Complete

Sorry for taking so long to post any updates on this. The project is finally complete. Nelson was able to complete all the work at about 7pm the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Between a work trip to Chicago, then back to DC, then to NY for Thanksgiving, then to Philly for a quick overnight work trip and a few deadlines, I have not had any time to post.

Thank you to Nelson for not quitting when I made you rip stuff out.

Thank you to Jason for helping me keep an eye on things while I was traveling.

Here are some final shots. Glad I am not living in a construction site any more. Time to plan for the next project!

What is the opposite from progress?

It has been a few days since my last posting. Most of you are wondering what the tile looks like because it is probably almost finished. Unfortunately I feel as if we are not any farther than we were a week ago. Once all of the walls, floor and ceilings were closed in, some problems came up. Since then I have had to call Jason in to act as a sort of Construction Manager... for a small 5' x 7' renovation project. Unfortunately I'm headed to Chicago tomorrow for work and then off to NY for thanksgiving. Pile a deadline on top of that for work and I have had little to no time to keep an eye on the project. Jason helped point out a few significant problems and we had to make Nelson redo a decent amount of work. I finally had a chance to clean up and they were done with the lower level mess, but its now back to a dusty construction site.

First lets start with the status of the trash pile... Hard to tell from this night photo from my deck, but it is taller than me. Not kidding.

Saturday I cleaned the crap out of my house since they had completely closed in the walls and sanded and painted. It was finally call coming back together. Now... It basically looks like a freakin mess again...

Brad and Jenn slept here the other night. I promise it was MUCH cleaner when they were here. How quickly things can turn around.

Now to the problems:

First the cement board was not installed properly around the tub. This could lead to two problems. First would be the tile will eventually crack along that gap where the tile would only have thinset behind it. Second is water will eventually get behind and find its way in the gap. 

You can see the white tub flange in the photo above. Cement board should  sit on the tub.

Here is the corrected cement board right down to the tub. No chance for water to get behind it. What we had Nelson do was simply add a layer of 1/2" cement board on top of the previous board... I'm looking forward to the conversation I have to have with him when he gives me the receipt to pay for the extra materials.

He also needed to do a better job taping the joints and using the correct screws in the cement board.

The next problem was the floor was not built strong enough. There was one big area of weakness in the middle. This would lead to the tiles cracking eventually as it gets walked on. I thought the floor was going to stiffen once he put the cement board on, but it did not. Today he had to take the flooring out down to the joists... again...

On a side note. Check out the radiator. New much smaller one going in. Wait till you see what it looks like now that I cleaned it and coated it.

While I was at work Nelson was removing the floor and Jason was there. He discovered Nelson has run the plumbing lines incorrectly. It looked odd when I saw it, but I just didn't know any better. Which means Nelson now had to cut open more walls and ceilings below (yes the ones he just closed in) to correct. It also lead to having to route trough a kitchen cabinet below... yeah...crazy...

I'm OK with this because I will eventually redo my kitchen and can modify this once I remove that wall. At least that's the goal...

Now that the wall has to grow out 1/2" the radiator pipes are set too tight. Here are my marks for Nelson to adjust.

This is the second time they have had to patch the wall / ceiling. Also the second time they will have to put the trim back on.

They also patched some of the damage done to the surrounding areas, closet, walls, ceiling in the corridor from the damage.

Now I'm off to Chicago and wont be back until Sunday night. Fortunately or Unfortunately Jason is going to help me (paid of course) and keep an eye on things. It is good to have someone I can trust that knows exactly what to do, but unfortunate that I have to spend the extra money to get quality work. Thank you Jason... I'm confident things will be looking good when I get back. I doubt it will all be done, but hopefully it will be close by Sunday.

Send me photos!





Progress

There is finally some positive progress. Demo looks to be officially over and we are finally putting things back together. Hopefully by tomorrow everything will all be closed in. Check out some shots...

Tomorrow they will put insulation in the floor, and all the walls except the exterior. Unfortunately there is no space for insulation in the exterior wall.

The new wall is up and a second coat is on. Of course they used the green board everywhere.

New fan is in. It is super silent.

New vent is hooked up to the existing roof penetration. Unfortunately we will have to frame out a small soffit due to this pipe jog. There is a roof rafter directly above the new wall location.

Mostly done with the shimming and furring out of the existing wall. This will be the wall of the shower.

New toilet drain. Copper pipes are for the radiator.

New electrical. 3 switches. One for ceiling lights, one for fan, one for vanity light. Second box is GFI.

My house is covered with plastic. This is what is "protecting" my room. Of course there are so many gaps in the plastic that it is doing very little.

Living room and dining room is tool storage.

New bath tub in the back room. yes those are two original Eams chairs off to the side. The construction workers like to use those for their lunch breaks.

Patched the wall next to the dining room.

Starting to patch the kitchen ceiling. Once the tub is in, then the ceiling can be closed in.

The deck has taken a beating and become scrap storage.

And the trash pile continues to grow...

The wall

Just got home from an event after work. The wall has come down... They framed the new wall. Of course I need them to shift two of the studs 2" so that the medicine cabinet is centered on the vanity and leaves enough room for the toilet. I am not going to be here in the morning... I sent him a text... lets see if this actually works and he moves the studs 2".

Here are a few shots:

The pile continues to grow.

They have turned my deck into a staging ground.

Yes, that is my guest bedroom. The two studs on the left need to move about two inches to the left.

Not too bad...

More demo

At work today my mom sent me a message.

"Jared... checked the blog... you've got to be kidding me!"

Sorry mom... it has gotten worse from when you last saw it. Today concludes day 3 of demolition. The old tub is finally out and all of the concrete is finally gone. Also gone is more of the kitchen ceiling and more of the wall between the living room and dining room. The pile of debris has now taken over most of my rear yard. Thank goodness my neighbor is still on vacation...

Standing in this dungeon looking space that used to be my bathroom I was staring at the one wall...

Look carefully at this photo. This wall has taken a beating over time. There are no full height studs left, No continuous top plate or bottom plate. The plaster is now cracked on the bedroom side from the demo. It has little stability... Why am I keeping this wall. Nelson (contractor) got back to pickup his crew at about 8pm. He was surprised to hear my decision, but understood. Then the negotiations began. I started at $100 extra in labor (which was not realistic). We ended up with $400 more and probably another $300 in materials. Fortunately this means we can shift the wall a little and make the bathroom a little larger.

This means demo is lasting another day. Day 4 of demo. HOPEFULLY the last day.

What did I get myself into...

Here are some more shots.

Everyone needs a toilet on their deck.

The pile continues to grow. My neighbors must love me.

All of the old pipes have been removed down to the new basement work. Yes the drains are now venting into the house. Not a big deal for a week or so.

Hole is bigger. Radiator pipes remain until we do the new work all in one day. This way we can keep the heat on.

Look what we found under the crown moulding!!!!! Sweet wall paper.

Holes keep getting bigger.

This wall is coming down tomorrow.

What have I gotten myself into????

Demolition

It took two weeks to find a new contractor and he was able to start a week later. Yesterday morning it all started. It is now 20 hours into demolition and they are still not finished. I'm not sure anyone expected the demo to take this look. They must have really liked concrete 90 years ago when this house was built. Its a wood framed house but there is now a mountain of concrete debris in my back yard.

It is rough to be at work and have to work late and not know what I am going to come home to. I have spent some time working at home in the morning so that I can keep an eye on them. Being home for demolition is not the best idea... I just don't want to know whats going on at this point. Sometimes I think they are trying to take the whole house down. I am just happy my neighbor is away on a long vacation. She works from home and would be going insane right now.

Let's just get into it...

A good start. The room feels MUCH bigger without the fixtures.

 I know... 90 years of shit... literally.

I can now wash my hands when I pick the last of my tomatoes.

This was just before I headed to work on the first day of Demo.

I found out there was no insulation on the exterior wall. Unfortunately no room to accommodate it anyway.

I'm not sure how water ever got through this.

Just before heading to work.

At least they tried to cover the living room.

This is the pile when I got home last night. How did all of this come out of that little room?

Pile doubled in size after day two.

The VERY old vent stack up through the roof. We are going to cut this out and put in all new.

The floor is another story. These joists have taken a beating over time. Some pretty large pipe holes cut out. Not feeling too good about that, but there is not a lot I can do unless I open up the whole floor and try to sister in new joists.

And yes... if you look carefully you can now see the Range in my kitchen below...

The wall between my kitchen and dining room. Not too bad, but the hole has to get bigger. We are replacing all of the risers down to the new work in the basement.

And then I discovered they had to remove most of the ceiling in my kitchen...

I have to leave for Chicago for a week for work on the 15th. I'm not sure this is going to get done by then. No turning back now.