You've Got to be Kidding Me...

When the Hubs and I found out I was knocked up at the beginning of 2012, we made a plan:  Remodel the Downstairs and Main Bathrooms, add 700 sq feet more wood flooring and finish the steps all before the third trimester.  Basically, work our booties off for 6 straight months so that at the end of it all, the house would be in order, and there would be nothing left to do but rest and decorate our little one's nursery.   You know, the fun stuff.   And then this not-so-fun thing happened.

Picture me in the Dinning Room one evening, seated at the table sewing some crib sheets for the Nursery.  Captain Chaos was fast asleep and the Hubs went upstairs to take a shower, so I was enjoying the quiet moment listening to some music and creating items for my little baby's new room.  Bliss.  

Suddenly: Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  At first I thought I was imagining things... maybe I bumped the vase and spilled some water.  But there it is again... and it's definitely coming from the ceiling.  A slow but obvious drip.  That's when I took a look up and noticed this little brown spot on the ceiling:

And the rust that appeared to be building up on our gorgeous new chandelier. 

My heart sank, and I knew that what appeared to be a little problem on the exterior, was going to be a lot larger inside.  I can't believe we didn't notice it sooner actually, but to be fair we don't spend a lot of time in the Dining Room, and certainly never when someone is in the shower upstairs.  And really- how often do you look up and inspect your ceilings?

For those of you that have been reading this blog for awhile, you know that this isn't the first time our Dining Room ceiling has been ripped open.  The Master Bathroom that Bath Crashers created for us is located directly above the Dining Room, and the first hole happened when one of the Bath Crashers contractors literally fell through the ceiling while working, and the second hole happened again about 2 weeks after they left when we found the first water leak.  From the look of the rust on the light we knew that this slow leak in the ceiling had been going on for a long time, most likely the full year since Bath Crashers left.  We immediately contacted our show's producers to tell them what was going on and show them the photos, and they replied, "You're on your own on this one.  Have a nice weekend."  Fan-friggin-tastic. 

Step #1 was to take down the light.  Bad. News.  As it started to come down rusty brown water immediately began pouring out of the top of the fixture.  The electrical wiring was discolored from the rust and literally sitting in a puddle of water.  It is a miracle that our house didn't start on fire any one of the hundreds of times we've flipped that light switch on and off this past year.  I didn't get a picture of the moment, because we were too busy panicking (or cursing if you're the Hubs.)  Here's what the top of our fixture looks like now though, imagine 1/2" of standing water in there.

Step #2- Cut open the ceiling.  The good news is that we have a great friend that is a plumber, and was willing to come over to take a look.  The bad news is the only way to find out what's wrong is to open up the ceiling. We started at the most obvious and still damp brown spot, and unfortunately had to make our way across the ceiling. 

 

 All the while finding damaged wood, soaking insulation, and puddles of brown water.  Awesome.

And to our surprise we found, not one, not two, but three leaks in the plumbing of our "new," fancy & expensive Bath Crashers shower.   The biggest one was coming from this drain pipe that was never sealed correctly with ABS glue.

The black shiny stuff at the joint is the glue that holds the seal.  There was no glue on large portions of the seal when we opened it up.

The next leak was coming from the trough drain that was installed.  They never used any grout or silicone to seal where the drain and the tile came together, so water got up under the tile and leaked down through the ceiling. 

 

The third leak is much more unfortunate, as it is coming specifically from one of the body sprays in the shower.  We're pretty sure that there is a leak at the connection point, which is in the wall of the shower, and we're still waiting to find out if we're going to have to tear out the tile in the shower to fix it.  I don't want to talk about it.

Even if the tile doesn't have to be torn out, we still have the issue of repairing that ceiling, which means patching, scraping, skim coating and sanding.  And can I say that for this pregnancy, I've had enough of that?

Especially now that I look more like this:

This happy photo was clearly taken before we had to rip holes in our ceiling.

So much for having all the tough work done and enjoying the third trimester.  Now its all systems go to get the plumbing fixed and the ceiling closed back up before baby gets here, as I definitely don't want all that Sheetrock dust around for baby to breathe in (much less the rest of the family.)  Wish us luck, Lord knows we're going to need it.