Plaster and lathing begone!

 

This attractive photo is one wall of what I spent this morning demolishing as we move forward in the renovation of the downstairs bathroom.  The green stuff is horsehair plaster.   The horizontal boards just below it are the lathing.  I am removing the plaster and lathing, because as you see in the picture. . . there is NO insulation.  Not a speck and that is not because I removed it. It is because it simply does not exist.  By the way, this bathroom is on the north side of the house in a New England state.  Yup, it has always been a very cold room.  The hardest thing I do every morning is get dressed in it at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. in this freeze box.  room.  I had to do all of these two walls with extreme caution as what you can't see in the picture is that the toilet is on that wall.  My goal is to keep the room functional (albeit increasingly um, rustic looking?) for as long as possible.  So removing the lathing and plaster is more tedious because I have to be careful that things don't crash down and break the toilet or something awful like that.

I also took down the plaster and lathing in the closet next to the toilet.  That is the area with the weird faux pine boards that conceal--you guessed it--more horsehair plaster and lathing.  I took all the shelves out so that I could get this down to studs.  Except for a tiny section that I will be able to reach if I climb on the laundry stack this entire wall is done.  I didn't perch there today as it was also laundry day and the machines were in use. The idea of sitting up there while they rumbled beneath me was not something I wanted to pursue.

Essentially all the destruction happened between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.  Then from then on I had to get all the debris out of the room and stored outside.  I will call a removal company next week and see how many millions of dollars they charge to cart it away.  Normally I would bring in a dumpster but it is winter.  We have 3 cars and one shortish driveway.  If it snows I can not park on the street due to a parking ban and a Nor-easter is expected next week.  So I am instead calling one of those companies that tells you to snap your fingers and your mess is gone.  We shall see.

Going down to stud also exposed some brick on our chimney that runs through this room which need repair. I will explore that tomorrow.  For now the room is clean and  usable.  I put a temporary shelf in the closet so that we can store beauty supplies there for now. 

And we have more to learn about.  My wife cleans for a family a few towns away. The woman also did a bathroom renovation, largely on her own.  Truthfully I think it was her efforts that inspired K to go all in on this project as she is often somewhat more tentative than I am about this type of thing.  S told her that if we were taking the room to studs that we should consider installing a small mat of radiant heating (by say the shower and toilet area) to just warm the floor.  So now I need to youtube and learn about this.  I have learned so far that it is not cost prohibitive either to install or to run. Those are plusses. I have yet to watch the whole video though so I am not sure how complicated such a process would be.  Stay tuned!

Holy New Bathroom Batman!

 We have the tiniest bathroom on record in our home.  To be clear, the house was built before indoor plumbing.  Both bathrooms are add ons. The downstairs one was a converted walkway that used to lead to a long gone barn where the "3 holer" was located prior to this indoor luxury.  The upstairs one was what used to be the "servants quarters" back in the day.  It has slanted ceilings and so can not have a shower but does have a tub.

In the teeny downstairs bathroom--the primary bathroom for our family of 6+ you can sit on the commode, wash your hands at the sink AND load or unload the washer without ever leaving your seat.  It is truly that small. When we were preparing to enlarge our family K and I took out a closet opposite the toilet so that a stack washer/dryer could be installed. Prior to that we had to go outside to access our cellar and the washer and dryer were down there.  Convenient as it might be to multi task, (LOL) this configuration also means you have to pull the toilet if you have to remove washer or dryer for repairs.  This makes an all ready expensive situation even pricier.

The tub is an original cast iron tub that my grandparents put in.  It has seen better days. We refinished it about 15 years ago and that is now in less than glorious shape.  We looked into having a company come in and put in a new shower and remove the tub.  The prices were stratospheric.  We talked it over and decided (drum roll please) that this was a job we would work on ourselves.  Yes we are that foolish  brave!  We also have a really construction savvy friend who is willing to guide me and teach me some valuable skills along the way.  

He came over and looked at what we wanted to do and helped us dream it even bigger.  It's kind of like Vegas , right?  We are all in for New Bathroom 2021!  The new and improved bathroom will have the tub removed.  We will take the stack washer and dryer and they will be placed side by side on cabinets I will build so that my wife does not have to bend so low to get things in and out.  We will swap where the toilet and the sink are to allow for better privacy and better walk patterns in the room.  The remaining closet I will build a rolling barn door (it previously had a bifold which always came off the track) This will be a solid door so it will allow for extra towel bars--something always in short supply here.

Obviously this large project became HUGE.  There is wiring and plumbing that will be relocated. We will pull permits.  I'll do the work with my friend and then it can get inspected. But it will be so much more functional. Oh and a new floor too!  I want to lay a waterproof vinyl planking because I would like to do this in our living room and figure learning on a smaller room is a good idea!  Our living room square footage is pretty high and the layout is not square.

So last week I started demo.  I actually love to demo.  There is something fun about it.  It is sort of like a puzzle because I have to figure out what to take out in which order to best accomplish the job.  In the bathroom demo is further complicated by the fact that I am keeping the room functional as long as possible. So it means working carefully in very tight quarters.  Between last weekend and today I have accomplished a lot of the demo.  We are bumping out the wall to the bathroom about 8 inches into a kind of useless area in our kitchen.  I have that wall down, and all the old tile off the walls and lots of weird drywall removed.  People just kind of covered things up over the years.  Probably because it is so darn hard to do a renovation like this when you are using the space!  I get it.  I love uncovering bits of the house's history.  Wall paper that my grandparents used.  The original outside door of the house.  And a bunch of other little oddities.  When I get everything down to the studs we are going to insulate.  

There is presently virtually NO insulation in the bathroom and we live in New England. It is cold.  The bathroom is drafty enough that although it has no window and we never turn on the vent fan we also do not have any mildew or moisture issue.  It is seriously that drafty.  We'll be using that fan after I finish insulating and putting up new cement and green board though.  Right now the entry way that K and I did this summer is draft free and warmer than our bathroom. That is just weird.

Today I had to spend about an hour on top of our washer dryer pulling out a faux wall that was behind there. I would pass the stuff I pulled off down to my wife who ferried it outside to the ever growing pile of construction detritus. I want to get it hauled away but I want to wait as some of the lumber is good and can be re-used when we frame in the new wall.

This is a good project for me. It gives me a chance to learn new skills which I love. It gives me a chance to research things--youtube is my greatest construction advice forum! And it keeps me busy.  Covid is still requiring that we not be in the world more than we have to and this feathering of our nest is just the ticket!

The Story of Blake

This is the story of Blake.  Blake came to us when KC was 2 1/2 and Elisabeth was still an infant.  Rob was a middle schooler and our family was young, chaotic and full of exuberant energy.  We were not supposed to get a dog that year.  Our beloved Irish Setter Feargus had passed suddenly about 6 or 8 months earlier.  We had decided our family needed a dog.  Rob in particular needed a dog to help him process his feelings and to turn to when he could not find the words to share his thoughts.  I was not really ready for another dog.  Feargus was special--yes I know all dogs are special--but I had loved him fiercely and his death was so sudden and so unexpected.  I also wasn't keen on housebreaking a puppy with 2 kids in diapers.  We decided we were interested in Brittanys.  They had the playful nature we loved about Irish but were smaller, a bit more eager to please and loved to do outdoor activities with their family.  I decided I could do a waiting list.  The kids would get older, at least one of them would get out of diapers, and we settled in to wait.  We filled out the papers and in the mean time, we brought home a kitten as we also had an elderly cat pass on and our house despite all the kids, felt oddly empty.

While we waited, the breeder suggested we bring the kids up to meet a litter of puppies.  They were all promised all ready--we were waiting for another litter, remember--but it would be good for them to see the dogs and get an idea of who would someday join our home.  There was a sweet brown and white guy that we all loved.  He was a  "show" puppy the breeder informed us.  We would get a "pet" grade puppy.  We didn't care. We were enthusiastic about their friendly gentle demeanor and we were all in love.

Months passed. Unexpectedly in the fall we received a phone call.  The breeder had a family return a pup to her.  Due to a marital breakup they were unable to keep the puppy.  We could have him if we wanted.  He was a "show" puppy but at 6 months old she would sell him at her "pet" rate.  If you guessed that it was the brown and white guy we met months earlier, you were right.  We said yes and went up the very next day to meet him and bring him home.  At 6 months, we had missed most of the housebreaking stuff and he was such a sweet and eager to please guy.  The fact that we had a puppy and a kitten 2 kids under 3 and a middle schooler along with Chet and Fi on the weekends--life was fun, crazy and sometimes we wondered what we were thinking!  But it worked.  Blake loved snow.

He would play outside with Rob and help Chet shovel.  He had boundless energy and that playful nature we read about was certainly evident.  Over the years, he went on hikes with us. He went on camping trips.  He played in the back yard. He met skunks several times. He became a champion chipmunk hunter (weird but true, he would stomp them to death) He liked to catch bees and I always worried because once every summer he would manage to get stung in his mouth.  He was a cuddler and was patient with both kids and other animals. He was also a food thief extraordinaire.  We used to joke that he had a telescoping neck because how a comparatively short dog could get a bag of hamburger buns off the far back of the kitchen counter was always a mystery.  He ate more chocolate than I could ever imagine.  Apparently he did not know chocolate is bad for dogs.  He stole Easter baskets and Halloween treats that were not put up somewhere over 5 feet.  He did not take food people were actively eating, but leave it out unattended and he would find a way to feast.

You don't realize how fast the years spin by.  KC is going to be 17 this spring and Elisabeth just turned 14 in December. Rob is 24 and working full time.  But every night when he gets home from work he always stops to greet the dogs.  As the years went by, Blake began to slow down some. There was an issue with a knee that required a vet visit.  He developed a skin allergy and got meds for that.  He began to have seizures which were determined not to be epilepsy but were related to his age.  He began to go blind and lost most of his hearing.  

We knew the time was coming when we would have to say goodbye.  We hoped for one more Christmas and we got that.  We had a good Christmas and so did Blake.  He lay on the couch next to Rob all morning while we opened presents, hoping someone would forget and leave a cinnamon bun where he could reach it.

But post Christmas there were more signs that he was dealing with significant pain.  He never whined or complained.  Maybe it is not the nature of dogs, maybe it was just not Blake's nature.  We got some meds to make him comfortable and continued on.  But we wanted to help him on the next step of his journey before he was totally in pain, when his goodbye could be as good as such a thing can be.  It is the one gift, the hardest gift, that any pet lover can give to their loyal and beloved fur child.  This past week we could tell that he needed us to make the decision.  He began licking himself where his arthritis was hurting him.  He could not settle easily and had trouble having the strength to do his chores outside.  We made the call.  Our vet is amazing. She spent 30 minutes talking on the phone to my wife. She agreed that we were not rushing things (always a worry in the back of our minds when making such a decision) and made an appointment for tonight to be his last ride.

When we arrived at the hospital, they were running late.  These appointments are always their last one of the night so they asked if we could come back in 30 minutes.  Blake liked rides so we drove around in the dark,petting him, looking at the lights that are still up on some houses.  Blake rested down by Elisabeth's feet until suddenly he felt compelled to climb into the front seat and into my lap.  45 pounds of lap dog.  It was an instant flash back to the young pup who had sat in my lap on the way home from the breeders.  I stroked his head and supported his arthritic legs while he alternately looked up at me and snuffled at the window.  I'm an ugly crier and there was a lot of crying periodically tonight.  But Blake was not fazed.  He was ready.

Only 2 of us could be with him so Elisabeth and I waited in the car and KC and my wife went in with Blake when it was time.  The room for this is private and at the back of the hospital with a separate entrance. A thick cushion and comfy blankets are on the floor.  They gave him a pile of dog cookies and while he scarfed them down and KC and K petted him they gave him a shot.  Blake never minded the vets office and loved this vet in particular very much. K said that one minute he was eating and the next he was sleeping and then he was just gone.  

There is a huge Brittany sized hole in my heart tonight.  We are all grieving in our own ways.  But we all are also glad that he is pain free.  Be happy my Blake.  You are loved and you are missed.