One More Thing Done

Well one move thing done, at least for now, I'll still have to glue up the drain lines for the tub, once it's permanently installed, they'll go together easily. For now everything else is in place and glued up. There were a couple of adjustments needed and a lesson learned on what order to glue them in and to make sure ALL the pieces are properly marked for alignment before taking them apart.

This is were I relocated the old lines and added the new one for the upstairs bathroom. I"ll update this picture with a completed one later.

New tub and toilet lines in place, the orange cap is there to hold back the septic gases, until I get the tub fixed in place this will be the last glue up.

Toilet location set and water lines for the tub pushed through. Again keeping back the septic gases, this time with a plastic bag stuffed with old insulation. It works just fine.

Starting To Come Together - The Dry Fitting

It is starting to look like a bathroom, at least when everything is put in it's place, even temporarily. With the two support wall in place I wanted to make sure the rest of the tub surround would fit properly so ReBecca and I put them in place along with the toilet and sink. This way she can decide on what type of lights she wants and where they should go. It also give us a feel of how it will look, and we have to remember that there will be a window by the toilet letting is more light.

The rest of the tub fit great, so we can move forward with the rest of the work.

It might look a little tight and dark back in the corner but there is plenty of room and we'll have a window close by.

The sink in place, we didn't want a big vanity, something simple that suits the location. Again there will be lights over top and on the wall above the sink.

With everything looking good I finished the dry fitting for the plumbing, here the 3 inch line is dry fitted for the future upstairs bath.

The tub and toilet fitting went well, at least from the top side anyway.

It took a little adjusting to get the lines fitted properly to be tied into the main drains, a couple of more pieces and then I'll be done dry fitting and will glue them up after a few more jobs in the bathroom are completed. You never know there may be a need to re-adjust them and it's easier to move them when dry fitted and not glued up.

Location, Location, Location

Like Real Estate location is everything, and it takes time to locate and fit everything needed to put this bathroom back together, and it's coming along great. I am getting the tub positioned so I can build the side support walls, and the sink located so I can add bracing to bolt it in place.

This sink is a few inches higher than the normal sink and it fells great.

Tub support walls are in place, the tub is level and now I can cut holes for the drain lines. The toilet will go on the far side of the tub. I'll be putting in a window where the drywall is cut away.

Washing machine lines and drain, moved to it's new location, in the addition side.

Measure Twice - Cut Once

Always a good motto to work by, even when moving some plumbing around. I finally got the plumbing worked out for the new bathroom configuration. I like the new plastic connectors, they're call Shark Bit because you just have to push the plastic ½ line in all the way and that's it. To remove just pull back on the plastic sleeve and pull the pipe out, which is good if you make a mistake or need to relocate a line. No more soldering in the walls or copper pipes that might sweat or knock if not properly secured. And the plastic holds the heat better. Anyway the first step in putting the bathroom back is getting this plumbing rearranged and then I can get the tub fitted, locate it's drain and overflow lines and then the toilet, everything will be in place soon.

New location for the bathroom sink, these coupling are temporary, I'll add 90º fittings later to extend them through the wall for the taps.

Old bathroom sink lines now become new washing machine feed lines and one for the toilet. You can see the toilet shut off at the bottom, it will be moved down the wall and out behind the toilet.

The drain lines reworked, you can see were I'll be putting the 3 inch drain lines hidden inside the tub wall and up on the addition side. It will probably go through the other side to get to the future upstairs bathroom and I'll just make a bulkhead to hide it, as it will be in the laundry room.

Straitening Up The Ceiling

Now the old floors in the dining room and kitchen are up, I also removed a couple of the old pine floor boards for now, the rest later, I have the temporary support beam in between the dining room and kitchen to see if I can straiten it out. It has a little sag in it and this reflects up through to the bedroom floor, we'll try to move it up and if it still has a little sag then it is part of the house and its 100+ year old character.

First I laid the base, 2 2x4's screwed and I had to put it on a 2x6 for more height. I secured them together and to the floor, I don't want anything to move.

ReBecca and I put up the temporary support beam 3 2x6s. It looks off but it is level.

It is in place and everyday I'll give it a little turn to see if I can move it up a bit. The reason for the extra board under the base is the jack posts are good for 8 ½ feet, and with the 2x4's and 2x6's on end I was still a bit short, the joists to the sub-floor is 8 feet 9 inches, I wanted a little room on the jack screws to turn them up.

This is the gap I showed a while ago that was above the header, it isn't touching.

Here is what it looks like today after we started to push up the ceiling, we're up about ¼ inch.

First Step To Putting It Back

Well we are at a stage where we are starting construction rather then demo. The first room we need to get up and running is the bathroom, and once it's done I can complete the last room to demo, which is the upstairs bathroom. More on that room when it happens. After removing everything to see what I have to work with and what needs some attention I had to figure out how I can use the existing lines to avoid any more holes to the basement, it took a bit but I think I have it worked out. As well I had to plan for the future bathroom upstairs and I will be roughing in the drain and water lines. So here is what has gone on over the past few days.

A bit of frame work around the tub surround, which all came out.

Opening up the walls to see what I have to work with. The 3 inch elbow on the floor is where the plumbing will go to the upstairs bathroom, inside the end wall for the tub.

It's never easy, I have to move the drain lines to the left about 2 feet.

Pulled up the old floor, it was ½ inch and shimmed up with narrow shims making it very soft in some spots. I supported the floor in the basement with concrete footings, and 3 2x6 's on jack posts to keep it solid. Then where it needed to be built up I used large pieces of ¾ inch plywood under the ¾ inch floor, very solid and will provide the support needed for the tiles we have to lay.

New toilet and sink to go in, I am just staging where everything is to go and then I'll build new support walls for the tube and hide the plumbing. One step at a time.

Peeling Back The Layers Of History

Well it seems that when we pull down a ceiling or wall we find a little something that tells us about the history of the house and the previous renos done. This has been true when we pulled up the floors, we found old news papers dating the place back to 1896, with time lines in 1938, 1944, 1946 and now 1961. In the kitchen we found out why some of the second floor joists were short and didn't go to the wall separating the dining room and kitchen, and that a second joist was installed. The wall wasn't originally in that location. As well today I installed a support beam in the basement under the wall between the bathroom and living room, providing support for the tiles we plan on laying. We don't want the gourt to crack.

The dining room lino that was under the small 3 inch floor boards, it looks like there was a wall or something splitting the room in half???

News paper works well under the lino.

Nice looking old pine boards we'll use for the fourth room upstairs.

Felt paper was used under the boards in the kitchen, leaving them very stained. I hope I can save them.

You can see where the original wall was separating the kitchen and dining room.

A look at the new support beam in the basement.

Adding To The Time Line

Well the bathroom is cleared out, and the footings are drying for the support beam I want to put in so when we put in tiles the floor will be solid and the grout won't crack. As I wait for the cement to set for a few days I thought I would do some prep work to re-do the header between the kitchen and dinning room. In order for the support beams to be fitted properly I have to remove the old flooring, down to the sub floor and not just build up on top of old material. As I try to carefully remove the old pine tongue and grove floor boards we noticed they were not just nailed in through the tongue, as they should be so the nails are concealed, someone in their infinite wisdom decided to nail them strait down through the top, a mess to remove. And as happened when we removed other flooring we find out what has happened over the years. Under this floor was an old lino flooring and old news papers seperating it from the original pine boards. All I have found so far is "The Star Weekly Magazine" dated December 9, 1961, laid over the old knotty pine floor boards. And yes they will be coming up as well.

Part of the dining room pulled up exposing the old lino that was painted.

You can see where this is in the other picture. They just painted around what ever was here, we can at least see what the old floor looked like.

Exposing the news paper.

The Star Weekly Magazine, December 9, 1961.

One Big Load

Well we have finally dumped all the old plaster, laths, drywall, sheet rock, dust, dirt, old toilets, did I mention plaster, laths that have been accumulating since Feb 21st when I started pulling down the house. We stored in the shed 48 bags of debris and 19 bags of wood shavings that I got from the floor board restoration part of this project. So we got in a 22 foot dumpster and had to unload every bag so it can go as construction waste, other wise it would be $32 a tonne more to dispose of. I'll find out soon how much we had. Having one large dumpster saved us many trips, and with the gas prices today the rental of this container was well worth it. A couple of pictures of the old material we pulled down and after I run a shop vac through the house it will be clean, at least cleaner and we can start to put it back the way we want it.

The best location for the container, right out the front door, easy to carry out the drywall, but it was a little trip with the wheel barrel from the shed. Thankfully they were in bags.

We started loading from the front, piling the old bat insulation and putting the old laths to keep them from blowing away.

This is all we had for the container, anything smaller wouldn't have worked. I had to cover it with a few tarps on the weekend, we got some snow and I didn't want the stuff wet adding to the tonnage.

It's Getting Closer

Well the kitchen is completed and I found a couple of new developments. We wanted to fix the dip in the ceiling between the kitchen and dining room, this meant once the old support beam was exposed we could brace the ceiling, jack it up, replace the old header and supports and we'd be done. It still is going to happen but there is one step the turns out to easier then I thought. The existing header isn't holding an load, in fact the one side was resting on an old 3 x 4 post and the only thing holding it in place was drywall, I quickly screwed a 2 x 4 in to hold it in place. No wonder the ceiling sagged and the bedroom above had a dip in the floor. I am hoping we can straighten it out a bit before we put down the floors.

With all the interior walls down I was able to see where the old wiring went and ReBecca and I tracked it down, and pulled it out. Some were still live but that didn't take long to correct. ReBecca is going to recycle the copper wire, maybe into her art.

Kitchen wall, interesting wall paper and access to the chimney.

A closer look at the wall paper.

This is the kitchen side of the header, I don't know if you can see it or not but they just nailed the two 2 x 10's together in place and through the old sheetrock.

You can see the protruding nails after I removed the sheetrock.

The kitchen wall that I thought we could remove, ReBecca noticed that it is tight up to the ceiling and the strapping. We don't need the extra 4 inches that bad.

This is the low point between the main beam and the header, I can see right under it, not even touching.

This is what we pulled out of the walls in the kitchen and dining room, and all the way into the attic, an nice little pile of copper wire.

Demo Days

No I'm not trying out new golf clubs, at least not yet, I mean demolish days. We got a 22 ft dumpster in and have been busy filling it up. ReBecca started with the 45 bags that were in our shed of stuff from the ceilings and the old kitchen counter. I started with the old walls and ceiling from the bathroom and moved on to the walls from the kitchen and dining room. Yesterday was the kitchen and remainder of the bathroom, today was the dining room, the outside walls at this point. Tomorrow I'll work on the remaining inside walls, this will give us a good look at the wiring and we think recover a bit of space in the kitchen, I'll explain in the next post if it's true. There was one surprise and no it wasn't a wiring surprise, these I am expecting now. I found a Robbie Burns Highland Whisky bottle in the wall, still in tact and yes it's empty. As for wiring, you'll see what was uncovered in the kitchen, I'm happy they are all disconnected.

The bathroom ceiling with the drywall pulled down exposing the old plaster.

All the lath and plaster pulled down, the drywall in the back is removed from where we are going to put in a window.

This picture and the next few are of the kitchen walls.

Nice bit of wiring?? The boards were the old wall from the bathroom.

Dining room walls cleared off.

This header between the dining room and kitchen is nice and strait, too bad they didn't' get it up tight to joists, a little sag we are going to have to try and straiten out.

Our Robbie Burns Highland Whiskey bottle, at least they were happy when they worked on the house.