Neverending Demo

I feel like I’ve been covered in drywall dust for the last… eternity. It’s been two weekends, right? Well, you have your nose and esophagus coated with drywall dust for a few weeks and tell me it doesn’t start feeling like eternity.

Or, you know, maybe you use a proper, osha-approved dust mask and not a t-shirt tied over your face and so you don’t have these problems…

image

Don’t worry, I have an osha-approved dust mask in the house, it’s just doing more important things during demo.

image

No one wants a dusty glass of wine, amirite?

Honestly, I thought I’d be long-done with demo at this point, and on to the whole reconstruction and tiling phases of this project, but Saturday was all this…

image

And this…

image

Which, occasionally required me to do things like this…

image

(Never thought all those years of dance and gymnastics would help me tear down a bathroom wall, but there you go. Hidden talents.)

And, after an unfortunate step off the ladder, ended in this…

image

And I was like, WHEN WILL IT END?! Seriously. I was removing two little 6″ walls on either side of a closet door, and the header.

I still don’t understand how that many pieces of wood even physically fit in the space I was demoing, but I finally lost my shit and pulled part of the partition wall down by hand.

image

Made me feel better about all of it.

I didn’t intend to tear that part out, but it turns out this wall was built in the weirdest way possible, and some of the studs were shimmed on one side, while the rest were shimmed on the other side. So in order for the wall to be flush on both sides, these studs had to come out. (Would have been 50 times easier to do this before the tub went in, by the way. Hindsight.)

image

I’m pretty sure this concluded the the demo portion of this project, although in this house it’s hard to say. I’d also considered tearing out the soffit over the sink and toilet, but if it came down to soffit/no soffit and demo/no demo, I’ll keep the soffits. I just want to start rebuilding this room already.

The next step was sistering a few boards up to the wall studs that were cut during the tub installation…

image

(And adding an entirely new stud on the end there, since I tore the old one out.)

What this means is that I can finally start putting things back together. I didn’t get a chance over the weekend because Sunday was surprisingly nice out, and I sized the opportunity to get some work done in the garden, but I’ve got approximately 100 square feet of tile-board in my garage just waiting to be installed after work this week.

And, the new doors and drawer-fronts that I ordered through Cabinet Door World arrived this week, so there’s some priming and painting in my near future too.

image

It’s a little exhausting to feel like I’m putting a lot of hours in and only just starting to re-build (with way, way more drywall work than I anticipated) but it’s progress, and no matter how exhausting, that always feels good.

8 Responses

  1. I’m freaking out about tearing up my bathroom ceiling just to replace a 20 year-old light/heater/exhaust fan.

    Seeing this post gives me the inspiration and balls to just do it!

  2. I would leave the bulkheads/soffits but would replace the can light trim with these:

    http://www.usalight.com/6-Recessed-Open-Trim-p/us-615.htm

    I replaced a bunch of the wide open, cone ones in my last house to these and it made a HUGE difference. You have to use smaller bulbs but they are cheaper too.

    I would also change the trim and ditch the rosettes. Using the time you saved not ripping out the soffit to install a 3pc crown all around your ceiling will help draw your eye away from the soffit and add some luxury detail to your bath.

  3. Nice going. I’ll be super interested to know what kind of hinges you use for those doors, and how you attach them.

    1. I’m just going to use the hardware from the old doors… nothing fancy. I’ll show you how I mark and attach them when everything is painted!

  4. Go LED on the lights. Less heat and no changing light bulbs. They make all types of kits to change them out.

Comments are closed.

I'm not interested in a mediocre life. I'm here to kick ass or die.

(formerly DIYdiva.net)