Cold Spaghetti

Now that we have doors and windows, we were able to move stuff into the space without concern of severe damage from the elements. This meant that it was time to move to the next step… gutting the existing bathroom and laundry area.

First, to explain: our original house ends with two bedrooms in the back of the house, currently one is our “master” bedroom (which means it’s a little bigger than the others) and the other bedroom is the one Will and Kate share. (The “third” bedroom is a small 8×12 or so sized room that was Will’s bedroom at one time and is now the home office — an important thing for us since Paul works full-time from home.)

At some point in the home’s history, a lean-to type addition was created that made bathrooms and laundry outlets for each side. This happened when the home was still two homes (we live in a shotgun double, which is two shotguns that share a common wall in the interior — it was combined into one home in the 1980s). So, when we bought the house there were technically three bathrooms… although the tubs in the back bathrooms were not hooked to water and could not hold water and the front bathroom was hardly functioning. In reality, the house had no kitchen or bathrooms when we bought it — the first thing we did was the front bathroom. The shower was okay and the only usable thing in the front bathroom (and has served as our only place to wash since we moved in — it was also where we washed dishes for our first 4 months in the house) — we used a toilet in the back of the house until we finished the front bathroom. You can see some of the before and after shots here: hall bath before and after — kitchen before and after. (Note that the “kitchen” in the before picture was completely for show — nothing was vented, plumbed, or otherwise functioning… the cabinets weren’t even screwed in.)

From what we had seem in comparable homes, we knew that we were going to have to do the kitchen right (which is the way we do everything, anyway, crazy perfectionists that we are) so we used all our available funds on the kitchen and front bathroom (and re-wiring the Whole. Entire. House. and installing attic stairs, installing recessed lights in Every. Room., installing speakers in the kitchen…. etc., etc.) We did some beautifying before Kate was born, but really, the vast majority of the work on the house has been over protecting ourselves from electrical fire or having a ceiling fall down in the middle of the night. Priorities. So, the unfinished bathrooms sat. We used the bathroom on the kids’ side of the house for the laundry. We took out the unusable tub on this side and gave it to a very friendly organic blueberry farmer in Mississippi. The tub on our side was in better shape; we worked with a local tradesman and refinished it (some of the work was Paul, some was the tradesman… love people who will work this way). But nothing was ever hooked up since we knew we would be doing work to the room. We vacillated for several years about what to do with the back until the plan came together last fall.

In the project right now, the next big thing we need to do is finish the roof. The first layer is temporary for up to 90 days… and we’ve burned through about half (or more) of those. But before we can get the final roof layer up, the vent stacks from the new bathroom have to be installed. That means that the existing bathrooms/laundry has to be gutted completely, framed out and plumbed so that we know where the stacks should go. With the new space sealed to the elements, we were ready to gut. We started moving stuff out into the new section and I took the kids out of town to give Paul the freedom to do mess, dangerous work without the distraction of kids in the house. Here are some of his pictures. Maybe he’ll post some with comments soon… right now, I think he’s completely exhausted since (in addition to the housework during daylight hours) he also did work-work this weekend and is gearing up for a crazy week job-wise. Thank goodness I’m in a holding pattern until IRB meets and responds so I can pick up the slack!

PICTURES of the DEMOLITION…

This is the door leading to the kids’ room to the left and the exterior wall on the right. You can see that this addition (we’re not sure when it was done… the 70s maybe?) the drywall was pounded up RIGHT ON THE EXTERIOR WOOD PANELING of the house. See the drywall, wood panels (that were the original exterior of the house before siding was put up over it), and then the lathe underneath? Wild.
This is looking from the kids’ door up and out to the new addition. Once the drywall on the ceiling was pulled out, the skylight became visible! This is the new skylight Paul installed when he built the roof. One note about the exterior wall to the left in this picture. It did not have any boarding holding it together under the drywall. And it is very very very flimsy. Paul feels certain that a good push would bring it down completely; it’s already bowing quite a bit. He says we need to take out all the framing and siding and completely re-do the whole wall. If we were paying someone else to do this work, this is where the budget would get blown. There was on way to know about the problem until the wall was out; thankfully Paul has the inclination to learn about these things and do quality work himself… otherwise, we’d be way way behind schedule and over budget. This is the same side of the house and wall that he jacked up and reframed the base of when he was starting the new room in the back.
This wall is the interior wall against the kids’ room. Paul has started removing the wood siding (the original exterior walls that the drywall was nailed up against when this room was added.) You get a sense of just how incredibly messy the work is.
Looking into the bathroom area; the wall to the right is the interior wall with the kids’ room behind it. The wall in the center of the picture is the center dividing wall — on the other side is our mirrored bathroom/laundry. Note the center wall — see the floor? The tile floor was laid after the interior wall was built — see how the wall slopes? The floor is leveled out around the wall. Who knows what we are going to find when the floor starts getting ripped out.
This is the window that was in the kids’ side. At some point, a vine grew through the backwall. Workers ripped the plant out and then put up drywall. You can see the tracks of the plant below (no, it’s not termites, although that is what Paul initially thought… no sign of termite debris and no damage… it’s from a plant!) The whole on the floor is where the toilet in the kids’ side used to be.
Wow! This is looking from where our bathroom used to be. You can see where the wall dividing the two sides used to be. The door to the right is the new door leading to the new room in the back. That’s our washer and dryer still in the same place. Paul is going to make a temporary hook-up in the new room so that we have a washer and dryer during this part of the renovation.
Looking from where the washer and dryer are back to the other side, towards where our bathroom used to be. The interior wall in the process of being demolished was the wall that had washer and dryer hook-ups (identical to the other side).
Same view, with the walls gone!! The door to the far right leads to our bedroom. The pumps coming up from the floor were where the two sinks were (one on each side of the dividing wall). Oddly, the sinks drained way way way to the left (if you scroll up, you can see where Paul sawed off the drain — a big black pipe — down from the sink water pipes.) He said it was hard to work around these pipes, since an accidental hit would have resulted in a geyser. Early on, a beam did fall and put a decent dent in the top of the dryer.

Now, he’s starting on taking down the rest of the backwall. The framed windows are what Paul did from the other side when he started the addition in the back.
These are the other two skylights — the ones that will shine over our Master Bathroom one day! See the different paint colors on the boards? We have no idea why. Paul thinks that at one point, the room may have been open to these boards and the color was aesthetic. He also wonders if there may have been a drop ceiling at one point and hence when the white color was done.
Back wall is outta there! Wow. Notice that the bead board up on the far wall (the side exterior wall) is actually different than that found elsewhere. After the board came down, he found that this side is just as flimsy as the other. Both sides will need to be completely re-built if we’re to do it right.
Looking down the backwall to the kids’ bedroom side.
Now he moved to working on the interior wall. Interesting to find that major parts of the lathe had been rough-cut through (see the drywall where lathe should be?) Whether for plumbing or electric or…?… we have no idea.
Paul was impressed by this horizontal beam work. These beams are seriously heavy-duty and the diagonal cuts were all done by hand tools. Impressive carpentry, likely over a 100 years old. These diagonal beams are on each side of the house. We’re not sure what the foundation under them looks like and how they contribute to the load on this load-bearing wall. We would like to cut through this to make our closet open from this side, versus in the room as it does currently. We may possibly have a tough time doing this depending on what we find in the next steps.
The interior wall, siding down. That’s the lathe with drywall on the other side! This is also where Paul got after two long days of hard, dirty work! (Big thanks to hired handy-guy Wesley, a young kid who is in technical school and has helped out with some of the debris hauling and assorted tasks… I’m not sure Paul could’ve done all of this without some extra hands!)
The current plan is for me to bring the kids back early Tuesday (hopefully, we’ll have water and electricity all working by then… although probably no washer and dryer). That will let me drop the kids off in school and then go home to clean thoroughly before the kids get into the house. Paul tells me that the dust is pretty bad (despite all his efforts at clean-up and protecting the rest of the house) and we want to get up all the dust and debris in the air before exposing the kids.

Next steps:
— Tear out the floor
— Rebuild the side walls
— Frame out the interior walls
— Rough plumbing
— Vent stacks
— Roof finished
— Exterior hardiplank hung (at this point, the exterior would be finished and we would really sigh a sigh of relief)
— A/Cs installed on the roof (hopefully before we have too many more 80-degree days)
— Then we can turn to the interior electric, plumbing, shower bed installation, drywall, flooring, tile, fixtures…. etc., etc.