the bathtub

I almost titled this post "why you should never move with your bathtub" but decided that might be a little strong.

But then again, maybe it's not.

Here's our story.  Three years ago we installed a bathtub in our apartment.  We have little kids, we wanted a tub.  So we bought one and the landlord had her work crew could install it for us. 

Then we were fixing up our new apartment and (woohoo!) we have two bathrooms and we wanted one to have a tub.  So we thought, "well this is simple, we have a bathtub already, we'll just move it to the new apartment."

We were wrong.  Oh, we do have a bathtub, and we did move it to the new apartment.  But it was not simple.

Our contractor told us we should bring the tub on Monday morning (before Thursday move-in day) so he could get the workers to install it.  Matt planned to drive to work that day - slide the tub in the back of the van and drop it off on his way in.

On Sunday night we decided that we'd simplify the morning by going ahead and removing the tub from the bathroom and sitting it on the porch overnight.  In the morning it'd be as simple as popping that tub in the van and Matt heading off to work.

People, it took us TWO HOURS! to get that tub out of our bathroom.  We ripped it off the wall (easy and satisfying - a few quick cuts with a knife and the caulk split right in two).  Then we worked on disconnecting the hoses.  Unfortunately, they had rusted onto the wall piping and every turn of the wrench twisted both the tub hose and the wall pipe and we were making zero progress.

As Matt battled the rusted hose problem with his head buried under the tub (victory came through a hack saw and needle nose pliers - I hope at this point it's clear that several of the tub hoses needed replacing....) well, while Matt worked I started taking stock of the sink/tub/doorway/toilet placement in our teensy bathroom and saying helpful things like "I'm just not sure this tub is going to fit through the doorway" and "do you think the workers installed the tub before they installed the doors?" and "maybe they put in the tub and then the toilet... yep, that must have been how they did it."

I even ventured the "maybe we should have just bought a new tub and left this one here" comment.

After all, it was almost 11pm on Sunday evening, the tub was still very attached to and very inside our bathroom, and we'd had sketchy water supply all week and just removed our only chance for a shower until moving day on Thursday. 

Well we did get it successfully detached and with Matt back on his feet we started squishing and squeezing and working that tub.  We flipped it (y'all, we held the tub above toilet-seat level and flipped it head-over-heels inside our bathroom.  Be impressed.)  We flopped it.  We removed the feet.  We removed the grab bar.  If we'd had a sledge hammer I might have bashed in the faucets.

We considered removing the bathroom door but it would have only bought us a few more centimeters (not enough) and the nails were looking a smidge rusted.  Too much risk for not enough gain.  The door stayed. 

We realized we needed one more tool to remove one more piece so that it would FOR SURE fit out the bathroom door but .... by this time on a Sunday night no hardware store was open.  We scooted the tub against the wall (still upright, with all the nasty gunky rusted piping underside exposed) and headed for bed.

The next morning Julianna woke us up and in a very calm voice told us "there might be a ghost in the bathroom".  It was the bathtub.

[Note our circumstances here: unfortunate door angle, toilet right in the tub exit path, oh, and the green water bucket = our bathing options.]

Monday morning Matt headed out to find/buy/borrow the right tool and we finally got that blasted tub onto the porch. 

This is the kind of event that is always helped by a fleet of children.

I was mad at that stupid tub.  They were thrilled!  Mommy and Daddy carrying the bathtub through the living room!  A bathtub in the courtyard!  This is new! Different! Exciting! Fun!  What a great start to the week!  Daddy hasn't even left for work and we have a bathtub in our courtyard! 

Matt suggested wiping it down before putting it in the van and pretty soon we had us a little bathtub washing party.  The neighbors even stopped by to watch (of course) and help us load it in the van.

Turned my attitude around too, those little bathtub washers.  There is much to rejoice in, sometimes it just takes a little looking for it.  

Matt did leave for work, the tub is installed in our new (much much much larger) bathroom and we lived to tell about it.

But it was a tough way to start moving week.  That night I thought, "If everything else goes this smoothly, we're sunk."  Thank goodness it didn't!



[Next up in the moving week series: Matt and the girls' beds.]