Shower Doors No More!

We are slowly but surely settling into our new home. I think at this point all the boxes are unpacked, now there are just piles of stuff that we need to find a place for and organize. The entire process of house hunting and moving can be tough especially when you feel like you have a time frame that's getting shorter and shorter. I really believe there's no such thing as a perfect home even if you build it from the ground up. Our tastes change, our family size changes, there's always going to be something that we didn't expect or plan for. Besides I don't know about you but I have fun making changes and making a home my own. One thing we've learned to look for in a home is easy fixes. Instead of focusing in on things we don't like we think about how easy would it be to change it. Sometimes people will walk away from a great house because they can't think beyond those things they can't stand. Well I'm hear to encourage you when you house hunt. Slow down and take your time, try to think about how you can make things your own. Keeping notes and a checklist helps when you're looking at all those houses. You might be surprised at how much you can change a home with very little experience and effort. Here's an example, one of our bathrooms has the vintage style shower doors.

Overall it's a great bathroom but those shower doors were not so great. Do you realize removing those doors is a project you can do yourself? We'd been thinking about taking them down since before we moved in and I went out and purchased a curved shower rod that leaned against the wall for a week or so. It wasn't until about an hour before we were supposed to be at a friends house did we decide hey we have some time to take those doors down. Our timing could have been better but we got the doors down and the curved rod up in less than an hour. 

First we installed the new hardware for the curved rod. That was so that we could be sure the curtain would line up directly over where the track was to cover any marks left behind. Then we removed the doors and unscrewed the track. You might need to pull or pry a little to remove the track since it was sealed with caulk. 

 WARNING the next 2 pictures are not for the faint of heart. 

Look at all that nastiness that gets trapped under there!

For this reason and this reason alone you should remove shower doors! YUCK!

Once the doors are removed you will have nastiness and left over caulk. The first thing you want to do is clean. Otherwise when you go to scrape off the caulk the nastiness will fly all over the place. Trust me it's gross! I recommend using Bar Keepers Friend, just put a little on a sponge and give all the nastiness a good scrub then rinse. Now you are ready to scrape the caulk up. I will say the only thing we got done in an hour was actually removing the doors and installing the new hardware. The clean up had to wait until the next day. 

I used a metal putty knife to remove the left over caulk. I tried a plastic one first and it didn't work as well. This requires a lot of patience. It's slow going and you want to be careful not to scratch the tub. All this effort is so worth it though! After you scrape up all the old caulk you will want to caulk any holes left behind from the track. 

There were 6 holes left behind from our shower doors, 3 on each side. Then the bottom edge needed to be filled in. As you can see the before and after is amazing. Much cleaner and you can hardly see evidence from the track. Only when you open the shower curtain can you see the small holes that have been filled with caulk. 

If there is any residue left behind from the caulk Goo Gone works really well, followed by warm soapy water. 

We are really happy with how it turned out. Of course I still want to paint the bathroom and redo the cabinets but just the change of the doors made a HUGE difference. 

Don't be afraid to do projects like this, it's not hard to accomplish quick and dramatic results.   So do you have some shower doors you're thinking about removing now?