Colfax Historic Bathroom Rebuild
The single 7×9 ft bathroom in a pre-1940 in-town Colfax home. A full rebuild: compromised subfloor replaced, galvanized supply swapped for PEX, a real exterior vent for the exhaust fan, and a walk-in shower tiled in small-format hand-glazed tile.
IllustrationIllustration — representative of the finished design, not a photograph of this job. Photos of our recent foothill work are on the projects page.
This pre-1940 in-town Colfax home has a single 7×9 ft bathroom. It came to us with the original cast-iron tub, a tile shower on a cement-board substrate, galvanized supply lines, and no real exhaust ventilation. The walls measured half an inch out of square at the corners.
What we changed
- Demolished to the studs and replaced 8 ft of compromised subfloor under the original tub
- Replaced the visible galvanized supply with PEX up to the manifold while the walls were open
- Built a walk-in shower with a linear drain and bonded sheet-membrane waterproofing throughout
- Ran a new exterior vent for the exhaust fan — the original vented into the attic
- Laid the tile out around the out-of-square walls, with a deliberate shadow-line trim at one corner absorbing the variance
- Finished with small-format hand-glazed tile, a warm walnut wall-hung vanity, and brass fixtures
Permit and code points
Colfax is an incorporated city, so the permit was pulled with the City of Colfax — not Placer County. Two code points shaped this job: a bathroom exhaust fan must discharge outside the building, never into the attic, and because the house predates 1994, California Civil Code §1101.4 requires noncompliant plumbing fixtures to be replaced as a condition of final permit approval.
Result
A bathroom with sound subfloor, modern supply lines, waterproofing and outdoor-vented exhaust, finished in period-appropriate tile so it still suits the house.
