Bathroom Remodel

This past weekend I made great progress with the Nomad. I removed the fresh water tank and water heater and, with the exception of the shower and toilet, completely gutted the interior. There is surprisingly little in support and structure in the walls. What I thought was soft wood ended up being just insulation.

 Here it is in all it's glory. It's pretty tight quarters for a bathroom but as far as RV's go it's massive. Lots of RV's today of this size use the all in one bathroom or wet bathroom and they are so small that you have to back in. Not my RV, it sports a small tub /shower a toilet and a vanity sink. All in a fairly spacious room.
Now to tear it out.

 First goes the vanity sink and to my surprise some of the original carpet is still there. I have found several swatches of carpet in a few places around the old homestead and some of it is in remarkably good shape.

The whole RV must have been done in this vintage  green shag carpet and later had been cut out and replaced by linoleum. I never though carpet in the bathroom was a good idea and I will be installing either that click floor or the strips of rubbery linoleum, both of which are floating floors.
The tub is in good shape and that side of the RV is solid so I'm going to leave it in place. The real work is the vanity side where I have to gut it to the studs. That corner of the RV has come apart and needs repair before it moves anywhere.
I have no picture of before the repair was made, I thought I did. Anyway. . .

 The water heater and the fresh water tank have to be removed. The water take was not secured and it just sat on the floor under the water heater. It is very hard to get at so I decide to do more demolition to give me better access.

 You can just see the closet shelf in the top of the picture. After removing that everything was very easy to reach. The water lines connected to the water heater were supporting it so I left it alone while I worked on the water tank. I have to disconnect the fill tube, drain tube and feed tube. Then it was just a matter of wrestling with it to get it out the access hole on the side of the camper. Unfortunately I broke the filler inlet and will have to replace the tank. I'm not too broken up about it because I think I would like a tank that's bigger and made of more modern materials. After all, I will be in the desert most of the time.

 I stripped out most of the cabinetry and to my surprise there was not very much holding the walls together, even if the wood was not rotten. But the corner is completely gone as is most of the 1/8" plywood and studs.
You can see sunlight through the corner and I had taped it up with gorilla tape so I wouldn't get any critters as overnight guests.
Next I needed to remove the water heater and this involved undoing three lines, two water and one gas. I undid the gas line first and after getting a couple of turns on it I noticed a rotten egg smell. Well there must be a little gas still in the system so I just kept going. I loosened up the nut a little more and now I could hear the gas escaping. Well, I think I'll just tighten that line back up and check the tank valve. I know I shut it but maybe some kids were playing around so I crawled under and grabbed a hold of it and it was shut. Ok, the valve is probably bad. So I ran to the home store and bought a plug fitting. My plan was to undo the line and secure it with the plug. I undid the line and as soon as it came free there was a rush of gas for a split second and then nothing. That made me feel better, it was just residual pressure in the line. I put the plug in place and continued to remove both water lines.
I unscrewed the eight hex head screws holding the front to the wall and cut the gasket material with a utility knife. And it pulled out without a problem.

 I took some notes and ran off to the home store again to buy building supplies. The total came to thirty two dollars and change. I bought six two by threes, a box of three inch exterior screws, a box of two and a quarter exterior screws and some metal roofing screws.
It was getting late in the day so I framed up the wall and attached the siding with the roofing screws. I had to do some creative body work because the previous owner looked like they had trouble backing up, or going forward for that matter. I banged out the outer corner molding and buttoned it all up.

The corner is now as solid if not more than when it was new. I taped up the water heater hole with some plastic and replaced the water tank cover. Done.

I cleaned out all the debris from the bathroom and filled four large industrial garbage bags. My car can only hold two, so a couple of trips will be needed to get it all gone.

I will not be replacing the water heater, rather I will be using a couple of on demand heaters powered by the generator.

Now all I have to do is figure out what I'm going to install.