Bad News (Or when being cheap or lazy is actually more expensive)

Last week I noticed water on the side of the vanity in the master bathroom.

NOT GOOD.

I couldn't find the source of the water, so I called our contractor (and handyman extrodinaire) who finished our basement to come look at it. He agreed that it did not look good, and offered to tear up the floor to see what the damage was below.

Today Chris started tearing up the floor...

Turns out the previous homeowner decided to save a little money and set the tile him/her? self. Instead of doing it the right way, he/she? placed the tile on top of the already in place linoleum floor. This raised the floor up 3/4 inch higher. Unfortunately the toilet did not make a good seal since it was now much higher than the wax ring. This caused water to slowly and silently leak under the floor for years. The reason it wasn't detected earlier is because tile doesn't buckle or rise like linoleum and the water had so many extra layers in which it could be absorbed.

The floor beneath the tile was very damp, going down one more layer it was black with mold. Eek! Thankfully it was contained in the bathroom and does not appear to have spread to other rooms.

So now we get to completely redo the bathroom. Fun, fun!