Not even half way there. So the Kitchen and baths plus adjoining hallways have all been gutted to the studs and reframed. Most of the electrical had to be replaced and I added finished ceilings to replace the drop ceilings. The worst part were the bathrooms where i had to integrate new framing in with the old. I think i spent more time staring at the structure plotting and replotting what i could do than actually building things out.
Did i mention i tend to over engineer everything as well. Considering this is a 5 story cinderblock structure, all this framing is really non-structural. But who knows what the code really is in OC. In the end my city inspector was very helpful and freely offered his advice. I wasn't doing anything grandiose, just replacing what was already there with very minor modifications.
Learning a lot as I go though. Thankfully I also had Jeff to call for advice as well. Though i'm sure i'll pay for it with sarcastic remarks and family get togethers later on.
Main hall looking towards the entry door, kitchen's on the right and baths to the left
The kitchen with it's new ceiling structure.
Opportunity knocked. There was so much mold in the walls in the hallway i had to rip down the drywall to clean it out. So i decided to switch what was once an owners closet around and make it a pantry since it was right next to the kitchen. To compensate i stole some useless room in the back of one of the bedroom closets to use for a much smaller and more appropriate owners closet.
ie; the new owners closet. Big enough for a vacuum, cleaning supplies and other misc.
Common Bath. The tub has been removed (what a nightmare) and worse was the crappy subfloor they had put in to raise the floor up to accomodate the plumbing for the toilet waste pipe (see the linked photo album). They original plumbing had been set more than 1 inch higher then the slab floor. Therefore even with a 1/2 or 3/4 inch tile floor, the toilet would not be seated on the floor. Pinheads! So they poored a 1 inch concrete subfloor over the slab which i had to break up with the sledge and pneumatic chisel. Even with my respirator, i still coughed up concrete dust for 2 or 3 weeks after.
However, the best part of idiocy came when my plumber and I took a realy good look at the waste pipe and found it used an old school lead flange. Which in the end simply required heating it up with a blow torch and slowly torqueing the flange with a crowbar until the lead softened enough and the flange simple lifted right off. Took about 30 minutes for toilet. Why couldn't they make that adjustment back in 1976?
First bath. Through the studs in the back is the other bath.
Another photo of the kitchen before i got the ceiling hung.
Natalie and Lisa came by with a helping hand a few weekends.
Natalie and Lisa came by with a helping hand a few weekends.
No comments:
Post a Comment