Containing the Magic

Because this bathroom is going to be pure magic when it's finished.  And what do you contain magic with?  Walls of course!

As of the last entry Derek and I had just finished peeling "the onion" to reveal the original subfloor.  Once we had that all cleaned up we started putting 3/4" OSB plywood.  Glued and screwed as only Mr. Mike Holmes (or Mr. Derek) would insist on.

10 tubes of this stuff later:

image courtesy of PL

And a whoooooole lotta screw later, we're left with a little something that looks like this:

Ooooooo, pretty, floors!

Just to refresh your memories, the layout of the bathroom before was like this:

The new plan for the bathroom is this:

We eliminated the "door" between the hallway and the den, and are moving the door to the bathroom into the (newly named) library.  In order to make the best use of space we decided to go with a pocket door, so the opening you see now is where that will be.

The walls went up very quickly, because Derek is a framing all-star.  He's also a big fan of friction fits.  Seriously, we probably didn't even need to use nails to keep this wall in place (obviously we did).

The first wall being built:

And the first wall going up:

Don't you love a man in a tool belt?

Building the next wall:

Little Chloe playing supervisor to make sure things went according to plan:

The building of the last set of walls happened while I was doing the whole work thing (apparently staying home sick doesn't mean sleeping, it means building), so here's a shot of the finished walls!

Complete with Meka sighting, as we can't include one cat and not the other!

Basically, that's where we're at now.  Our good friend Jesse is coming by on Friday to help us with the electrical (because he knows how to do that kind of stuff), as well as Derek's best man Tim to help with some other random things.

After that we've got to get the plumbing sorted for the new shower.  We're still not sure if we'll be doing that one on our own, or calling in a professional.  Time to do some internet research I suppose!

Next time I'll share with you some of the design plans we have in mind!

The Onion

When we moved in the main floor had 2 different types of flooring, awesome (crappy) wood laminate, and blue carpet.

Laminate

Blue Carpet (trust me, it's blue)

With the tearing down and out of the wall between the bathroom and the den came the pretty much complete demo of the den, including tearing up the floor.

Pulling back the carpet revealed some of those sticky vinyl floor tiles that were popular back in the early 90's.

 

 

This sticky tile was stuck to a full covering of 1/4" underlay plywood, which Derek had a fun time puling up.  After bringing up the first sheet of plywood (which is oddly only 4'x4') we were greeted with nothing better than the 1970's in the form of a vinyl sheet.

 

Me, being the curios person that I am, started peeling back a bit of this awesome flooring to take a peak at what was underneath.  What was there, do you ask?  More vinyl!!  This time in a wood pattern more reminiscent of the 60's. 

 

 

Now, we weren't born yesterday, so we know that even back in the day when this house was built the flooring of choice wasn't vinyl sheet, so we knew there had to be at least one more layer under there.

So what did we find?

Linoleum!

Here you can see the progression of the floor.  Carpet, sticky tiles, 70's vinyl, 60's vinyl, then the checkerboard linoleum.

I have to take a second here to tell you one of Derek's favourite jokes.

What do you get when you throw a grenade in a Parisian kitchen?
Linoleum Blownapart!

Ha, get it?  Linoleum Blownapart?  Napoleon Bonaparte?  Yeah, I know, it's Derek's joke.

Unfortunately I didn't get a photographic journey of how the floor came up in the bathroom, but Derek assures me that not only was it multi-layered, but it was also so tacky it was fantastic.  The bathroom had at least as many layers of flooring, but even more layers of 1/4" underlay between them.  I did get a shot when he first started pulling up the laminate though.

As of right now, all of the walls and floors (down to the subfloor) are gone.  I went out to get groceries and came home to this.

 

Zombie Demo crew for hire?  Frank!

 

An hour or two of cleanup later, it looks a little something like this.

Yes, this used to be a bathroom.

That's all for now.  We picked up a ton of lumber and all the plywood we need to strengthen and level the floor and build the new bathroom walls today, so I'll update again when there's actually something to look at because "Oh look!  The floor!" over and over might get a little redundant. 

Ringing, or rather Bashing, in the New Year

When we moved into the blue house on the corner we decided we'd wait on any renos until we'd lived in the house for a month.  You know, get a feel for the place first.  See what we liked and could live with and what we'd like to change.

Well, a month a two days after we moved in the demo began.

It started when I asked Derek if we could plan on having the walls moved for the new bathroom plan by the time we had our house warming party (January 23rd).  Derek almost immediately put down the Xbox controller and picked up a pry bar.

For the next 2.5-3 hours he tore down the walls in the bathroom on the main floor.

Here's what it looked like before he started:

The paneling was the first thing to come down, and then he started in on the wall right against the door.  Here are a few pictures from the process:

Down comes a panel or two.

"Oh, wall paper, thinset and holes?  Just cover those up with some drywall."

That night Derek busted up so much drywall and plaster board that I was sneezing and coughing for freaking hours, but dang, I'm so glad it's down.

On New Years Eve, after Derek got home from work but before we went to our party, we decided it would be fun to start taking off the wood paneling in the den.

 

Oh look, a random hole into the bathroom.  How quaint.

Taking down the fancy trim.

Surprise!  More peach!

At this point I got involved in the process.  Because, I'm sorry, but demo is fun.  One of the Christmas gifts I got from my inlaws was this amazing piece of demolition amazement.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the FuBar, winner of PopSci's Best of What's New Award and demo allstar.  I loves it.

With FuBar in hand (Derek was gifted the matching hammer) we made quick (and very dirty) work of the wall adjoining the bathroom and the den.

Next time I'll share the story of the Den Floor, aka, The Onion, aka, it had as many layers as and share pictures of what the space looks like now.

Closing Day

We closed on the house on November 24th, 2009.  Originally we were supposed to be closing on December 1st, but the sellers agreed to push the closing day up a week for us to facilitate an easier move on our end.

As our lawyers office was just down the street from where my mom works, she was kind enough to pick up the keys for us once all of the closing tasks were completed.  By 3:30pm she had the keys in hand.

That evening Derek and I headed out to take a look around our new house.

As tradition demands Derek carried me over the threshold the first time we came into the house.  Since we were the first ones in the house, we had to reenact this in order to my mom and step-dad to get a picture.

What a goof.

The first thing I'm going to do is share with you the layout of the house.  From there I'll highlight which area we're talking about.  I figure you'd like to be aware of just what we'll be talking about.

Main Floor

So, that's the main floor layout.  By the time we're done with this place, it will look significantly different.  The main door to the house is down there in the Living Room but as the driveway is at the back of the house, the back door is the one most used, so, we'll start the tour of the house there.

At the top of the stairs if you turn to your right is the less than huge kitchen.  It's rather long and narrow, but there are a ton of cabinets and a decent amount of counter space, I just have to figure out how best to use it.

After that we turn into the living room.  This is where we've got the TV set up for now since our sectional couch goes the wrong way for the back room.

Aren't those curtains fantastic?  It's hard to see in that picture, but the ceilings are coved.  I'm still not sure what I think about the coving.  Maybe I'll like it more with a better paint job.

Continuing on our tour we now go into the dining room.  Before the second floor was added to the house this room was a bedroom.  Hence the fantastic closets.  Right now, they are my "curio cabinet" housing the boxes with the nice wine glasses, serving dished and china.

Yes, that pile on the floor in the first picture is some of the incredibly lovely boarder that's going on there with the peach walls.  Just so you know, you won't be seeing that boarder anymore.  It has all come down (and so very easily too *phew*). 

Across from the dining room is the half bathroom.  It's got some awesome paneling.  Awesome.

Next we move into the den.  Ah the den.  Faux wood paneling and faux brick floor tiles on the wall.  The previous owners had a computer desk in this room.  We still don't know what will be going in there.  Right now?  Boxes.

The last room on the main floor is the family room.  This is eventually where we went to be putting the TV.  But that probably won't be until we start the reno's on the main floor.

Yup, that's a gas fireplace.  My brother slept on the couch in the room the night we moved with the fireplace on low.  It was easily 10° warmer in there than in the rest of the house.  It's fantastic.

Well, that's all of the main floor.  Derek plans on ripping down walls and moving everything around.  We're thinking right now that the half bath will be our first reno project in the new year, but we'll see.

Stay tuned for next time, when we tour the second floor and I explain to you what we had to do in order to get the box springs up the stairs.