This was an extremely busy, productive, and messy day, with electrical and heating/cooling sub-contractors hard at work all day. Most of what they accomplished is hidden in the attic and inside the walls, but there is some evidence of their work.

The new exhaust fan for the bathroom is installed. We’re expecting it to be quieter than the old one, a welcome change.

New exhaust fan for the bathroom.

Openings like the one below have begun to appear throughout the house. These will become our heating and cooling (HVAC) registers when the new furnace is installed.

Openings for ceiling registers are starting to appear around the house.

Our old heating system use ductwork that is built into the concrete slab on which the house was built. These original ducts have deteriorated over the years, allowing water and dirt to infiltrate. In fact, we had a couple inches of water in the old ducts one winter, an unhealthy situation.

Instead of blowing air downward into these old ducts, our new Trane furnace will blow upward into the new insulated ductwork being installed in the attic. The old ductwork in the slab will be sealed off and no longer used at all.

Even after the HVAC guys spent a long, hot day in the attic, there is still a mountain of ducts, adapters, insulation, registers, and yes, duct tape in our garage.

A mountain of HVAC components in the garage.

Throughout our project, a great deal of the work has occurred in our attic — new ductwork, lots of electrical wiring, and new plumbing. Inevitably, this has disturbed our ancient blown-in cellulose insulation. That stuff may be effective, but it is pretty vile! During construction, it gets everywhere, hangs in the air, and aggravates our allergies. For the most part, the construction crews have made a good effort to clean it up at the end of the day, which helps a lot. But there is no way to get it all.

It’s cheap, effective, and oh-so-nasty!

With the framing of the addition behind us, serious work began today on the rest of the house.

We are entering that stage of the project where things must get worse before they can get better. It’s the price of progress!

More than half of the older part of the house is involved in the renovations. Only the living room, kitchen, and our two offices will be untouched, and even our offices will get new doors on their closets. Every other room will be out of action for at least a few days during the next month.

Job One is renovating the old bathroom. Our builder (Wesson Builders) has their own crew for this “inside” work, and we will be seeing a lot of them (and their truck) in the next few weeks.

The Wesson Builders crew arrived in style.

The guys quickly set up their work area in our gutted bedroom.

Work area for “inside” work.

Within a couple of hours, the old bathroom was gone except for the tub, which we are going to re-glaze. With the old cabinets, vanity, and counter gone, a narrow strip of the old fuchsia paint scheme became visible, a shocking reminder how the bathroom looked when we bought the house. That’s right: It was fuchsia from floor to ceiling. Yikes!

Bye, bye bathroom.

The photo above looks into the old bathroom from the new accessible shower room. Eventually, the two rooms will become one large master bath.

We are not sorry to see the old bathroom cabinetry heading for the dumpster. The drawers were difficult to open, and the doors didn’t close properly. The only thing remotely interesting about the old cabinets is that they were built in place when the house was constructed 58 years ago  — as opposed to being manufactured off-site and installed.

The remains of our old bathroom cabinetry.

There was one small crisis when a 58-year-old water pipe broke during the demolition. We had a frantic few minutes trying to remember where the water shutoff for the house was located. As homeowners, we should know that sort of thing. Now we do!

By the end of the day, the old bathroom was gutted down to the studs.

Gutted! View from new shower room into the old bathroom.

Down to the studs. View from the old bath looking toward the shower room.

Next for the bathroom comes new plumbing and more electrical work. Once those are done, we’ll be ready for inspection.