the tub.