Demo, baby! A Mike post

No our Poppyseed is not demoing...yet. Instead I found my ‘nesting’ instincts revolve more around a sledge. As we previewed before, I decided that when wifey is away I should ‘check’ to see how difficult the tile would be to replace in the second floor bathroom.  

“It’s pretty much ridiculous. I think you could set off a nuclear bomb in here and be fine.”  

Yep, we knew this house has good bones, but sometimes they REALLY overbuilt. Case in point, our bathroom tile is individually, hand-placed ceramic tile, over 1 WHOLE INCH of wire-reinforced concrete.

With the help of a shiny new prybar and an arsenal of tools, I went at it. After five hours of demo, only ⅓ was completed...Boo. This stuff was insane to demo and was remarkably well made. The chief cause of frustration was that wire mesh. It looks like chicken-wire, but I assure you, that it's at least 2-3 times as thick. The traditional technique of breaking up the tile and then lifting it off the floor in large sections just didn't work because of that wire mesh. Instead, the mesh meant that I had to resort to a tedious technique.

First, break up the ceramic tile and leave the cement exposed. Next, using a shiny new pry bar, lift up a foot of concrete at a time from the sub-floor. This will then proceed to drag all of the rest of the floor with it because of that darn wire mesh. Then pry up around the target area a few more times, which loosened the cement from the floor.  And now for the really un-fun part, take the 4 lb sledge and break out the concrete pieces from each hole of the wire mesh. This took FOREVER to do.  

Once you have a mound of rubble, scoop it all up and haul it to the garage. Rinse and repeat.

Now, after that first foray, I was about as sore as you can imagine. We also had a gazillion family/friend activities and weddings to attend, so that poor bathroom sat ⅓ demolished for longer than I care to admit.  Sorry, Emily!

Before the next demo party, it was time to take out the toilet. Of course nothing is ever easy, and the shutoff valve needed to be replaced. Back to Lowes!  This time I was smart and picked up shut-off valves for all of the remaining toilets in the house. If two were bad, then we can be assured that other ones should be replaced, too.  

Anyhoo, once the water was shut-off, we inexpertly drained the tank, managing to splash a fair amount of the tank water on the floor, OOPS.  

Hint, this is epic foreshadowing for our next post….

Anyways, I removed the toilet tank, and then proceeded to try and remove the bowl.  Nothing is ever easy.The original installers had saved 10 whole cents and used zinc plated bolts instead of the nominally more expensive brass. The problem with zinc?  It eventually corrodes and our house is 30 years old. We now faced a completely rusted-out bolt and nut that needed to be hack-sawed off. Double grumble.

 

Eventually we removed the bowl and cleaned up the toilet flange. Learning from the many other DIY bloggers, we stuffed an old rag down the waste pipe.This stops any sewer gasses from drifting back into the house and also prevents any debris from getting in the stack.  

I then SLOWLY proceeded to demo the rest of the bathroom. All said and done this ‘little’ bathroom managed to suck up a solid week and a half just for demo. The subfloor is in fantastic shape for a 30 year old home. The only real worry is this spot next to the tub.  

While there are signs of surface rot, we tested it and the area is still sound. We are going to seal it up and the new thinset should protect things nicely for another 30 years.

So what's next? Here is a preview of the tile that we purchased from our awesome haul.  Depending on how dark it looks overall, we might paint the vanity. Then, I’ll need to put down thinset and cement board to level out the floor. Finally, we’ll get to install the tile.

our current state of affairs

Mike took a Monday off a couple weeks ago. And sent me a picture much like this.

Then the next day I got a cold. A couple days later, he got a cold.

Also, there's a good, solid inch of concrete and industrial wire under this tile. Which meant Mike had to go buy another tool. He was pretty giddy about it.

Colds are now mostly gone. Hope to have an update soon!

Cabinet Takedown 2014

We're getting a bad reputation. Somehow, when we invite friends over, something winds up coming down. Like wallpaper.

Or kitchen cabinets.

Yesterday morning, Mike got a bee in his bum and took the trim off the top of the peninsula cabinets, along with some doors. I guess scrubbing the grout and grime around the shower door lost its luster and he wanted to see more impressive results? The cabinets were slotted for a spring project, but maybe the snow dancing outside our windows gave him cabin(et) fever.

Mike looked at me with his eager "It's Christmas!" grin and said, "What if the boys get bored tonight and want to take down the cabinets? Is that okay?"

Now, we definitely didn't invite our friends over with the intention of putting them to work, and I think this would be the last "enticing" project, unless someone has a hankering for tiling floors in the master bath. But I'd rather have a couple more people with us when we did pull the cabinets down, so I smiled and said sure, if that's what people wanted to do. Caveat be careful.

So here's a last look at the upper peninsula cabinets.

Photos shot on closing and walk through.

And now let's watch them go bye-bye.

At some point in taking the doors off, the men decided it'd be a good idea to label where each one went.

We had everything down save for a bent screw that just didn't want to come loose. It took some wiggling and cranking with a crowbar, and all women and men on deck, but then she came down in a nice easy piece.

Faces blurred.

We were concerned at one point, with a third of the screws still in, that construction adhesive had also been used. Thankfully that wasn't the case, though we still have some issues to contend with.

Since we plan on painting, this shouldn't be a problem,
but Mike's thinking of using some stain to blend it for the time being.

Cut across to even it out, or replace these last two with new tile?

The moment these cabinets came down, the kitchen completely changed. Light flooded everywhere, it felt huge and open, and we were pretty much giddy but off kilter, like when you step off a boat and now the ground feels like it's moving.

Um, yes, please! The bulkhead looks a little awkward right now, but we'll either put pendent lights up (and smooth out the bottom, or we'll cut it out. We'll need to drill a hole and use the camera to peek inside. Some people find insulation or ductwork, others find it's just boxed in frame with air. Cutting out the bulkhead will be a more intensive project, unfortunately. Decisions, decisions.

So, how about some before and afters?

Check that off the list. And to our friends out there, we won't make this a habit ... unless you want us to ;-)