Bathroom

It might not look like it right now but this is the bathroom for the third floor. I am going to be able to use most of the plumbing drains but I am going to run new supply lines. I bought a Pex crimping tool off Ebay that I will use with Pex tubing. I have never tried it before but it looks like it will be better than copper. I know it will be easier. If the tub cleans up well I am going to reuse it also. Kerry isn't too excited about it but it is a nice heavy cast iron tub. They just don't make them like that any more.

Kerry and I are going to Vegas for 3 days. I earned a free Southwest airline ticket and there is a time share program that is giving away free hotel stays. I decided that we could go to Vegas for pretty much free and we are going during spring break. The kids are staying with Burt tonight and with Nancy the rest of the time. I am not sure if I will be posting from Vegas. Guess we will have to play it by ear.

Window

While Kerry and Erin were watching a movie I decided to try my hand at making a new bottom rail to the window sash. The old one was too warped to use again. I bought some poplar boards to use from a lumber supply company. They are an inch and three quarters thick so they are just as thick as most of my windows.
It took about an hour and a half to make it but I think it will go a little more quickly the next time I have to make one. You can't really tell in the picture below but the right side of the piece is slanted. That is what is called the meeting rail. It was loads of fun trying to make it all fit.

I am sure I will post a picture after I get the window put back together. After I get this window done I only have 32 more to go. I hope I don't have to make new meeting rails for all of them. I have special epoxy to use if the boards are straight.

Full!

It only took us three and a half days to fill up a 40 cubic foot dumpster. It is a good thing that I stacked and organized things as they were going in or we would have never been able to fit as much as we did. I will need to take the little water heater off the top because you can't have anything over the top edge.

I wish we could have just a little more room because I didn't get rid of all the stuff I wanted to. I still am going to have some leftover drywall and some plaster that is from when we did the first floor 5 years ago. I also wanted to tear down part of the carport in the back because the roof is falling in and I don't want it to fall on my truck. I have it temporarily braced up with some old 2x8's but I am still a little wary.

The ramp worked out great. Since it didn't rain today and the wind was blowing the dust was making it all the way across Main St. I hope the neighbors didn't notice. I know the one that was parked in our driveway with the black car noticed. His car was gray by the end of the day.

The third floor is now free of lath and plaster. I think Kerry did most the work of cleaning it up. She was up there for about 3 hours with a snow shovel throwing the plaster and insulation out the window. She sure is a workhorse. I asked her how much she was going to enjoy pulling all the little nails that get left behind from the lath. She said she was VERY excited!

Tomorrow is Sunday so we aren't going to work on the house. We are going to Ace Hardware in Versailles to spend my 200 dollars worth of gift cards that I got for 160 dollars of DiscoverCard cashback bonus. I am going to get a window zipper tool and some glazing points and... who knows what else!

Dusty

There was a lot of dust in the air when Kerry took this picture. I spent the day tearing down the old walls and all the ceiling tiles. I then tore down all the lath and plaster. It was a lot easier to do since I had already cleaned most of the blown in insulation out of the attic. If I hadn't taken the insulation out then the whole floor would have looked like the floor in the picture below.


With the insulation and the plaster it makes it about a foot thick. As I threw the stuff down the chute to the dumpter it sure did shower a lot of dust. The next door neighbor was using our driveway at the time and I think that the black car probably had a little on it. =)



Kerry was nice enough to come up and help after she got home from school. She cleaned up all the lath. It sure was nice to have some help! I was pleased with how much we were able to get done. We even had time to go strip some paint off the window that I removed. I hope to get it fixed by time I am done using the opening.



Tomorrow we will continue to clean up and Kerry and the girls are going to go around and throw all the extra lumber and drywall in the dumpster. I figured it would be better for Kerry and the girls to be out of as much dust as they can.

Yuck!

It sure is fun to work with blown in insulation! I was covered from head to foot all day long. It took about 3 hours to get all the insulation out of the attic and put it back in the already finished attic. I think it will make it a little easier to work with the lath and plaster now that it is separated from the insulation. It made a real mess when they were combined.


I spent the rest of the day cleaning up all the stuff I had torn down in the previous posts. I didn't actually get around to any more demo. You can see how big the dumpster is in this picture. That is a full size door leaning up against the wall. It is 7 feet tall inside and 22 feet long. I have been putting stuff in and then going in and organizing it so I can fit as much in as possible. I want to get my monies worth out of it.


Tomorrow I will try to get all the lath and plaster pulled down. It is going to be a tough job and I don't know if I can do it all in one day. The cleanup is going to take forever. Home improvement projects are SO much fun!

Dumpster!

I finally made it home! I had to do an extra day of forced overtime so I wasn't able to make it home until last night really late. Kerry set up a dumpster to be delivered today. I had to wait until about noon before they showed up. I couldn't really do much work up on the third floor because I was afraid that I would miss the truck and he would drop the dumpster in the wrong place. After they placed the dumpster I had to build a chute for all the lath and plaster I am going to be sending down from the third floor.

I took out the window to make throwing things out a lot easier. Burt came by and helped me raise it up with some tie down straps and a come along. The next door neighbor wanted to help to so we were able to put them to work when we first got it vertical.

It is a 40 cubic foot dumpster and I have lots of stuff left to put in. I barely put a dent in it yet. I am in for a fun few days.

Tomorrow I am going to play it by ear and either start tearing down lath and plaster or I might start loading the dumpster with leftovers from the last five years of storing leftover lumber and sheetrock from projects.

Day off

Because of the snow and cold weather we decided to take the day off. Last night when we were working Kerry was cold as you can see in the picture. Today it was about 10 degrees colder outside and the wind was blowing. I figured that it would be too cold for Kerry and I wanted to spend my last day at home with her. We spent pretty much the whole day watching "Ice Road Truckers" on the History Channel.

I guess I will have to wait until around the 25th before I get anything else done. 16 days will be a lot of time for planning. The next project after I finish the drywall in this room will be filling up a 40 cubic foot dumpster with all the lath and plaster from the rest of the 3rd floor. If I still have room left over in the dumpster I will fill it up the rest of the way with debris from when we were working on the other house.

Tomorrow I will be going to Ft. Hood in Texas and flying from there Monday morning to Bangor, Maine and then on to Shannon, Ireland.

Rockin!

Well, I was able to accomplish all that I planned on for today. I put up all the outlet and ceiling boxes, wired the room, put in the insulation, and hung half of the drywall. Luckily Kerry had a snow day so she helped me hang the sheets on the ceiling and the big ones on the wall. She loves to help. It was a little cold up there today though. We put up some heat lamps and that gave Kerry somewhere to go stand when she got cold. She said she felt like a little chick in an incubator.

Tomorrow I will try to finish up the drywall and get all the seams taped. Last day before I go to work.

Framed

It sure took a long time but I got the 3rd floor bedroom framed up. When you have to individually measure and cut every stud it goes really slow. When we first started looking at the ceiling we couldn't tell what looked odd. Then we figured out that the ceiling joists that were resting on the chimney had not settled while the rest of the house had. The middle of those joists were about 3/4 of an inch higher than on the ends. I had to sister another joist beside them to make it so the sheet rock would be straight.

I went out this evening and got twenty sheets of drywall. It was a lot of fun carrying each one up these outside stairs. By the twentieth sheet I was tired. When I do the drywall for the biggest room I am going to get it delivered. They have a boom truck that can lift it up and deliver it right to the 3rd floor. That is going to be a LOT easier!

Tomorrow I will be doing the wiring, insulating and hopefully putting up some drywall. It is ambitious... but I think I will be able to pull it off. Depends on how hard it is to run some of the wires. Most of the wiring is straight forward but a few of them have to go under the floor and I will have to fish them out. Till then...

Framing begins!

Nothing like the sight of new lumber going up! The wall will separate the guest bedroom from the rest of the 3rd floor. It was like this when it was an apartment. I tried to think of a different way to arrange it but to no avail. This room will be 11 feet by 18 feet with a 2 x 4 foot chimney through the middle.

Most of the day was spent cleaning up the mixture of lath, plaster and blown in insulation. Yesterday I was trying to put it in black trash bags but I figured out that it would take FOREVER! I decided to just push it into the next room and wait for the dumpster. I plan on making some kind of chute from the 3rd floor to the dumpster so the neighbors won't get a lot of dust covering everything. The chute will have to be about 30 feet long to make it from the window to the dumpster. I also had to pull all the little nails that stayed behind from the lath. That takes a long time. Most of the time that would be Kerry's job but she is busy with school and I couldn't wait.

Tomorrow, Lord willing, I will get most of the framing done and be able to put up some outlet boxes.

Dirty work

Boy, it sure is fun to tear down lath and plaster! By the time I was done there was about a foot of debris on the floor and it was 2 feet thick in the corners. Getting it down from the ceiling and off the walls is actually the easy part. The worst part is the cleanup. Blown in insulation just gets everywhere.

I sure am glad that I was wearing a mask. I went through two of these masks and I am not even half way done cleaning up the mess. I knew they were getting clogged up with dust when I started to suck them against my face trying to breathe.

I only had one mishap. I was sitting on a ceiling joist punching the lath and plaster from the top when the joist decided that it would break. There was no warning... I was just sitting above the ceiling one second and the next I was sitting on the floor. There was already some insulation and plaster on the floor so it cushioned the landing. I am just glad there wasn't one of the pieces of lath there with the rusty little nails sticking up. That wouldn't have felt really good sticking in my bottom.

Tomorrow I will finish cleaning up and then start the framing for the end that I am working on. I will wait for the dumpster before tackling the biggest part of the 3rd floor.

Scaffolding

I finally made it home! While I was gone I ordered some scaffolding. It was delivered today. I have 6 sets now. It costs 6 dollars per day to rent each set and I bought them for 94 dollars per set with free shipping. Once I use them for more than 16 days I will have paid for them. I think I will be using them for at LEAST 16 days! I set up 2 sets to get up to where I need to put a new insulator on the side of the house. Once the insulator is in place I can call the electric company and they will take the wires out of the meter bases that used to be for the other 2 apartments. It will be nice to be able to get rid of those eyesores.

I spent most of the day dragging stuff from the 3rd floor to the basement. When I did the last house I figured out what a pain it was to work around stuff while you are tearing down walls and such. This time I decided to clean out the area I was going to be working in first. What a novel concept! I also spent quite a bit of time sorting out tools. For some reason all my tools are mixed up and strewn all about the house. It might be that I don't take care of my tools right and leave them wherever they wind up... who knows.

Tomorrow I will be doing the fun job of tearing down lath and plaster. What a joy!