The Community Space Bathroom and Kitchenettte recently got a lot of much needed TLC!
Here's what we did and why:
The joists (wooden beams supporting the floor) had rotted completely out of the wall due to water infiltration! As a result the floor was sagging. On top of that the bathroom and adjoining room were really hard to clean - the bathroom floor wasn't sealed and was smelling strongly of urine and the adjoining room was just dirty plywood subfloor with lots of gaps and cracks that filled up with dirt.
So, we fixed it up by first jacking the whole floor back into place with a few car jacks and 2x4's in the basement and then bolting a steel beam to the foundation wall that the joists could sit on something solid that wasn't going to be moist.
Then we ripped out the pee soaked cement board and threw it away! Proceeded to sand down all of the plywood sub-floor, used bondo to fill in all the gaps/cracks, removed a bulky wall in the bathroom and then painted the floor with some Sherwin Williams TreadPlex latex floor paint (2 coats). To spice it up we stenciled a pattern in a different color and then sealed it with 4 coats of water soluble polyurethane!
After the floor had dried we put the toilet and sink back in, framed a new chase around the wires and pipes running through the bathroom and threw up a couple sheets of drywall on the ceiling in there for good measure. Yay! better bathroom!