Guts be Gone

So the past week has been one of turning a corner. Firstly I found a great helper who's reliable and conscientious and secondly we've pretty much run out of things to rip out so it's finally time to put things in instead. That makes me feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel.

This wall of cedar was the back of the master bedroom closet and the wall of the adjoining room. The door pretty much ruined the wall so we decided to remove it and reclaim the wood for other projects in the house. 

It was a bear to get out. About the same time we pulled the carpet to reveal the original cork floors. Not sure they're worth saving as they're in rough shape.

Framed up and ready to rock. 

And all rocked out. The closet will be built in but that will happen later.  

The original cast iron drains went right in the middle of the bath leaving no room  for the shower controls. It was easier to tear it all out and start from scratch than try to work around things.

Here the drains are now clear leaving room to have centered shower controls.

This was a lot of work to get a second sink in the kitchen but it will also allow me to have my espresso machine drip tray just drain to the line.

We're about halfway through stripping the ceiling.

No, I'm still working on this - I swear.

I'm not sure how April escaped without me making a post but I'll make up for it today. I know I traveled for work a bit but I also was trying to get stuff done at the house. So, let's catch up.

One of the decisions that gets easier when you start to pull off sheet rock is what you're going to replace. Much like seeing the rats nest of sub standard wiring that was strewn like so much spaghetti inside the walls the plumbing left a bit to be desired. In addition to that we really want gas for a range and if we replace the hot water heater we get a credit $1900 towards running the gas line to the house. Between that and the new 75 gallon soaking tub it seemed that a tankless water heater would be the best way to go. That leads to deciding to replumb the whole house.

I can't seem to get type to run between photos so we'll just go with captions and I'll keep it short.

Hey! Look what we found behind the wall in the laundry room - that's right a fully plumbed shower. No tub but just a shower hidden inside the wall. Oh the things you find behind sheet rock...

Here's almost an entire house's worth of PEX plumbing supplies. 

After removing a good bit of the old copper plumbing

Finally started testing grits on the ceiling. It's going to be a long and hard job but I'm going to find a laborer that will be able to help me so I can keep moving forward on other stuff. 

There's the a flood lamp in there.

Yes, there were vines growing inside the wall.

I've been tearing stuff out almost daily and finally filled my trailer - 2600lbs lighter the house is now. 

The garage is the "test bed" for the house. The back wall was my first sheet rock in a while and many lessons were learned. Wall two in the garage was near perfect. I have one more to go.