Demolition Man

What was up... Must come down.
In order to get going on the project, the first step was clearly to do some demolition work. There were bits of plaster that were coming down from the ceiling, and damage around the windows on either side of the room. First, a study of those windows. Mike identified the need to fix up these windows and generously volunteered to do this repair. The photo on the left is during demolition phase, which included removing loose plaster, and removing the old counterweights from the original windows. Closing up these voids and sealing up around the windows would help with air infiltration when all was buttoned up, and this falls in the category of "doing things the right way." In order to not give Mike nearly enough credit for his careful work, I've quickly posted another photo with the work completed that will seem like it took no time at all. He meticulously repaired and patched this and I'm sure it will last for generations! The photo on the right shows it all closed up and finished. He was even careful enough to get a nice surface finish, despite the 11" or so of wall we would build out from it, and 2 layers of insulation that would eventually cover it. If anyone ever has the bad taste to re-do our work, they'll be delighted by our forethought!

You will no doubt also notice the plaster missing from the ceiling area. This is what we in the hlogging business call a "segue." Mike got a start on the plaster removal one day while I was at work. He showed me his method for bringing down the plaster and lath underneath, making sure that I took careful note of the finer points. Once he was sure I was fully aware of the method, he informed me that this was to be my first big responsibility!

The process of bringing down plaster is deceptively simple. The original plan was to shove the slim end of a pry-bar under a tiny bit of plaster, and take tiny chunks of plaster in hand, then throw them into the bag before they could hit the floor and create lots of plaster dust. This plan was rubbish. The need to go back and pry off the lath underneath roughly doubled the work involved, so the improved plan was to start by pulling off lath, and pull the chunks of plaster down as they came (more easily this way than the previous anyway!)

With this new method, I began to make satisfying progress and cut through the work much quickly. It was extraordinarily messy work, and incredibly unpleasant. The main reason why this should be so laced with suffering is what was on the other side of the wood lath: about 115 years of coal dust. Sure, most of that was deposited there in the first 25 years or so, but the Industrial Revolution's vestiges made themselves known with each piece of ceiling I brought down. This put a fine black dust all over, well... my entire house. Fortunately, I had the realization how hilarious it would be to laugh at my misfortune. See if you can see why I might complain about this work from looking at the next photo. This picture is not quite in strict chronology, but it documented the last day that I suffered through coal dust. You can see the area where my safety glasses covered, as well as my respirator. It's important to note, of course, that I'm not wearing a black long-sleeve shirt for the photo. That was the end result of a night upstairs working on plaster removal. Basically - a pretty awful task. You can see how happy I was to know I was done with it.

Next Up...
I gloss over a bit more prep work (e.g. caulking windows and such), and we start talking about framing!

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance!

Getting Things Started

Before jumping in with both feet, Mike and I decided to get plans together for the room. Lots of measurements were taken, and I took advantage of a being tired of my extraordinarily busy social life to put together plans of the existing shell. We used this as a basis to draw up ideas and sketch some layouts.

These were invaluable since we could print off as many of these as we wanted, and they were pre-dimensioned and to scale. We could also use this to draw in the different plans - electrical, plumbing, framing, electrical again, plumbing once more... and so on. I drew these up using Microsoft Visio, which was fairly easy to learn quickly, and is pre-loaded with lots of useful shapes including windows, plumbing fixtures, etc. That way, I could get layouts prototyped quickly on the computer, as well as print off the base image to draw on.



I've got one example of a very early proposed layout. At a certain point, of course, it was important to start building and see what shape the room wanted to take. This is a strange concept: the shape the room wants to take. I learned it from Mike, and was at first very dubious. The idea of the room telling me the next step to take really seemed foreign, but it was shocking how true it is - once a basic framework was up, it seemed very obvious how one idea or another was logical. I think of this as rapid prototyping - you can't decide whether or not a ceiling height feels low until you're standing under it, so these plans evolved rapidly as we started to build. So, for historical curiosity, check out an early idea I sketched out:



However, the one item that was key for planning was the plumbing for the bathroom. In the plans above, the shower was very much unworkable - it would have projected into the room a lot more than the drawing indicates. Similarly, the toilet was going to be in a strange place with some window visibility. We didn't realize much of this until after we started prototyping-building Taking some of these thoughts into account, Mike drew up proposed plumbing plans by hand that were more detailed and based on code. I know I have other and more close to current drawings, but these are the ones I have handy for now. When I get electronic copies of the other ones, I'll do a catch-up post to share them out.

Next Up!
The first photos of construction!

Design Help Needed!

Which of these lights is better for putting on either side of a bathroom vanity? Decor for the bathroom is fairly modern/simple... Comment and let me know!

Choice 1 - Black with Chrome Accents, Frosted Inner Glass, Clear outer



Choice 2 - Brushed Aluminum with White Shade

The Reason for the Treason

Now that my loyal and expansive readership is well-versed in the house's character, charm, and idiosyncrasies, it's time to kick off a series of posts detailing the first major project (lots of painting excluded).

Third Floor Beginnings
In December 2007, I started to consider the prospect of touching up the third floor and making it a bit more livable. A friend was considering moving in from out of town in a few months and was interested in a room to rent, and I was starting to think that I was wasting 1/3rd of my house. At the same time, my friend Mike was interested in working on a project like this, and had both expertise and talent. We agreed that he would be the project leader, and we would collaborate on the design and build that laid ahead. Before anyone could call it home, it would be necessary to remedy the arctic tundra that formed up there each winter. After herding the caribou and plowing the snowdrifts off the floor, some photos were taken.

Looking toward the front of the house, we have a reasonable size window obscured by a window air conditioner, the only climate control available on the floor. Take note of the angles of the ceiling/walls here - these presented lots of challenges over the course of the project. The plaster around this area was all in pretty great shape, and the woodwork was pretty good as well, although plenty dirty. Wires were all run on top of the baseboards with simple plastic covering over top. Lighting was plentiful and fluorescent.

Standing in the area of the above photograph and looking back and to the right shows a bit of a different story. The fencing surrounds the stairs to the second floor. Plaster is falling down on the back wall slope, and was patched with spray foam insulation installed by Elliott (best tenant ever). More wiring surface mounted in plastic channels. There's a fairly nice window at the top of the stairs, a tiny bit of natural light. The floors look pretty decent in this picture, and with a little work could look great. The green is the chimney, which previous owners/tenants painted. Yeah, it's strange... who knows?


I saved The Bathroom for last, since other than thermal insulation, it was most at fault for spurring on the renovation. The photo is taken from the same spot, looking now toward the back left of the room. Other than a distinct lack of privacy, or even completed walls, the key feature here is that everything is built up on a 2x6" riser, bringing a low ceiling even closer to the head of anyone who had to visit the loo. It's hard to believe that this is significantly worse than it looks in photos, but it was a constant risk of head injury to be in the bathroom area here. Once we started the delicate surgery to disassemble the room, the limits were further visible.

I couldn't quite find a photo that illustrated these limitations cleanly, but notice how each of the important fixtures (toilet, tub, and sink) were positioned exactly in the wrong places. The sink was in the back left corner, which meant that any attempt to lean in for a tooth-brushing required wearing a helmet. The toilet had excellent visibility into the neighbor's house, and vice versa. The bathtub wasn't quite as bad, but was set up to be a shower that was as head-threatening as the rest of the room. All in all, the most redeeming feature of this work was that someone other than me had hauled the lumber and plywood up to this point. This was all disassembled in short order.

To be fair to the previous laborers, the reason for elevating the bathroom was a valid one. The floor joists for this room run from one side of the house to the other exactly perpendicular to what's shown on this platform. This meant that they did not have the option of pulling up some of the floor and running plumbing below to get it back to the main plumbing stack. Their solution was laid bare when the plywood was taken off of the platform: both their supply lines and waste lines ran under here, as well as electrical feeds. We didn't know how we would accomplish this without raising things up, but we knew there had to be a way. Cleverness would be needed.

After disassembling the last vestiges of the bathroom, we knew the first order of business would be to put up framing to hold the insulation that would make the room livable, but in order to get started on that project, we would have to know a rough plan for the room, and attack any elements of the room that would get in our way.

Next up - planning a new space!