Insulation and Wallboard

Fitting and stapling moisture barrier to ceiling

Notes from the upstairs reno...

The bathroom fan is in.  It has a sensor and comes on and off when it needs to remove moisture from the room.  This is a great way to fix the problem of folks forgetting to turn it on and off.

The walls and ceiling are insulated.  This was no small feat, and required lots of custom cutting.  The walls have faced insulation and the ceiling is unfaced, which requires a plastic moisture barrier.

We are ready to put up the rest of the wall board. We are using green board which now also comes in purple and is supposed to be even more moisture resistant in the bathroom.

We are using regular drywall (or white board) in the bedroom.  We will be taping, mudding, and painting both rooms.

Moisture barrier in upstairs bedroom

Just FYI - on drywall, sheetrock and wallboard:

Drywall is compressed gypsum panels, covered with paper facing, that installs directly on wall studs. Read more.  Sheetrock is a brand name for a particular manufacturer's drywall. To make things more exciting, drywall can also be called wallboard.  It comes in white, green, and purple.

To add a level of confusion, we are also using cement board (also called blue board or plaster board) downstairs in the main living area.  It is gray.  We plan to hire a plasterer to come and plaster those walls.

It is cheaper to tape and mud yourself, but in old houses, the walls and ceilings are finished smooth which takes a certain amount of skill (or lots and lots of practice).

We are using the cheaper method upstairs in the bedrooms and plan to have a professional plaster the living room, dining room, hallway and someday maybe even the kitchen.

Wall board on ceiling

Right now we have to get the wallboard or sheet rock up on the walls.

The upstairs ceilings are nine feet high.  It took three of us about four hours to install the moisture barrier, cut and install sheetrock on the bedroom ceiling and the angled wall.  Angles are tricky.

Now we need to go back and buy more to finish the job.  

I can't tell you how nice it is to have walls!  

The Bathroom Floor

The bathroom floor unfortunately deserves a post of its own.  Whomever installed the tile, did a good job. The flooring tile pried off fairly easily with a hammer and a crowbar.  Underneath was a thick layer of adhesive plaster that the tile was set in.  It was level and seemed to have been poured as one side was thicker than the other.  Under the plaster was a thick layer of plywood.  The trouble with that is that it was nailed and screwed down in random constellations.   You could not see where the nails/screws were because they were covered in the white plaster.  It took about FOUR hours demo day five to pry up the floor and it came up in small splinters.  We still have a corner to go over by the toilet (the tub is going to push back against the taller corner wall.

The bathroom floor with tile being removed

Tile removed, down to adhesive

Prying up the plywood sandwich

Demo Day Four...

Welcome, come on in...

Trying to catch insulation as it falls out of the walls from the ceiling

Demo day four was spent upstairs, mainly in the bedroom.  I thought I hated dusty horse hair plaster until I encountered itchy foul rock wool insulation.  I don't even have words for how I feel about that!

This demo job was disgusting.  It was hot outside. We were covered in plaster dust.  The ceiling was full of loose insulation that had been used by mice for years as nests and toilets.  The smell was awful.  And it itches.

I had to keep running my arms under water to try and remove the particles.  We should have had long sleeves tucked into our gloves.

It took all day to chuck lathe out the window, haul to the burn pile.  We started filling buckets with plaster and T hauled them down the stairs and out to the dumpster.  After about the 20th trip, we just started chucking the plaster out the window too.  We had buckets set up below, but a lot missed.  We also filled bucket after bucket of insulation and hauled those down to the dumpster.  At least those were lighter.

Here are the fabulous surprises that we found:

• The outer walls had insulation!  Some of it was moldy though as moisture seems to be getting in from outside.
• We found an inscription in the wall from the Chalifoux's in 1973 which must be when the bathroom was created upstairs See it Here
• We found the original divider between the two rooms (the bathroom was created from taking space from each upper bedroom)
• Mice skeletons and fully mummified mice carcasses covered in what looks like creosote (found near the chimney)

What a dusty mess!

The back wall with funky electrical wires - some live and dead-ended in the wall

 If I NEVER EVER  have to demo any upper room with horse hair and insulation again I would be happy...  Unfortunately, we still have two bedrooms and a hallway to deal with (not including the back part of the house)...

The insulation and cobweb filled ceiling

Bathroom sink vent

 The husband also wanted to rip out the hallway over the stairs but I talked him out of it.  We have just created months (years?) of work to now finish these rooms and we still would have to demo the upper hallway and two bedrooms so if we couldn't finish the job I didn't want any more mess!!!

I have enough mess.  Almost a week later, I am still dusting and sweeping and vacuuming up plaster dust. Fun.

The double layer ceiling in the bathroom - gutting around the tub

Removed outer wall leaving angled sink and tub for now...

More of the ceiling...

More of the wall

more of the gutted walls

The EVIL ceiling

The gigantic light fixture

More ceiling

The outer wall

Bathroom ceiling and chimney that runs through it

The MESS!!!!

More of the itchy awful mess...

And still more - this all fell out of the ceiling from the attic

What didn't fall and had to be knocked down with a broom...

Bathroom ceiling

Outdoor Temporary Shower...

Wrestling the shower into place on the back porch

And it fits!

When you dismantle, and by dismantle I mean gut down to the studs, the only full bathroom in your house, temporary measures must be taken to ensure members of your family are still able to bathe.  Believe me, the children of this household would happily go the entire summer without touching a bar of soap. It wouldn't be quite so joyous for the adults.

We intentionally timed this renovation during the summer months when an outdoor shower is ideal. And yes, we are hoping to complete the project, at least to the stage of being able to shower indoors again, before fall, when an outdoor shower becomes not quite as refreshing.

I have to take credit for the location of the shower.  It is on the porch, but steps outside the kitchen door and it FIT.  The location does require disrobing outside the glass slider door, on the porch, but the location is out of eyesight of the neighbors. You might want to stay out of the kitchen during evening bath time!

The children are enjoying showering outside on the deck and my youngest couldn't wait to be the first to try it out.

During this past weekend amid dirty, itchy demo work it was a life (and skin) saver!  Much, much more enjoyable than our current bathroom, even in its pre-demolition state!

I highly recommend installing one.  You don't know what you are missing!

The view from the back porch

Thy middle name is demolition

My Partner in Crime...

Demo Day Two...

This summer I have been told that I have to increase my home renovation contributions.  Apparently blogging, documenting and picking paint colors aren't helping the timeline.  So, unfortunately I will be getting my hands dirty this summer.  Very dirty.

This is my partner in crime.  No we are not surgeons.  If we were, I assure you we would pay someone to do our dirty work!

Here are photos of the second day of demolition...

Fun with the Sawzall

The Electrician baffled by the circuitry...

Unfortunately you really can't get a good sense of how gross this is.  So here are some dead things that fell out of the wall.

The bathroom was added in 1973.  Space was carved out of the two bedrooms.  

Removing the wall between the bathroom and Cassie's bedroom.

Another shot from the bedroom of the now-exposed bathroom.

The bedroom/bathroom.  Not sure how my foot got in there...

The bathroom when there were some walls left...

The view from the hallway...

The highlights...

• When the husband tells you a circuit is dead, NEVER believe him.  
• When you gut 100+ year old outer walls, be prepared for a shower of mice feces and unidentifiable skeletons...Also the occasional intact mouse (dead and mummified).  WEAR A FACE MASK!
• Be prepared to vacuum and mop at least 100 times to get rid of the dust.  Then demo again.  

The daughter is not impressed by her new bedroom/bathroom combo.  She is plotting to move in with the neighbors for the summer.  She said "How am I supposed to get dressed?"  "How are people supposed to shower?"  "This is disturbing".  Wait until she sees the new (temporary) outdoor shower on the back porch (coming soon)...she may just give up bathing for the summer...

So it begins...(again)...

Summer has arrived.  The kids and I finished our last days of school and work together this year and now I am off for eight weeks.  Usually summer is about fun and recharging, the days are much less structured and we sleep in.  This year we are demoing the bathroom.  The only full bathroom in the house.  And I only have eight weeks until we return to the whirlwind that is fall - we hit the ground running with work, and school, and soccer.

Bedroom Corner BEFORE

You would think that demoing the bathroom would be limited to the bathroom,  but we have this small problem called a large window.

Originally there were two windows.  We had to gut the wall with the window to get a sense of what was originally there so we could order appropriate sized new windows.

We want to remove the one window, put the two windows back with a wall in between to separate the bedroom from the bathroom.  A STRAIGHT wall. The Current wall angles in to avoid the window and creates a very awkward bathroom space.  We want to make the bathroom a square instead of a trapezoid.  Crazy, I know.

Demo Day One:

Removing the first wall...

The first wall wasn't so bad.  It was covered with rough boards, but no plaster or wall board, so other than the occasional splinter it went quickly.

Of course then we had to peel off the thick plastic and get into the mouse dropping filled insulation.  Itchy and gross.

The first lively discussion was held about only wanting to do in this room what was necessary for the bathroom vs. just gutting the damn room.  The trouble with only doing part is that you live with a partially gutted room for a long time before having to go in and finish wrecking the place.  While your hands are already dirty, well...  I won't spoil it for you and tell you which side won...

Gutting the window

Yesterday we went to Home Depot and ordered two windows to the tune of $1K.  Ugh.  Yes they are Andersen 400 grade, traditional colonial style windows with wood inside and 3 over 3 grids.  We went crazy and got the stool.  If you don't know what that is, well let's just say I am jealous!

The bad news is that the windows take "about four weeks" to come in.  It is that word about that worries me.  That puts us half way through our timeline.  Ouch.  But don't worry, there is lots we can do without windows.

Stay tuned for more demo fun...

TOH Reader Remodel Contest

[caption id="attachment_950" align="alignleft" width="450"] The finished bath room - view from hall way door opening[/caption]

Good News!!!, the downstairs bathroom made it into This Old House 2013 Reader Remodel Contest. You can view the entry here:

TOH Reader Remodel Contest 2013

If you really want to review all the nitty gritty dirty work that went into this project, click here.

A shout out to everyone who made this room possible,

• the husband the demolition man, tile man, painter man, wood-working man


• my Dad the BEST PLUMBER EVER who saved us about $7K


• Pammy the wallpapering maven


• James Smith Contracting who built the built-ins.

The blasted door lock

I am still on my hunt for an appropriate privacy doorknob (aka way to keep out the lockers see Knockers and Lockers for full details) for the new bathroom.

We purchased one of these and thought we had a workable $7 solution...



Alas, the door is flush on the outside not inside.  I am sure there is some appropriate door lingo for this involving door jams and pre-hung doors, but I prefer to broadcast my ignorance of such things.  All I know is we would have to install this type of latch on the outside of the door which would be great for locking folks in the bathroom, but not so good at locking people out of the bathroom while it is in use...

[caption id="attachment_944" align="alignnone" width="225"] Inside of bathroom door- no way to have a flush latch.[/caption]

So we are back to the hook and eye solution  which we both decided was not ideal.

I have been scouring the Internet for some affordable, appropriate looking door knobs with privacy locks.  The issue I am running into currently is that I have a 1 1/4" width door.  New doors apparently are 1 3/8" and most of the knobs I am finding fit a 1 3/8" - 1 1/4" door.  My husband tells me that doors are like 2x4s which are no longer 2 inches by 4 inches.  He says a 1 3/8" door knob will fit fine.  I am skeptical about that other 1/8", but cannot get Google to confirm this.  So, I am ordering the door knob and hoping for the best...

I did find some nice door knobs made by Weslock at handlesets.com.  Of course they were all back-ordered.  So now let's just hope it arrives before party time (2 weeks, three days) and that it FITS!!!

The bathroom is 98.88888% done!

I admit I have been remiss in my posting and you have missed a lot!!!

Most of the bathroom trim has been installed:

[caption id="attachment_875" align="alignnone" width="225"] Trimming out the built-in shelf[/caption]

The fixtures have been hooked up!!!!

[caption id="attachment_876" align="alignnone" width="225"] My favorite plumber in action...[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_877" align="alignnone" width="225"] The long-awaited second toilet![/caption]

The wallpaper is done! My good friend Pam came over to lend her expertise. Everyone needs friend like Pam. She can do anything. She is famous for changing her own oil while pregnant and for refinishing her attic mostly by herself. She can wield a tape measure and razor knife like nobody's business. She actually volunteered to help me (phew!) and was so into it came back the next day to get me around the final corner. Don't kid yourself, the bathroom is small, but just about every piece we had to custom cut around the door, window, built-in, slanted ceiling, etc.

[caption id="attachment_878" align="alignnone" width="225"] Pammy in action. She makes it look so easy![/caption]

It looks beautiful though, doesn't it?! I love the wallpaper and think it really makes the room.

[caption id="attachment_880" align="alignnone" width="225"] Isn't it gorgeous![/caption]

We just have to finish painting the rest of the trim and then sand and paint the door. Oh and then get the electrician back to turn on the power. Sooo close to having one of the most important rooms done!