Master Bathroom: Mr. Great Indoor's Favorite Things {Dry Wall!}

You might remember that I came home to this on the first day of Mr. GI working in the master bathroom.  Seems like progress...

And indeed it was a sign of progress!  The first thing Mr. GI did was rip everything out, including the floor, the old trim, and the mildewed sections of drywall.  The two main sections of mildew were next to the toilet (which we yanked out during our work in the guest bathroom) and on the exterior wall.  I was a little scared that the mildew on the exterior wall meant that we had an even bigger problem, but Mr. GI could tell when he ripped out the drywall that it was confined to the original master shower issue.  Whew!  Everything he ripped up got tossed through the window into the backyard for easy transfer to the trailer.

He did have to clean the floor pretty well before reinstalled the dry wall, and he used cleaning spray followed by a bleach solution on the tougher spots.  Some highlights from the ripping:

We're bound and determined to uncover every wallpaper that was original to this house.

A little explanation of the sump system in our house.  This is a picture of the crawl space between our master shower and guest bath tub.  We have a gravity drain sump system, which means that there's a low place in the foundation with a pipe that moves the water to the field line (i.e., away from the house/foundation).  At least that's what I'm understanding in layman's terms!  The problem with our system was that the master shower leak was overwhelming the sump, so we had a lot of moisture.  Plus there was water that seeped between the concrete foundation and the flooring.  Since Mr. GI did his quick fix to that leak, we've noticed much less moisture in both bathrooms.  Thank goodness!

Another mirror bit the dust. We were all ready to frame this one, but Mr. GI had to take it out for some of the wall repairs and didn't have much luck with it.  Good thing I have a $1 mirror to play around with!

Right next to the trash pile in the backyard are the beginnings of my hydrangea bushes!  Mr. GI's Nana gave us several cuttings from her plant, and two of them actually rooted.  Yay!!  Yes, we still need to put mulch over this landscape fabric, but what's the point when construction junk is going to land on it, anyway?

Then it was time to build everything back.  MR. GI used a bed sheet to cover up the doorway so we wouldn't have quite as much drywall dust enter our bedroom.  It also helped that he had a window to open in this bathroom.  We did have a little bit of dust build up in our bedroom, but it was nothing compared to the mess we cleaned up after the guest bathroom!

Boy, this makes it look like it didn't take Mr. GI any time to do the mudding.  Trust me, he still did plenty of work, but he is certainly more skilled at it by now.  He used a different joint compound this time around:  ProForm Joint Compound ($6 from Lowe's).  It supposedly reduces dust, which might have helped us, too.  He also used corner tape (the yellow bits on the top left picture), which he loved.

While all of this mess is going on, we've moved our bathroom stuff into the guest bathroom.  It's a little bit more organized now, but at first it looked like the bathroom exploded.

I've actually heard lately that Mr. GI doesn't mind dry wall so much any more.  It might have something to do with the fact that he has now mudded two bathrooms and half a house (for family friends of ours).

Next up:  paint!  And let me tell you, it made a huge difference!

Read about this bathroom's humble beginnings and follow my Pinterest board for the bathroom.