John Spartan Would Be Proud!
I started gutting the guest bathroom on Saturday. To ease into things I removed all of the shelving and door trim from the closet. Then, I limbered up with a few swings of my 4-pound "mini-sledge" on the drywall. PUNCH...easy enough. Finally, feeling pretty tough, I took a shot at the tile that surrounds the bathroom and shower... CLINK!
Nothing.
Whoa...this stuff is tough. Talk about "built to last". Basically the tile rests in 1-2 inches of concrete spread on a thick metal lathe that is nailed to the studs. No suprise in a house of this age.
Of course, there is no insulation -- this partly explains my A/C over-usage during the hot Texas summers. Not to worry, I'll get that fixed when we replace the siding later this year.
After much pounding, day two of demolition ended with the shower surround reluctantly coming down:
Nothing.
Whoa...this stuff is tough. Talk about "built to last". Basically the tile rests in 1-2 inches of concrete spread on a thick metal lathe that is nailed to the studs. No suprise in a house of this age.
Of course, there is no insulation -- this partly explains my A/C over-usage during the hot Texas summers. Not to worry, I'll get that fixed when we replace the siding later this year.
After much pounding, day two of demolition ended with the shower surround reluctantly coming down:
As you can see, this bathroom originally had a window. A big window. It was easy to punch out the siding since these pieces were cut to fill the window space. So far proving very useful for ventilation and for clearing out trash and old-timey fixtures.
I definitely plan to re-frame this "opening" to include an awning window in the upper part. We need the light in this part of the house...textured or frosted glass, of course.
Tomorrow, I'll evaluate the tub and begin to tackle the floor and it's 2+ inches of concrete and chickenwire lathe. Yea!
***High-quality respirator and earplugs...priceless!***
Labels: bathroom, demolition, during
posted by Chad at Monday, March 05, 2007
1 Comments:
I feel your pain!!! I remodeled our first home in Massachusetts and I'll never forget the day I decided to start whacking at the tile. Was I ever shocked after the first couple of swings with the sledge hammer. They call that a "mud job". basically the metal lathe and concrete create a great water barrier....and most definitely a sledge hammer barrier. It looks like you did quite a charge of work in one day.
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