When we last left off….(Before Dolly Parton’s Birthday, of course)

Our young heroes were busy patting each other on the backs for a job well done.

They had continued with the remodel of their master bathroom and completed the daunting task of pouring their own concrete shower pan.

Little did they know…..that everything was about to go to SHIT.

(Sorry about the salty sailor-language, but this one really stung)

After drying overnight,……here’s what we woke to:

Not only does it look bad; but it “crackled” when we stepped on it. And I could feel it shifting a little too.

We’re certainly no renovation experts (this is our first bathroom remodel, after all) but I can tell that it’s probably not supposed to do that.

What went wrong?

We aren’t sure…….possibly the wrong cement? Was it too wet? Not enough sand? Too much humidity?

Doesn’t really matter, we knew it had to come out. So I grabbed a crowbar and a sledge hammer……and worked out a little anger about the situation.

Sadly, it took just a few minutes to remove the day’s worth of hard work we did.

But it wasn’t just the cracked concrete that was wrong………There was more.

(Well, apparently, there a few different ways to make a shower pan, and we were advised by our contractor to back up a few steps……and remove a few feet of the hardie board walls in the shower so a plastic liner can go behind it.

We’ve been following an online tutorial that has some “progressive” suggestions in the area of shower pan installs.

The Red Guard being one of those “progressive” suggestions. It’s a relatively new product, and most contractors will, as ours did, say that although Red Guard is a fine water barrier for the walls, a plastic liner is the best way to go for the shower floor.)

DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!!!!

I apologize once again for the adults only language in this post.

Soooooooooooo, Jamie took a reciprocating saw……and cut out a few feet of the beautifully-installed Hardie board from the shower walls as well.

I’m not gunna sugar coat it,

It stung.

It stung a whole HECK of a LOT.

That’s why I was cussing. And again, I’m sorry.

We hired a professional plumber to fix our “boo-boo” with the concrete……

and install the plastic liner on top of it….the correct way…

About this point,

I stopped taking pictures….

But here’s the summary of what happened next: Jamie reattached the removed Hardie Board wall pieces, slapped mortar over the screws and seams, painted on more Red Guard, and the plumber came back to add one more layer of concrete to the shower floor…..

…..and then we closed the bathroom door,

….and sulked,

for a couple of months.