Looking Back - Part VI

One last thing to see is how the floors transformed. We started in January 2012 pulling up the floors from the upstairs and then the living room. Once they were back in my shop I started working on them, I had to get them squared up. First thing I did was go over them with a little metal detector to find any old nails in the wood and I found quite a bit. Then I had to plan them flat, some work was done on the under side as they were never planned smooth and then I had to joint one edge so I could run them through the table saw to continue with squaring them up.  With the boards milled down to ¾ inch and the sides parallel I could cut in the tongue and grove needed too put them down, but first I filled the old nail holes, sanded them, then the routing work came. This work in the shop took 22 days and a lot of effort. After the milling was done I had 19 large garbage bags of saw dust and shavings and we still had ¾ inch of flooring left.

This is what we started with, here is the living room floors.

One small pile of old nails removed. A future project I think.

After using the metal detector this is
what I pulled out of the boards.

A long road but here are all the boards dressed.

A look at the tounge and groove I cut into each board.

A new look for the upstairs hallway,
originally they went across the hall.



Just the stain applied.
 

Three coats of ply alppied., the dressing room.
 

The south end of the upstairs hallway, were the
old bathroom was.

Looking Back - Part V

After the main bathroom was reconfigured we were able to remove the upstairs bathroom. It wasn't too bad of a job, I think the hardest part was going up in the attic to re-run some of the wires for the new lights and plug. There wasn't much of insulation in the walls, what was there had compacted and in the wall on the right side of the window was a little surprise, an old bee's nest. Once all was removed I could fix the floor were the old plumbing went through, I used old floor boards as they were the same thickness and I wanted to use original materials were possible.  Here is how the job went.

Before we started, the hall is a little dark.

Starting to come down.

It's opened right up.

The little surprise.

Most of the deconstruction done.

New lights and plug are in and strapping is up.

Insulation is in, a lot warmer now.

Vapor barrier is on.

A bit of drywall and mud makes huge difference.

A little primer brights it right up.
Compare this to the first picture in this post.

Looking Back - Part IV

Once the main house demo was done and cleaned up we decide to redo the main bath. It took a while as this was my first remodel and I wanteed to take my time, trying to make it right, and not over think it, that part didn't work so well. For a small room there was a lot of work involved, but worth it. We ran water and drain lines up the wall to a future upstairs bathroom and put in Roxal 'Safe and Sound' insulation in the ceiling, to help with noise dampening, our bedroom is above it. In the end it worked out very well. Here is it and remember it's bright.



This is how it was, tub at the end,
washer and dryer in the room.



With everything I needed removed I could see the
wiring and plumbing and get started.



A lot of ceiling came down, many layers.



With a new and some what level floor, new window,
 and exhaust vent hole cut, the tub is framed out.



With the help of a friend, Mike Tokach, I got the drywall up,
this type is for bathrooms and is heavy.



Plumbing and wiring done, tub is in place.

Once all the dry wall was done, mud was put
on, sanding and priming was done.

We added a little colour, and started the
in- floor heating.

A layer between the floor and tile to help
with any movement.

Tiles laid and vent positioned.



Trim and baseboards put on.


 

Toilet installed.



New sink and lights, nice an bright.

Looking Back - Part III

The living room is the largest of all the rooms and didn't need as much work as the others. We took up the plywood flooring and then the old pine boards, exposing a good sub-floor, along with some interesting vinyl, and as usual old papers that again added to the time line. We pulled down the ceiling, and cleaned up some wiring concerns I had, took out the old air return vent, for the furnace, which as centred on the living room wall by the hallway, then adding new support beam and sub-floor boards to match the existing wood. Lights added and speaker wires ran, and then the new sub-floor of ¾ inch plywood laid over the old sub-floor, nice and strong now.We then put up "Safe and Sound" Roxal insulation, before putting up the drywall. Two new walls were added to close the doorway, just a bit. A bit of mud and primer and we have a new room. I'll get to the trim in the new year along with closing in the exposed beam.

As it looked when we moved in.

The old ceiling and fan/light.

The old vinyl that was part of another room at one time.

One of the locations where the electrical was made safe.

Ceiling pulled down, we gained about 2 inches from the
two layers pulled down.

New ¾ inch sub-floor over 1 inch pine sub sub-floors.
 



A couple of new walls with a 60 inch doorway.



It's amazing how a bit of mud and primer will
change the look of a room.

Looking Back - Part II

It only seemed fitting to look back at how the dining room went after we looked at the kitchen. This room went well, the wiring wasn't too bad, the only thing was when I was removing the drywall from the header that separated the kitchen and dining room, it moved, which told me it wasn't carrying any load. For me that was a bit scary. Earlier I knew I had to do some work and had already put in a support beam in the basement in line with this wall, so I could jack it up a bit.

As it looked when we walked through.

With the ceiling and walls pulled down you can still see the sag
 in the ceiling.

This is the new support beam, I did manage to push up the
ceiling about ¼ inch and wasn't going to try any more.
After all it took a 100 year to get there and I wasn't going to
fix it in a month.

Found this in the wall, at least they were happy building it.

Lots of paper under the old floor boards and vinyl, adding
to the time line.



Primer makes it look nice and clean.
 

A better look at a nice clean and straight ceiling.

Looking Back

It's been over a week and I haven't posted anything, we are still here and from when we started the demo to putting on the primer was a 10½ + month journey and we are taking a little break. We'll start the trim and baseboard work in the new year. Until then I thought I would go down memory lane a bit. Over the next little while I'll post pictures showing how the project has progressed, and this is a reminder to us that we have accomplished a lot and a little break is OK.

Here is the kitchen as we look back.

December 2011 after we got the house.

Feb 2012 the kitchen demo starts.

In April when everything came down, all the old wiring
started to show up. As well the first layer of flooring came up




In July the original floor boards came up exposing more of
the time line and the sub-floor.

The plywood sub-floor went down in September, and
in October a new window went in.

Insulated in November, nice an warm now.

Early December we have a clean slate to work with.