By: The Alluring Home Mom
Have you ever wondered what it takes to update your dark outdated dreary bathroom? Well that’s exactly what went through my mind one day. It started one day while depressingly staring at my bathroom floor of the house we’ve lived in for 15 years. I really needed to replace the cheap laminate floor that buckled up along one edge because it wasn’t cut to size and obviously installed by the prior homeowner who was a carpenter wannabe. This was pretty obvious by several things, my carpenter husband with 50 years of experience and I found after we moved in. In my defense, the big spa tub in the bathroom drew attention away from the floor flaw when I we were originally considering buying the house.
I was sure once we bought the ceramic tile and brought it home my jack-of-all-trades husband would have that floor looking georgeous in no time. After all it is a small bathroom, only about 6′ by 10′ of floor space. That shouldn’t take long at all. Sadly, that was not so because soon afterwards, he had to have an emergency triple bypass surgery to repair some narrowing arteries and could not perform any strenuous work for a while. Only after about 5 or 6 months, our resilient jack-of-all-trades man was already working on his lawnmowers, doing side jobs, and helping family. But, understandably the bathroom tile was still sitting in the garage more than a year later.
I realized I would have to use the sure fire method to get carpenter husband motivated enough to work on his own house. I told him I was going to go in and tear out the old floor myself. Any time I start to do anything that involved carpentry skills, he always takes over because I don’t do it “right”. But I was informed that before we could put in the new tile, the toiler, sink, and big cabinet would all have to be removed and neither of us were in a hurry to do that.
I thought about this for a few weeks and decided if the old toilet had to be taken out anyways, I wanted to replace it with a new toiled designed with completely smooth sides that would be much easier to keep clean. The ones with no crevices for germs and dust to hide in. Also, if you get city water this would also be a good time to get a low flow toilet to help reduce your water bill. It’s very easy to overlook how much water you use after doing your business. After getting excited at the thought of a better toilet I jumped up and decided I would just remove the toilet and sink myself. After all, it looked so easy to do on those “how to remove a toilet” videos you can watch on YouTube.
Steps followed to remove the toilet
- Turned the toilet water valve to the right to turn off the water
- Flushed the toilet to remove the water from the bowl
- Unscrew the bolts on the floor with a crescent wrench
- Realize I don’t have a crescent wrench, damn.
- Ask husband for crescent wrench, in hopes he takes over the job
- Watch as carpenter husband gets crescent wrench and finishes removing the toilet, it always works.
Just kidding, after he came back with the wrench we worked on removing the toilet together. I soon learned that I, the paralegal wife, did not have a clue what I was getting into from the videos. Carpenter husband whom through his many years of experience in carpentry and home maintenance that you can’t learn in a book, showed me how to safely and intelligently remove a toilet. Take it from me, it would be wise to be prepared and have these basic items and tools on hand before you start turning any valves or bolts because you may be likely to flood your floor. Also don’t be surprised to find unexpected cracks or leaks under the toilet that may require fixing the flooring foundation. Who knew?
Tools to gather
Start off by having a huge black garbage bag, yes, I said huge black garbage bag. You’ll also need a crescent wrench, putty knife, toilet plunger, small plastic cup, bucket, towel, a small 4 wheel dolly or something similar and gloves, because who wants to change a toilet without gloves, right? Now turn off the water and flush the toilet as mentioned before. The toilet bowl should not fill up again with water as long as the valves were shut off correctly. Next, use the plunger to plunge any remaining water out of the toilet. There still may be a small amount of water in the tank that you can remove with a small cup and use a towel to sop up any remaining water.
Be cautious that if the toilet fills back up with water, that means that the water turn off valve did not work as it should have and you will need to turn off your main water supply before removing the toilet. Only do this if you plan on immediately replacing the toilet so you can turn the water back on. In our case, it took a few weeks or so before we fully replaced it. We weren’t in a hurry because we had another bathroom but this did cause problems occasionally when we had other family over. Luckily, our turn off valve worked, so we didn’t have to turn off the main water supply to the house and be without water everywhere for several weeks. That probably would have motivated us to replace it sooner so maybe it wasn’t lucky the ‘easy way’ worked for us.
Actually removing the toilet
Next, take the water line off the tank. You should be able to just unscrew the line with your hand. If that doesn’t work you will need some channel locks to help take it off. Then you should be able to remove the nuts that hold the stool to the floor with the six inch crescent wrench. The toilet may not come up off the floor easily. If that is the case, rock it from site-to-side until it can be picked up vertically off the mounts. A small 4 wheel dolly or something similar is helpful in moving the toilet since depending on the material of the toilet it may be heavier than you expect. The easiest way to prevent any remaining toilet water from leaking on the floor when moving the toilet is to put the toilet in the large black garbage bag before you move it. Also try not to rip the garbage bag when putting the bag on the bottom of the toilet as this would basically ruin the whole point of it in the first place.
Great, now that the toilet is out of the way you have to deal with the wax ring on the floor and around the flange. Inspect the flange for any cracks. Due to wear and tear and possible water leakage, the bolts that hold the flange to the floor may be loose so be sure to tighten those if the flange is in good condition. If there are significant cracks then it would be a good time to replace this as well.
Use your putty knife to remove the remaining wax from the floor and the flange. If you are going to reinstall the same toilet, clean the wax off the bottom of the toilet because you will have to put in a new wax ring or the newer type of ring without the wax and the old wax may prevent a good seal. Lastly, be sure to cover the open drain to prevent sewer gas leakage into the room.
Pedestal sink removal
Surprisingly this was actually easier than the toilet.
To remove the sink, start by shutting off the hot and cold water valves underneath the sink. Test the valves by turning on the hot and cold faucet to make sure the valves are stopping the water and nothing is coming out. Unhook the two lines that are hooked at the turn off valves. There will be water in the lines that will leak out so have a bucket and a towel on the floor to catch the water when the lines are unhoked. Unhook any bolts holding the sink and remove it. If your sink is mounted into a cabinet, this last step may be different to remove it from any counters it is mounted in.
Also be aware if you have a Pedastal sink they may be hollow in the back which will collect a lot of dust and allergens. This area is extremely difficult to clean and may be impossible to get to if it’s flush against the wall. I learned this after realizing how disgusting out sink was when we were taking the sink out.
Replacing the floor?
Surely we must be ready to pull up the laminate flooring and replace it right? Wrong! Come back for the follow up article to learn what road blocks we still have yet to overcome and how carpenter husband and I worked together to finish our bathroom remodel. You won’t want to miss it.
Julie
Very helpful article. Thanks