Bathroom Redo | Part One - Demo Done!

Mike officially finished the demo of the bathroom last weekend.  He removed the lath from the walls and all the flooring.  I unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on from which persons talking) was unable to help and instead of standing in a demoed bathroom tearing out layers of flooring, spent the evening at dinner celebrating my grandmother's birthday.  By the time I got home, Mike was already starting his clean-up.

The path to the front door from the bathroom (hallway, stairs, living room) has been pretty dusty since we've started the demo, but we are finally at a point where we can put things almost back to normal and prepare for the next step - framing.

I know demo pictures aren't always the most exciting and we've kinda dragged this thing out, but here's some pictures to keep everyone up to date on what it looks like now.  I promise it'll start moving along quickly from here.  
 

After tearing out the tile flooring, (and the subsequent layers of flooring underneath that), Mike found the plumbing definitely needed to be addressed.  One of our projects includes moving the shower head and drain to the other side, making our bathtub right-handed instead of left.  We thought we were SOL when we figured the plumbing was running through the soffit in the kitchen (effectively smashing my dreams of ceiling-height cabinets).    


We were elated to find that it didn't, but knowing the half-assed work throughout the house, knew we didn't get off that easy.  See, in the picture below you can see that they notched out the floor joists to run the plumbing across the room, and they pretty much cut a huge section out for the shower drain and piping.  That pretty much defeats the structural purpose of the joists. 


Mike now needs to run it further into the room so that it lands where the new tub drain is, and add support to the cut-out joist.  He'll also be replacing most of the plumbing you see, since we have everything open and it's easier than trying to retrofit the old stuff.

Mike will also will have his hands full updating all of the old knob and tube wiring:


Removing all of the live wiring that was boarded over, like the one's that serviced the scones beside the long forgotten medicine cabinet, (not to mention moving the wiring from the old boob lights to the wall for the new lights):


And, also venturing back into the attic to replace and move the overhead fan more towards the shower, and finally vent it outside, like it should have been along:


As for the framing, we've put the final touches on our plan for all the little things like outlets and light boxes and the dimensions for the closet and vanity.  The only thing we are having trouble deciding on is the bathtub.  I'm pretty sure we had a 4 1/2" tub before instead of the standard 5' (Mike sledgehammered the old one to carry it downstairs easier or we would just measure it), so I'd love to have a smaller one again, (since we don't take baths, and never felt like it was too small), but Mike thinks we have the room for a 5' one.  Plus, I think after using the basement shower (which is a stand-up shower that's only about 3' x 3') he's excited to get back into a large shower and is looking for all the space he can get.

We're going to finalize the tub decision this week and purchase the one we pick before the weekend so we can get that in the space and start framing around it!

1 comment

  1. Yikes!! I haven't seen a home owner rip up their insides in quite some time. I do love seeing the bare wood planks though, it makes me think of the complex durable inner, that supports our gracious outer wall of beauty. The inbetween is always the juiciest...

    -Irwin Zinkin

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