Bath Renovation: Week 1
Old bath, before renovations begin
This is the bathroom that I've been living with for the last ten
years. Ugly, heh? Boy am I sick of it.
Day 1 (11 March 02) demolition
The first task is to demolish the old bathroom, and they took it all
out, not just to the studs, but the entire front wall as well.
Partway through the teardown, you can see the cruddy old
plumbing and the empty soffit above the tub/shower. No idea
why the soffit was built that way.
At the end of the first day, pretty much everything is gone
(except they reinstalled the toilet temporarily, because the
chemical porta-potty doesn't arrive until tomorrow).
Two views of the ceiling laths, which have to come down before
the electrical wiring can be redone.
A couple of details of the incredibly chaotic mishmash that the
previous owner left behind. Everything is a kludged hodgepodge
of scraps and leftovers.
Day 2 (12 March 02) demolition
The ceiling laths and insulation are gone (an incredibly messy
and dusty job), and you can see a couple of boxes that I stored
in the eave attic upstairs.
My dad is helping the contractor clean up some trash.
Day 3 (13 March 02) plumbing and flooring
Today the main job was to redo most of the supply and drain plumbing
under the floor, and install the new subfloor plywood.
New subfloor in place, with the new tub over it.
Two shots of my office, crammed with construction materials (only
because I'm feeling pretty cramped in my general lifestyle, and I'm
jonesing for sympathy!)
Hairy scary wiring madness. At least one of these cables has live
exterior armor, and will throw sparks when it touches one of the
others with grounded armor. Doesn't that just fill you with
confidence?
The cat installation
This was a late night, because the plumber didn't arrive until 6:00
pm, and worked until 9:00 or so. When all was over, I sank into a
chair to just relax and chill a little bit. I heard my cat Chani
meowing, but I couldn't tell where she was ... and then I realized
that she's been crawling into the open space of the flooring, for the
last couple of days, to explore in the crawlspace between floors. So
I pried up one corner of the newly installed plywood, and she came
scampering out, very very dirty and cobwebby, and very glad to be out!
I told the contractor he better not charge me extra for installing my
cat into the house.
Day 4 (14 March 02) plumbing and framing
Today the plumber finished his work, rebuilding the vent stack in the
corner (which was a jumbled mess), and adding a drain feed for the
upstairs, where the new bathroom will go eventually.
The new front wall is partly framed in, including a pocket door.
Here's the new vent and drain stack. The upstairs drain has been
brought down to join the stack low, and the downstairs neighbor's vent
has been extended upward to join the stack high, so that all the drain
accesses are below all the vent accesses.
The lavatory water supply plumbing has been redone, and hot and cold
water feeds added for the upstairs bathroom (which will be built when
we get a chance, hopefully before summer).
The tub/shower plumbing has all been redone, and temporary valve and
shower fixtures have been installed, and plastic sheet stapled all
around, so that I can take a shower here and stop begging showers at
friends' houses.
Day 5 (15 March 02) Framing and Ventilator
Today the main task was to install the new ventilation hose and port,
and to build out the new chase for the vent and drain stack. Ralph
also added a bracket to fasten a wall panel to the lip of the tub (no
picture, ask me to show you sometime), so that the wall panel will be
stable enough to hold the tiles in the tub enclosure.
During the vent work, the electrical cable with the live armor brushed
against the grounded vent box, sparked like hell, and tripped the
breaker in the basement electrical box ... this also brought down
power to the upstairs bedrooms, living room, and office (all on the
same circuit). It took me a while to get the computer and network up
again, but no permanent damage. The silver lining is, now we know
which breaker controls this circuit, so we can cut it tomorrow. And
he will fix this damn hot wire problem!
Day 6 (Saturday, 16 March) Electrical
As the plumber is only available evenings, the electrician is only
available on weekends, so this was his day. He cleaned up the
horrible old rat's nest of armored cables, and found the worn-out
insulation that was making at least one arc to its armor, causing the
sparking problem. Whew.
He wired up the ceiling light/vent box, medicine cabinet and GFI
outlet, and wall switches for them, and also gave me a phone jack and
power socket in the living room wall, which is a much better location
for both of them than the kitchen wall (where they were behind a bookcase).
Here is the box for the combination ceiling light and ventilator. The
vent hose (shiny) snakes through to vent out the eave soffit just
above the window.
High, medium, and low views of the wall with all the electrical and
plumbing work in place. In the high view, you see the cables newly
fastened to the joist, and the feed for the medicine cabinet light.
The medium view shows the medicine cabinet feed and its wall switch,
which will include the GFI. The low view shows the plumbing and new
boxes for phone patch bay and power socket, both of which end up
behind my couch in the living room.
Angle shot showing the lavatory area, including the wall switch for
the ceiling fixture, and also the phone jack for the living room.
Here is the new vent and drain stack, now enclosed by the frame for
the new chase. I'm still impressed with the combination of heights
that makes it work as both vent and drain.
You can also see the length of twine that they fished down through the
chase into the basement, to run a new cable to the breaker box for
this service.
Go on to the second week
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