Demolition Man Redux

It's time for your weekly dose of Philip. Please note side effects may include nausea, drowning, and Dutch Elm Disease.

Before we get too far, just wanted to point out that we're on top of our banner switch! It's March now which, in Winnipeg, means that spring is here! winter will occasionally tease us with some above-freezing temperatures, but we'll still realistically have snow on the ground when April hits. Which is why our banner is featuring Concetta, our once-busty snowwoman, and our biggest March point of progress, our new blinds (showing off their cool top-down/bottom-up capabilities).

But on to the topic at hand.

If you read regularly, you've heard a lot about our bathroom renovation, and more specifically how it's been stalled. But we haven't taken the time to detail the work that has been done. That changes today!

I titled this post "Demolition Man Redux" in honour of the inaugural Friday Phil, because gutting a bathroom is a lot like gutting a basement.
Well, not quite. I mean, it's close to the same thing, except everywhere you look there's:

• a pipe you shouldn't dent,
• a wire you shouldn't nick,
• a new window you shouldn't crack
• or a wall you have to tear out carefully so you don't put a hole in the spare bedroom wall next door.

Oh, and when you're working in there with even just two people, it feels like you're working inside a room the size of a milk crate. (Note from editor, some of us young folk don't understand this analogy)
But, apart from those 200 words, it's just like gutting a basement. It comes apart in 6 easy medium-difficulty you're-still-not-done-after-completing-them steps.

Step 1: Getting the water shut off

But seriously; step one was getting the water shut off. Our plumber came by, had a look, and in relatively short order had created a detour so water could be shut off to the upstairs bathroom and not the downstairs as this bathroom didn't have a shut off valve (hooray for not having to pee in a bucket!).

Step 2: Remove the vanity, tub, and toilet

Of these three, the most difficult was the tub. The vanity popped off with only a few nails holding it back. Once the toilet was empty and shut off, it too came off with only a couple screws holding it down. (Pro tip? No matter how much you try, there will always be a little water left in the toilet somewhere, so put it down on a tarp or towel and have some tags ready for drips during transit.) But the tub was a different story. A big metal tub bolted to the studs for 30 or so years does not come easily. With my dad's help, we were able to unhook all the pipe connections (in some cases cutting right through them), pry it off the studs, and haul the thing out our front door. (Thankfully the detached tub wasn't too heavy; definitely manageable for a team of two.) I'm pretty sure all the prying, bracing against the studs took a bit of a toll on our house; since that time a large crack has appeared in the plaster on the other side of the bathtub wall (in our side door landing).

Step 3: Remove the plaster/drywall, deconstruct the linen closet

This was dusty work, made more difficult since the broken plaster/drywall had to be hauled through the house to get it out. Plus, the walls hide these metal corner meshes that they use to put up plaster. They hide and are hard to remove, but when they finally let go, it's satisfying like getting all the glue off a granola bar wrapper. (What, that's just me? Okay, moving on...) Fortunately, taking out the linen closet was simpler, just requiring some elbow grease and a wrecking bar for leverage. Oh, and a hard hat would've helped when the one 2x4 broke and 4 feet of its nail-embedded length caught the top of my head. Escaped without a scratch, but those were a few terrifying seconds.

This is where we were at during this step...and nothing has changed. 

See ya, bathtub. 

Step 4: Replace the ceiling, a.k.a. $#!@*%

If you're asking me why the bathroom isn't
done yet, this right here is why.

So we want to put up a ventilation fan and pot light over the shower. Plus, it looked like there might be some discoloration or even mould in one corner. "Let's just re-drywall the ceiling!" We thought. "Muahahaha," our house laughed evilly.
With the help of my good friend Alan, we started carefully pulling back the drywall, trying not to puncture the vapour barrier behind it. Immediately upon discovering wood-shaving insulation and old, thin (2mm) vapour barrier, he recommended we climb up into the attic and sweep the area above the bathroom clear of insulation. In retrospect, this would have been a real pain (especially working in an uninsulated attic in Winnipeg in January), but would have probably been a faster pain than what we've ended up with.
I decided to try to preserve the existing setup, and lo and behold the wood shaving insulation (and the blown insulation our home inspection has led us to assume is on top of it) collected in the lowest spots, dragging those down further and causing the vapour barrier to pop of the joists in a few spots. Of course, now the shavings have really collected below the joist, and there's no hope of ever reattaching that vapour barrier to the joists.

Step 5: Have your wife sprain her foot and write/direct a feature-length stage production

I didn't quite fall into a burning ring o' fire, but when I write
and direct, I walk the line... Okay, I'll stop.

Just kidding. Don't do this if you want to get your bathroom done quickly and efficiently. (Though I'd fully recommend writing and directing for the stage. It's been a 2 weeks since our production wrapped and I'm experiencing withdrawal. Not quite chain-me-to-the-radiator-June-Carter levels, but close.)

Step 6: Figure out a solution to our ceiling/attic insulation issue

This is the step we're in right now.

What's the solution to our current woes? We're trying to find that out from a few experts, but I you have expertise/input/ideas, we'd love to hear them in the comments below! Of course we'll be updating you as we go, so stay tuned!

Discovering the Untold Joys of Patching a Ceiling

Philip here. First off, sorry about the delay in getting this post up. Cass was working hard all day with her Mom painting, so it was up to me to get it done and, boy, I have a newfound respect for bloggers!

Also, no, it's not Friday yet, but Cass is up to her eyeballs in paint (metaphorically speaking), so it fell to me to share Part 2 of our Patching adventure. Unlike LOST, today's post doesn't depend on you having seen any previous installment. (But like LOST, a working knowledge of the Valenzetti equation will open up a whole new level of meaning to this post.)

Without further ado, on to the patching of ceiling:

To give you an idea of our predicament, we had ducting running to vents in the ceiling as part of the old A/C system. The simple fact that the vents were so high up made four an interesting challenge when removing the vent covers, especially in light of the fact that we only had a short step-stool on hand and, while his genes blessed Philip in many ways, they didn't exactly make him eight feet tall. So--in what you'll soon find is the infomercial-like catchphrase of this post--we improvised!

Kids, go ahead and try this at home! [/BadAdviceGuy]

As you can see in the highly scientific drawing, below, because the ducting runs flush to the ceiling, it's impossible to slide and screw into place a board behind the hole that could hold a piece of drywall in place.

DRAMATIZATION: "I'm the Air Conditioning Duct, and I'm going to go right to the edge of the ceiling so you can't slide any backing into the hole above the ceiling to patch the hole with! Muahahahaha!"

Our attempts to bend the round ducts' edges inward to create space to slide a backing board in place proved futile.

One of the holes we needed to patch. As you can see, bending in the ducting didn't work as it was fastened to the rafters somehow.

So what did we do? (EVERYONE: "We improvised!") That's right! We ended up testing two methods for overcoming this, one of which worked better*, and one of which worked not as well.

The Way that Worked Not As Well (But We Thought Would Work When We Did It!)

We cut a circle of drywall out of a wall that is still up on in our basement but that had a hole punched in it during our basement gutting (we felt pretty resourceful). But we intentionally cut a circle about three inches bigger in diameter than the hole. Then we removed about 1.5" of gyprock around the edge of the cutout, leaving just the papery coating. (To remove the gyprock from the paper, we found it easier to X-acto carve some tabs out of the paper that we could peel away one by one so that, in case one tab ripped, it wouldn't necessarily affect the rest.)

Here you can see me scoring the gyprock under the paper tabs so that it would break off more easily.

All this resulted in a circle of drywall that can slide into the hole with some paper tabs surrounding it which hold everything in place by being adhered to the ceiling using some mud. (Once again, I've provided a to-scale drawing of what we were dealing with.)

DRAMATIZATION: "I'm the green-tabbed patch! I'm a great idea... in theory!"

The idea was good. The result was a minor disaster. The mud adhering the paper tabs to the ceiling, the paper tabs themselves, and the mud covering the whole works up made for a thick layer that we had a heck of a time trying to smooth out.

Here's the patch mudded over. We tried and tried to mud it and sand it smooth, but were unsatisfied with the results.

Only after a couple of incredibly frustrating and tear-inducing days does it look passably good enough. And we're still considering someday climbing up there, cutting the whole thing out, and starting over. (Perhaps once we remove all that old A/C ducting from the attic, a job for a day in spring or fall when it's not too hot or cold up there.)

The Way that Worked Better* (But We Only Realized It After We Had Tried the Previous Method)

Because we had two holes to patch, one in our Master Bedroom (see above)  and one in our future Office (aka the Second Bedroom if you've Taken the Tour), and since the first hole went so swimmingly, we decided to try something different. What did we do? (EVERYONE: "We improvised!") You guys are really good at that! I tried to apply some lessons I learned from the previous method, an old lesson I seem to need to relearn every so often: The KISS principle.

No, this is not the principle that says "Life's better when you wear crazy makeup, call yourself Starchild and desire to rock and roll all night (and party e-ver-ree-day!). No, no, this is the other KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. (See? I can't even keep an explanation of the KISS principle simple.)

Here's the process in its entirety:
A. Cut a circle of drywall approximately the size of the duct.
B. Attempt to wedge it into the duct hole.
C. Shave off the parts that are preventing it from fitting into the duct hole.
...repeat this last pair of steps a bunch of times...
15. Actually wedge it into the duct hole.
16. Mud over!

It's so simple I almost didn't provide a highly-scientific AutoCAD-enhanced drawing to explain it, but I'm a completionist (except when it comes to Prison Break, which got worse and worse as the seasons went on, becoming intolerably bad by Season 4), so here it is:

DRAMATIZATION: "I'm stuck! Lassy, run and tell the sheriff that a little green patch is stuck in a hole!"

If you've been following along, however, you'll know that I've asterisked every time I've said this method worked better*. (Okay I'll stop now.) That's because, as you can see here, even this method didn't work perfectly. Somehow, despite multiple coats of mud and sanding until the drywall dust piled up like snowdrifts, we could not get it smooth. (That said, it's not something that shows up real well in photos, so you'll just have to take our word for it.)

We blame it on the fact that the colour of the ceiling and mud were so different, it hid the shadows that become so apparent now that it's all painted. So what did we do? (EVERYONE: "We improvised!") Wrong! We left it. Yup. We're learning that being perfectionists while renovating is a good way to lose your sanity, especially when you're still learning (like us).

Once we have paint on the walls, a new light fixture, and some furniture in the room, I'm sure we'll forget about it. But for now... well, leave a comment to let us know if you have a third method that's worked for you? We'd really appreciate it.

And before we go, Cass wanted to share this anecdote:

In case you thought we loved renovating, I'll share this story from our trip to Home Depot this evening. I had the most frustrating day (if you're wondering why, you need to go back and re-read this post) and so I was already a little overwhelmed. We walked into Home Depot--usually my happy place--and promptly waited something like 23 mins for help with getting info about the trim and casings we needed. The whole time, the anxiety level is rising within me. This in turn makes me start to sweat--the whole place feels like 42°C! I tell Philip he's on his own and walk away. So how do I soothe myself? (EVERYONE: "WE improvised!") Stop that! But you're right. Sort of. I went over to the carpet and flooring area and started stroking the carpet samples. 

Stop looking at me like I'm a crazy person. Yes, I was petting 5"-square pieces of thick-piled rug! So what? It helped!

I admit it was a bit ridiculous. Philip stayed and talked to the employees there and I was just standing a few aisles over, staring into space, and literally rubbing carpet in order to calm down. Honestly, I recommend it for anyone who's in a home improvement store and feeling a little stressed. There are carpet samples somewhere nearby... go find them!

There you have it! Next time somebody's freaking out at you, you can tell them to "go stroke a rug!" Actually, maybe don't. That might be misinterpreted.

So, in the comments, leave your ceiling-duct vent patching advice, and if you have any other great hardware store relaxation methods (flicking switches in the electrical area? reorganizing paint chips by name instead of colour?), feel free to add those in too!

Demolition Man

Today we have our first guest post, although it seems weird to consider my husband a guest since he's saddled with the as much house-renovating responsibilities as I am. If you follow him on Twitter, you'll know that he introduced my blog to his world by saying "My wife's now a reno blogger. She takes pics while I work. #needabetteragent" But he's more than muscle; he did the grunt work on the banner above, and is something of a writer in his own right. So enjoy this inaugural guest post, which may become a semi-regular feature if things go well. (That's right. I put my own husband on blog probation.) Without further ado...

Demolition Man

Hello, Grandpa Joe's House readers, and thank you for what I'm sure was a glowing intro, Cassy.

Okay, I won't lie, I wrote that too. It’s sweet, sweet revenge for every time she texts from my phone without identifying herself. (In totally-unrelated news, sorry for creeping you out, Mom.) Today I get to tell you about demolition.

As you'll have noticed from Our To-Do List, gutting the basement was originally scheduled to happen somewhere down the line, but not now. The plan was, we'd sleep in the basement for a while until we could get the master bedroom done, then move once. 

That didn't quite pan out.

In the span of a few days gutting the basement went from being a sometime-in-the-future thing to a needs-to-happen-this-weekend thing. (To make a long story short, we'd planned to swap out our boiler-powered hot-water heating system for a forced-air furnace and ductwork in the spring; however, some planned winter renos would be eased by not having to work around the hot-water system's baseboard heaters, and so we bit the bullet and moved the timetable up.) And thus began my love affair with demolition.

My prior experience with the work--nay, the art--of demolition was limited to taking off a few baseboards at our old condo. I just hadn't had much exposure to the elegant dance of devastation. So I reached out to some friends of mine who have a reputation for being destructive, and I'll reprint one subsequent conversation here:

So those are my friends. An insatiable appetite for destruction. (Crap, now I owe Axl Rose royalties.)

The day came, and more guys showed up than I expected. And they were well armed. We'd already gotten a couple of tools from my in-laws (including a dull-axe-looking thing called a maul, coolest tool name ever), but the assortment of prybars, knives, and instruments of devastation on display slightly terrified me. I was glad we'd invested in some rudimentary safety equipment: glasses, masks, and work gloves.

How did it go? Removing the ceiling was the plan for the entire evening. I had feared--based on our walls upstairs--that the basement ceiling would be plastered like a frat boy on Spring Break. And plaster ceilings from the '60s sometimes contained asbestos. I was prepared for their removal to be so slow and painful Terrence Malick would make a movie about it! Hey-oh! (What’s that? I'm being told to make my references more broad. Well, we'll see about that.)

The ceilings were in fact drywall. When my buddy’s learned this, it was like Mel Gibson teeing up an alien and telling Joaquin Phoenix to "swing away". (From Signs. How's that? Broader? Okay.) The guys attacked the ceilings with a ferocity I had only seen before in the hyenas that attack Scar at the end of The Lion King. (Everyone’s seen that one.) In 20 minutes--maybe 25--the ceiling was all on the carpet, the trusses and beams were all exposed, and the air was so choked with dust we had trouble taking a decent photo.

The success of scrapping the ceiling emboldened our crew, and realizing there was no real reason to leave the rest of the basement intact (save for the laundry room and small bathroom), we went to town on the walls and flooring. (I'd show some of the "Before" pictures here, but those definitely deserve their own post. Oh-ho-ho boy, do they ever.) We got two-thirds of the way through that before the guys had to run off to other engagements, but in a few evenings thereafter, I was able to polish off the job.

But I have to admit, I’m hooked on demolition. Since my inaugural experience, I have on several occasions donned my official “demolition sweatpants” and taken the hammer and prybar to a closet, a storage room, and even beheld the power of the sawzall (watch out world). And since I’m now an expert (branded sweatpants coming soon, ladies), here are some tips for future demolition exploits:

• A hammer, a big prybar and a sharp utility knife are really all you need for 95% of the job. I had to be reminded several times that, unless I was planning on keeping the scraps for some future project, this was about wanton destruction, not dainty disassembly. 
• When tearing out drywall, wear a mask. Even if it caused your safety glasses to fog up. Especially if you're an asthmatic. Trust me. (Unless you love that feeling where your trachea narrows to the size of a twisted drinking straw.)
• Clean up the same day. Let the adrenaline of “Hulk Smash!” carry you through the dullness of collecting it and carrying it away afterward.
•  I had expected to painstakingly remove the outlet covers and switch cover plates. Unless you're planning to reuse the same ones--and honestly, does anyone really love those almond-coloured ones that used to be everywhere?--just pull off the wall with them still on. They'll crack and come flying off in a way that is oddly satisfying, and you'll save your wrists a good chunk of time getting to know a screwdriver. I know this seems wasteful, but if you’re going to replace them anyway, I say “enjoy the pop!”
• Having a couple garbage cans around is really helpful, even if you expect to take most of the large material to the dump. Things tend to break in pieces smaller than you'd hope, and having a bin around to carry them out in is awful handy. Need a garbage can? Check around your neighbourhood. Once a week they’re everywhere! (Kidding. But honestly, how would you go about throwing away a garbage can?) 
• If you don't know if there are dangerous materials in your older home, don't take chances. Ask someone who knows. Asbestos is some nasty business.

So now we had a mostly empty, hollowed-out basement area with piles of debris ready to haul to the dump. For Winnipeggers interested, Brady Landfill was significantly cheaper ($11 for a truck bed and utility trailer) than the East St. Paul dump ($35, and it's for residents only, which they fortunately didn't confirm with me). But as mentioned previously, the demolition is the fun part; the task of cleaning up afterward is boring work that involved so many trips up and down the stairs you'd think I had a starring role in Jacob's dream at Bethel. (My Grade 4 Sunday School teacher would be so proud.)

After that, it was a matter of getting dozens of metres of pipes, eight baseboard rads, a 500+lb boiler and 40-gallon hot water tank out and the forced-air system in. But that'll have to be a story for another time--I'm sure you're waiting with bated breath. But take heart, because no telling of that story is complete without the phrases “arterial spray,” “black ooze,” and “internet love,” so it’ll be worth the wait!