The Destruction Continues….

As sometimes happens with home improvement projects, my current one is getting out of hand.

In two previous posts (here and here) I described the demolition of the interior walls I’m doing on our third floor. Here’s a description of the thinking that has caused this project to sprawl out of control:

Since I have the walls open, I’ll run new electrical lines (4 circuits: one for all the lights, one for Kai’s new room, one for our new room, and one for air conditioners).

And why not coax and cat5 too - two lines of each per room?

We can hardly call this a master bedroom if it doesn’t have a closet. I’ll build one.

The sink in the 3rd floor bathroom is really old and needs to be replaced. Installing the new sink we want will require some solder work on the copper pipes. Now’s the time to do it since the walls are open.

The stairwall leading up to the third floor is awfully dark and narrow. Since I’ve already removed its interior walls, I’ll completely remove the wall on one side of the lower half of the stairwell and open it up to the second floor hallway (so it’ll get some light and won’t feel so claustrophobic). Then I’ll install ballisters and a handrail so it’ll be safe.

There’s a low spot on the ceiling in that stairwell too, where I sometimes hit my head. I’ll see if I can modify the framing to raise it a couple inches.

Since I’m having a drywall crew come out to install the new walls, I ‘ll have them put in new ceilings in the bathroom and dining room too, as they’re in bad shape.

Since I’m going to have the bathroom ceiling open, I’ll put new electrical lines in there, and a ceiling vent fan too. That means installing vent pipe to the outside as well.

And we don’t really like that closet that’s behind the bathtub - I’ll demolish it and open up that area to the room. Y’know, the plaster on the closet walls is in bad shape. I’ll tear it all out and have new walls put in there too.

I’d like to have a ceiling light in the bedroom adjacent to the bathroom. With the bathroom ceiling open, I have access to snake the wires I’ll need to install it.

I may as well run new electrical lines for the light in the dining room ceiling while the ceiling is open.

I found some old water damage in the roof decking after I opened up the third floor ceiling (and a dead mouse, yeech!). The guys who installed our new roof last year really should have fixed that. I better get them out here to take care of it. And I don’t know why I didn’t have them put a new roof on the sunroom when they were here last time. It’s gutters are in bad shape too. I may as well have them take care of all that while they’re here.

I probably have about a month to go before I’m ready to have the drywall crew come out.

Below are some pictures of the bathroom ceiling demolition. I did this after I came back from Denver, but before Kai and Maria came back. I ended up working late into the night. When I removed the framing for the closet door, I was very proud of myself for having cut it out as one giant piece. The trouble was, between that and all the rubble that had accumulated on the floor, I had managed to barricade myself in the bathroom, as it was impossible to get the door open. It took some doing to finally get myself out.

It was late and I was tired, but I needed to take a shower before going to bed, as I was completey encased in plaster dust. As you can see in the picture, I cleared a tiny path through the rubble so I could get to the tub. I was smart and plugged the drain before starting the demolition, but somehow the plug came out and the drain was full of plaster rubble. I had to sit there with needlenose pliers, plucking bits of plaster out of the drain before I could finally take my shower and go to bed.

I finished the cleanup work the next day. You know you’ve gone too far with your weekend home improvement project when the cleanup requires a shovel.

I took this picture after I had already cleaned up all the lathe, so about
half the mess was already removed.

I’ll run new electrical lines through the ceiling, for new vanity lighting,
a wall outlet, and a ceiling vent fan/heater/light/nightlight unit.