Archive for ‘Renovation’

December 5th, 2008

Bathroom demolition

Last night I worked on scraping moldy paint off the walls in the basement while Kevin tore apart the bathroom upstairs. I mostly just wanted to stay out of his way while he worked, since I’m not that great at tearing down plaster and drywall. Plus, scraping paint is a surprisingly gratifying job. It’s that detail-oriented kind of work that people who get perverse pleasure out of picking zits would enjoy.

Anyway, he basically finished gutting the room, other than getting the tub out and replacing the subflooring. It was previously just plywood with carpeting glued on top, which means it was moist a lot, and I’m surprised it didn’t just rot through. We’ll be putting concrete board down before we lay the hex tiles so that we don’t have to worry about moisture issues affecting the subflooring.

Here’s the cool stuff:

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After removal of the toilet, sink, and medicine cabinet

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Kevin getting ready to fuck shit up

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The carpeting is GONE!

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Who wants to help us haul this outside?

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Down to studs

This bathroom has gone through a lot over the years. Kevin tore out the masonite paneling that his father had installed as the shower walls, to find rotting plywood behind it. Behind that was plaster that had been slathered over drywall with a sheet of chickenwire on it, presumably to make it more sturdy. He could tell that it had previously been tiled, too.

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We're replacing the drywall with greenboard all the way up to the ceiling

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This was the hard part, right? RIGHT?

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Who else in the world can say they've got Galaga in their laundry room?

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December 4th, 2008

Demolition, baby

Yesterday when Kevin went to the house over his lunch break, he got one of the best surprises EVER: his brother Kris had been over there all morning, finishing up the basement and doing a good chunk of the demolition that needed to take place to finish gutting the room. It was like an early Christmas present! Except that demo also showed us that all four walls of the basement are buckling. Sad face. We’re going to have to explore that whole basement wall anchor concept, and hopefully we can find an option that won’t be terribly expensive, or that we can do ourselves.

We also came to the house to discover that the dumpster is totally full already, and we haven’t gotten to the garage, the attic, or gutted the bathroom yet. We’re trying to figure out if we need another full dumpster, or if we might be able to borrow a big truck and just make a dozen trips to the dump on our own, which would be cheaper.

Anyway, on to the pictures:

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The illegal bedrooms are gone!

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Now you can totally see the buckling wall

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The room is so huge now that it's (mostly) empty

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The gross bathroom has been gutted except for the plumbing

We brought all of the items that Kevin decided to keep upstairs, piled the trash in the middle of the room, and hosed the walls down with bleach. We’re on our way to a non-stinky house!

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December 3rd, 2008

Into the abyss, Pt. 2

For the second night in a row, we worked on going through all of the boxes and dressers and piles of stuff in the basement. It was hard work, but we’re probably about 90% done with that part, and we think that demolition should be pretty easy work. Who doesn’t like breaking stuff?

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The laundry room is a nice minty green.

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The root cellar. Gotta love all that mold.

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You can see where the wall is buckling here.

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That's going to be our entertainment center after we get it cleaned up.

Now that most of the stuff is out of this area of the house, the dumpster is almost full! We hadn’t planned on that, but we’ve still got to put all of the demolished building materials in there from the gutting of the room, as well as the materials from when we gut the bathroom, into it. Also, the garage hasn’t even been touched yet, so we’re looking at having to get another dumpster. Tonight, the basement will be bleached after all of the demo is done, so hopefully that’ll start the long process of getting the stink out of the house. That, getting the carpets and air ducts professionally cleaned, and scrubbing and painting all of the rooms will hopefully start to make this house feel like a home.

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