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.