our (1921) foursquare

This past weekend was quite busy in the bathroom with preparations for the plumber this week. Since I was taking the floor out any way the plumber wanted it out before the rough-in. I also wanted to get some joist repair done before the new hole was made for the drain system. Oh yea throw in another wall removal to that mix. Makes for a busy weekend.

Actually the wall was not too dificult. I removed the "real" linnen closet door frame to make way for the plumber to place lines for the new shower. This only created one and one half boxes of plaster :-)

The floor removal and sistering the three most damaged joists was the real mission this weekend. I mostly finished with all the tasks. The joists are sisterd. I still need to buy some more lag-bolts to finish that off. (I don't know what happens to my math skills once I get inside Lowes) (4x3 DUH!) Any way I'll pick up some more but for now the joists are in. I ran each back 4.5 feet and lag-bolted them to the original joists, nailing in the middle area as well. I opted for this rather than trying to get a re-positioned run of paralam ordered, cut, and fit for this task. (After viewing what was there any thing would be an improvement).

To get to where I could do all this work I had to first remove the cut-up pine toung and grove flooring. This was quite a procedure. Some where along the line the floor must have become squeeky, each board was face-nailed in addition to being properly nailed on the toung. This made tryign to salvage the boards quite dificult and time consuming. I finished the weekend with seven boards left still nailed in.

It was exciting to see the first glimpse of new wood going back into the bathroom.

Posted by kpf at 9:30 PM | Permalink

To PEX or not to PEX. Before we were even moved in to this place on ocasion I stood down stairs and staired at the plumbing nightmare which brought water to the kitchen and bathrooms.

My original thoughts were to remove the entire mess and start over. This most of the time is easier said than done. (And now we use the water every day.) I was toying with the idea of re-plumbing the mess with a tap water system developed by Wirsbo. Such a system would allow me to eliminate the entanglement of 1/2 inch copper pipes.

I decided to researche some more on the net. I never really made up my mind after this. I found there are lots of people out there unsure wether this "new" (see Wikipedia entry PEX) technology will stand up to use, and others who love it.

Well now that our 2nd floor bathroom is set to be roughed in this next week my mind is made up. The plumber I chose to do the rough-in uses the Wirsbo system that I looked into earlier (we also looked at copper for the rough-in) and that is what we will install. For the interm the 2nd floor bath will be the only on PEX. The rest will happen when we redo the kitchen.

I'm sure to post more on this topic later.

Posted by kpf at 9:42 PM | Permalink

A very eventfull day at home. I managed to scare off the electrician by giving him a headache. We have a new hole in the kitchen and by the end of the day Melissa and the boys were ready for me to stop working on the bathroom for a while.

If you didn't guess what was going on the cast-iron soil stack is out and there is now a clean run for the plumber to put the new soil stack in the proper place (rather than the stair well). At day break I was still uncertin how I was going to remove the stack. There were the obvious two options smash the stack or try and use the recip. saw to cut it out. After a cup of coffee I decided to smash the stack. So Matthew and I went to Lowes early this morning to get some needed mini sledge hammers for the task.

The pounding started at roughly 8:20 this morning. That went on for about two and a half hours with some luck. I was able to get about three feet out. Mom and Dad Kirsch showed up shortly after that and Dad was a great help. He actually got our the first very large section out shortly after his arival. :-) I ended up needing to take more of the small powder room apart to get into the stack space, as well as one section of drywall from the kitchen.

My main consoling factor in the continued destruction is the fact that destruction phaze is almost complete. And a steam shower!

Posted by kpf at 9:39 PM | Permalink

Bathroom project moving along. I added some more holes in the house today and removed some plumbing while I was at it. I need to remove the old plumbing to make way for the new pipes that will bring water to and remove water from the second floor bathroom.

In getting the bid for the plumbing we had deiced that we wanted to use the space where the original water feeds were located. I was not sure how much wrecking I would end up doing today. I ended up doing enough for the removal of the added soil stack and all the hot and cold feed lines that went up to the second floor bathroom.

The initial copper tubing that was added during a remodel was the first pipe removed. This did not give much trouble only slight problems arose with one of the pipes not bending when needed. Next I removed the added soil stack leaving the PVC that went through the roof but removing the rest. I then set to work removing the original galvanized pipes that feed hot and cold water.

I am in a position now to start getting after that large cast-iron soil stack on Monday.

Posted by kpf at 10:10 PM | Permalink

Tools

Another dusty and dirty day at our house. Melissa is relly being a trooper with this disgusting mess. The dust alone ,caused by my distruction and the electrician, is very anoying. There is no way to contain 84 year old attic dust and the constant plaster haze. Well reguardless if you want to take a peek inside a 1921 bathroom here is your chance.

I worked today to remove all the lath from the walls and cieling. I got it all off save 15 pieces behind the radiator. (argh!) I really wish I could have found some more interesting stuff here is the collection: a beer bottle, old womans shoe, 5 brown paper bags, and a small empty vile, but oh well maybe the next wall will contain those hidden dollars.

I finished removing all the trim from the windows and ended up only breaking one bottom piece. Luckily I have replacement pieces of trim from the linnen closet that will make up for that. The lath came off fairly easy just making sure I got all the nails was the hard part. With all the plaster left in the walls I was able to fill up another 2 boxes of plaster making the total around 20 boxes of plaster. I can't wait for that construction dumpster in the spring. No work on the soil stack yet that will be coming on Saturday....

Posted by kpf at 8:45 PM | Permalink

Ok - title says it all. I removed all the plaster from the bathroom (save one area behind radiator). Cieling gone, Walls gone. To say the least this was a very very dusty and dirty job. Let me reiterate very very dusty and dirty. I lost count after 8 boxes of plaster taken down to the basement. And I don't really want to think about the fine coat of dust on every surface in the house. Along with making that enormous mess I was able to pull nails from the window trim getting these prepared for being stripped and sanded down.

Mom and Dad Kirsch came to visit today so along with removing all the plaster from the room dad and I performed some stack research. The current (boxed in soil stack) is vented, 4 inch black PVC, which I did not think would be. This will make it easy for the plumber to connect our new soil stack to. The cast iron pipe was located and initial thoughts are to work from the stair area to cut and pull the stack both up and down for removal. Other discoveries are that the wall in the buttler stair case has had its plaster removed. An early form of drywall was placed over the lathe (why?) when the bathroom and kitchen were remodled circa 1970.

Lunch Break
DONE

Posted by kpf at 8:30 PM | Permalink

Which means more work for me so I don't have to pay for more labor when the contractors come in. This is both good and bad. I have things planned out for this weekends destruction but now I'm adding a task. A task which I had not anticipated and ever dreamed I would be doing. ... Save where you can though :-)

I met with the plumber this afternoon to discus our rough-in ideas for the second floor bathroom. Most ideas and plans were straight forward and easy for him to see. Drains for shower and tub, hot and cold pipe in correct spots etc. Alot of our discussion was about the soil stack (see wikipedia Domestic water system). The PO left us with this as their solution to not removing the cast iron stack and doing things correctly.

Which leads us to my added project for the next two weeks. Removing the original cast iron to make way for the new soil stack. The plumber and I were in a bit of discussion as to weather or not the current soil stack was actually vented. I know that there is a vent going through the roof but from our look today it actually might be the original cast iron. I will be removing the box-in and copper first then digging into the cast iron.

While the plumber was here I also cornered him about my future AC project. I will be installing a SpacePak system mostly myself and I wanted to verify that he would be able to install and connect the outside condenser unit.

Posted by kpf at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I ordered two of these lights for our outside lighting. (Thomas Lighting SL9460) One will go on the side entrance and the other by the back door. These lights I think will go well with the gas lamp I have picked out for the front of the house. Oh yea I also got energy saving bulbs for these two fixtures.

Posted by kpf at 11:41 PM | Permalink

Back to destruction today. I happened across this little book during my destruction. Now I'm wondering if the PO was trying to leave a message about the bathroom?

I began this morning around 8:30 working on more destruction. My goal for the day was removal of the cieling tile and the floor tile bringing it back to its original wood (not that I will keep that though). The cieling tile removed relativly easy and the floor tile not too bad either just alot of nails. I was able to start removing the trim around the windows and also the door frame to the original linnen closet.

The closet door removal was interesting in itself. I discovered that when the bad remodeling job was done the door frame was reduced by roughly 6 inches. This allowed the remodeler to use the door from the buttler stairs (which has obviously been removed) as the second bathroom door. What else will I discover in this bathroom? Hidden stairs to the basement?

Posted by kpf at 5:14 PM | Permalink

Now that all the company is gone I'm back to the destruction of the bathroom. I was back into the swing (literally) of things at roughly 8:20 am, and today was a very good progress day thanks to some very welcomed help from my father-in-law.

I did some more removal of raised floor pieces by cutting and breaking. I spent alot of time in the removal of plaster from the walls. Wow what a mess! I started filling up a garbage bin with the plaster then realized that it would be impossible for me to lift this once full. I resorted to putting the plaster chunks in to boxes to take downstairs.

When dad got here it was time for Mel and the little ones to take a nap. So that was our que to begin another lesson in soldering copper water lines. I have been wanting to cut the water and cap off the pipes that feed the bathroom so I can rip out the water line mess the PO left. It would have been nice to just turn a valve down stairs and make this happen, but as I have found out with this house when ever you turn a valve you cause a bonnet-nut to leak. So I have been wanting to cap these lines and eliminate all chance of water getting up there :-)

The soldering went relativly smoothly once we eliminated all the water from the lines. This was a bit tricky and required a bit of trial and error on our part. Both hot and cold are now capped and I was able to remove all the plumbing that was halting my progress in further destruction.

Posted by kpf at 10:14 PM | Permalink

Well the holidays have come and gone. Our new (old) house survived the first Foote / Kirsch PA Christmas get together without a fuss. We hope to host many more of these great get-togethers with everyone and we might even be able to do laundry without going to the laundrymat.

Dispite the house having a seeming quiteness lately we do have a new member Andrew, to add to the mix here. Our little one was able to be born while all the family was still in town and able to see him. Needless to say we need our laundry room more than ever now.

We do thank all the family for coming to spend the holidays here with us and we assure you that there will be a better bathroom situation upon your return next year, and more electrical outlets, and.. and... and... :-)

Posted by kpf at 10:30 PM | Permalink