Here's to Jack and Dolly

After over a year of being stranded out on the landing at the top of the stairs, the old cast iron bath tub has found its way into the bathroom.

Once Cybele finished putting the final coat on the feet, the tub was ready to be moved.  The trouble was finding the will to do it.  Moving a 300-odd pound tub was not something that was going to be the highlight of the weekend.

There were two possible routes for getting it from the hallway to its permanent home between the toilet and sink.  One was through the doorway.  The problem with this route was that the tub is just under 32" wide and the doorway is just over 28".  Tip the tub on its side, however, and it would fit since it's only about 25" high.  The other route was through the window space between the bathroom and the stair landing. (Remember, I installed a frosted/stained glass window in the bathroom wall in order to provide light to the interior space.)  The problem with this route is that we would have to lift the tub up to the height of the window sill which is about 30" from the floor.

Earlier in the day I posted a request on the town's listserv for a furniture dolly, the kind that's flat and has four wheels and is usually seen in the hands of beefy movers.  I figured if we were going to try tipping it on its side to get it through the door, a moving dolly would be key.  Thankfully the listserv responded positively and within a few hours I had a sturdy dolly in hand and was ready to get started.

We decided to try getting the tub through the doorway.  Lifting the tub over the window sill in the small space right at the top of the stairs just seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.  The tub had probably lived on the second floor of the house for over a hundred years.  Who knew how desperately it wanted out? The image of it careening down the stairs after slipping from our grasp was a once in a lifetime event I didn't want to enjoy in this lifetime.

Our decision made, the first step was to remove the sink vanity so that we had room to maneuver the tub once we got it into the space. It would have been helpful if the toilet was out of the way too, but removing and reinstalling that was a task I was hoping to avoid.

The next step was putting down cardboard on the floor to protect the tile and help roll the tub over the 1" door sill.

With the sink removed, the cardboard in place, and the dolly positioned, I was ready to call in the muscle, ur, my wife.

Tipping the tub onto the dolly was easy enough and getting it over the door sill and halfway through the door went alright too.  But then the toilet was blocking our progress just as the drain pipe was catching on the door frame.  I was ready to push it back out into the hallway and reconsider, but Cybele (the sexy mover) reasoned if we could only tip it a little more, the pipe would sneak through the door.

It worked! We were through the door and into the bathroom. Now all we had to do was to tip it back up into its rightful place against the wall.

The problem now was getting the feet to stay on the far side of the tub while tipping it just right so that the drainpipe landed in the hole in the floor.  This took a couple of tries and once it was in place, there was still the job of getting the feet installed on the near side of the tub which was now in a place that prevented us getting a lift-hold on it.

That's when I went for the 2-ton auto jack.

With Cybele lifting a bit, I was able to slip the jack under the tub just far enough.  With hydraulics working for me I was able to hold the tub up, install the feet, and even position it just right.  James, Cybele, Jack, and Dolly had all done their job.  Well, James still had to reinstall the sink vanity.  But the tub is in place, and an unwelcome task that had been hanging over me for a long time is done.

handyman

Comments

[Alexander]

GAH! I can't find any contact information for the person who is making these home improvement postings, not even an E-mail address. I'm desperate to hear how the insulation worked out in the attic. You posted a picture of a cross-section a few months ago of the rigid foam over the studs, under the drywall. That is exactly what I intend to do, and I was wondering if the 1x3 shoring strips you used over the rigid foam were effective/necessary/sufficient in holding up the drywall. Please let me know! Thank you so much!

-Alex
principalwisdom@elitemail.org

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