4th & 5th Days of Bathroom Renovations

Day 4 was a little slow as Ana didn't feel well and I spent a lot of it at various hardware stores buying some things and picking up orders for others.  Also I ended up spending half the day working in the attic, following the trail of moisture from the sources up through the walls and into the between-joist spaces.

I originally went up into the attic to pull up a board to determine what I had to work with for between-joist space for a vent / fan and light setup for the shower.  Found more than I was looking for - some of the attic decking had to come out as there was no way to dry out and clean the space otherwise.

It appeared to me that the water vapor from the shower went up through the walls, passed through the insulation, touched the cold attic floor, condensed, and then fell back on the insulation.  Some of it was sopping, and this was more than three days after the shower had last been used.  I pulled all the boards with mildew on them and all the insulation, but the plaster under the insulation was dry.  This could have been so, so much worse if the plaster was soaked and the joist rotted through. As it was, some bleach, drying time, and better moisture management ought to fix the problem without requiring structural changes or bringing the ceiling down (we're planning to put fresh drywall over the old plaster for the ceiling).  I can replace the cut decking with pieces off the sides, it isn't even for some reason so it won't even look strange.  Won't look quite good as new due to the cut line, but it is an attic, not a living room - will be good enough and a lot better than it would look distorted by water and rot.

For day 5 I redid the register box in the room to be in the wall, not half-in-the-wall-and-half-in-the-floor, we pulled the tub, most of the floor, and some additional lathwork, and discovered that one of the major sources of moisture problems we've been finding is that the shower plumbing straight-up leaks.  This has probably been like this for years and was definitely the source of some of the bulging plaster.  With the tiles buckled, that allowed the moist air up the walls into the ceiling.  I am not sure why this problem didn't come to a head when the previous owners had the place - must have build up over time and then maybe reached a critical point recently that made things worse faster.

Ana looked up pictures of various forms of mildew and mold on the internet and determined that ours are of non-toxic varieties (good), are surface-dwelling and generally don't compromise structures (really good), and can be killed with bleach and scraped off without replacing boards (best).  So while we have already junked some scungy laths, we should be able to salvage most of the big stuff and have reason to believe that after we finish evil will not be undoing our work.  We're going to bleach and scrape twice, with about a week's drying time between them when we're going to pause and go to Buffalo.  First round of bleach went on today, so first round of scraping is tomorrow.  Will probably work on something else as well, haven't decided what yet.  With only one more day before driving to Buffalo I don't think going after the plumbing or electrical stuff is ideal, we'll see how it goes.

3rd Day of Bathroom Renovations

Once you've removed the plaster, you have two options for hanging drywall. You either hang it over the laths, as long as they are still in decent shape and uniform enough, or you can remove all the laths and mount it directly on the studs. We're planning to do the former for most of the bathroom, but the laths on the outer wall were far too nasty for that. Day 3 included pulling out the insulation and laths from the outer wall so we can see how damaged that it really is and prepare for drywall as well as tidying up laths around the room, removing the medicine cabinet, and some other cleaning-up tasks. We also did some school stuff and didn't spend too much time on the bathroom.

 

Now with added towel for privacy!

As you can see, the wall beneath the window is still pretty gross. We're going to let it continue to dry out and consider our options once we've got the ventilation, wiring, and ductwork fixed. For Day 4, some of those are up for grabs.

2nd Day of Christmas...Bathroom Renovations

Update from the front - plaster is off the walls and hauled out, probably 700-800 pounds worth given the number and weight of the bags.  I think carrying that out was more work than getting it off the walls.  We went full bunnysuits and respirators for today and that was a really good idea - super super messy and anytime the plaster was overhead some would come down on us.

I talked to a glass place about the window and it is kind of a specialty need, so we're getting a custom-made shower-glass-on-the-inside-double-pane-for-insulation unit made for us, seems like a good deal for $120 for more than six square feet.  I will still need to build a new frame around it and we won't have it for a month (I didn't want to do anything until I'd seen the internal structure there so we couldn't order until now). We'll have to work around the existing window for a bit, but I feel good about the eventual outcome. The new one will be somewhat bigger than the existing window and we're going to use some of the extra width from removing the counterweights to actually center the window (currently 2 inches closer to the left wall than the right), which will make tiling easier and better-looking. Overall it should add a lot of light, especially since the whole thing is frosted and we won't need to have blinds over the window all the time to obscure the shower and toilet from the neighbor's front-door view.

 The joke around here is that if we liked that rustic look we'd be done. We are not done.

Tomorrow there are  a number of projects to potentially undertake, including clearing all the little plaster bits out of the lathes, pulling down the ceiling (don't even know what it is made of yet), pulling out anything and everything with mold on it, moving the tub, and installing an in-wall register box for the vent unit. Almost certainly won't finish all of that but we'll see how it goes.

Also the roofers were roofing today and it scared the cats half to death. They ended up cowering in the 'cat cave' made out of a blanket draped over a chair. Sometimes they would sit on the seat (under the blanket) and sometimes on the floor but they never went far from it from 8-5, and since Ana and I were still working in the bathroom until ~6, they weren't really calm until we packed it in for the day around 7. Ana put out food and water for them near the cave. They will definitely not like tomorrow either; the roofers will be back in force. Between the noise they're making and the noise we're making, it is properly noisy around here.

The First Day of Chris- er, Bathroom Renovations

We just made it to the Christmas break, which means it is time to kick back, relax, and completely gut and redo the our only bathroom. While this is not in fact so relaxing, in the last couple of months it has become very clear that the area around the shower is not water-tight and that Bad Things have been going on behind the tile. The window also grew a mushroom.  Feeling no need to have to replace the house after allowing rot to cave in the north wall, the bathroom swiftly moved much higher onto our priority repairs list. This is the first break since that priority shift and so our first chance to really take action. Given that the wall themselves are distorted and bowed in places due to expansion of the plaster, options short of a complete redo are limited, at least if the results are to be anything worth looking at. Unless we're too tired, there is a good chance of daily updates on this project for the next week or so.

Those tiles pushing outward - not a good sign.

In the morning, it looked like the picture above.  We didn't get started on the tear-out until mid-afternoon. In the evening, it was looking more like this:

All the tile has been removed except a small patch behind the toilet. We're planning to keep the toilet in as long as possible and replace it as quickly as we can, since it is the only bathroom in the house. We also managed to tear out a few patches of plaster and drywall that was around the tub, revealing a foul patch of mold under the window. We will definitely be pulling out anything with mold on it.  Tomorrow we will remove the vanity and a lot more plaster and Lee may build a new window.