A Shower Solution

Well my loyal readers, you should have expected nothing other than a severe overreaction from Miss Meryl. I was so nervous for Chris' reaction to our lovely shattered shower glass problem, but his reaction was nothing more than a mere chuckle.

A CHUCKLE! I was thinking, "Oh my lord, what are we going to DO? What sort of shower surround could we have that would be cheap? [that wouldn't cause more mold issues than the bathroom has already presented us with] How much more is this going to cost us? How long are we going to be without a shower?"

Well, Chris answered all those questions in about 10 minutes: We will have a modified water proof white board as 1/2 of our shower enclosure. It will cost us $32. And, while I was gone at work (after I cleaned the area), Chris would install the whiteboard, so we only had ONE showerless day!

Really, that easy? My, don't a feel a little sheepish? Well, yes, yes I do.

So, after I had calmed down and Chris left for a Dr.'s appointment (we're both starting to suffer from allergies ALREADY, so we're getting allergy tests and hopefully they can help solve our sniffle, sneeze and snot problems), I got to work cleaning the bathroom and removing the glass. I cleaned out the shower

prepped myself

and lined the bottom of the shower with plastic - both for easy cleaned up and so glass didn't go down the drain

(see that lovely mold? Thanks, previous owners, thanks)

Then I started pushing the shattered glass into the shower with a big bucket/bin

And after about 25 minutes I had gotten all the glass out


Around the time I finished cleaning up Chris came home and we headed out to my dad's to help fix his gutters, and when we got back it was time for me to go to work at the Warriors (on camera for the 3rd quarter, woo-hoo!) BUT, when I got home we had a WONDERFUL shower surround


It just took a quick sweep and vacuum this morning, and we're good as, er, new. Well, seeing as this bathroom needs a total remodel as well, it's as good as it was before, ONE day it will be new :)

So there you have it! A wonderful, shower surround that attempts to not cause more mold and dry rot problems for the next 6 months (?) that we will have to still use this crusty bathroom.

But, the real question is: what the HELL caused the shower to shatter? Well, we're not really sure, but we think we have a guess...the back addition to the house isn't exactly a wonderful example of superb construction

(the bathroom is that window to the left of that lovely pink "curtain." Again, what the HELL were our previous owners thinking? Who would do an addition like this and think it was okay?)

The bathroom is not level and the walls are a bit bowed (in corners of the shower you can actually see tile jut out in strange angles). So, we think that the sheet of glass was essentially shoved into place and has had pressure on it from all angles, thus enduring a lot of constant stress. And, certainly the amount of work we've done to the addition so far to get it CORRECTLY level and plumb has probably added MORE pressure to it. So, our best guess is that, basically, it finally just cracked (pun intended :) hehe)