Closed for Renovations

After we moved in I found my allergies to be terrible. They were the worst when I was downstairs. At first I thought most of it was due to my cold & then all the moving boxes. The boxes DID effect my allergies, (I could breathe much better in the bedroom once the boxes were cleared out), but it was more than that downstairs. We had been told there was a leak underneath the hall bath. We had someone come in and crawl under the house, (no easy task!), and he found that water had been there but had dried out. Hmmm.......... A mystery. Upon further inspection he found that the bathroom floor was uneven in a couple of places. Not a huge thing but enough that he gave it a closer look and suspected that the bathroom had been flooded recently. Though everything was dry & I had treated the bathroom to several "bleach baths" the smell still wasn't going away. After talking further with the workman we decided we would rip up the linoleum and put some water resistant board underneath before finishing it off with tile. Well, I'm relieved we made this choice! When Dave ripped up the linoleum he found that it was still damp in the area around the toilet. No wonder my allergies were going crazy! He took out the toilet as we are going to replace it with a more durable one, (suggested by the workman after he saw we have 4 kids & 1 on the way - LOL), and will rip up the wood tonight. He had tried bleaching it but I'm afraid that in the long run the wood will still hold the smell. My allergies just can't take that. So we will add the extra project of ripping up and replacing the wood too.
Here are some pics of the progress thus far. I'll keep you updated as the project progresses.

Before

We think the vent also got wet. There is a cardboard filter inside which we believe was contributing to the smell.

Ripping up the linoleum.


See what I mean about moisture?
There is only a crawl space under the house too.

YUCK!

All the ripped out linoleum.

The toilet is removed.

A different view.

CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS