1/2 Bath Demo Time (For Real)

As mentioned in this post the other day, we are movin' along our 2011 to-do list and are going to start renovating the1/2 Bath on the first floor of our house. Since we have a goal of completing the renovation by February 5th, we wasted no time getting to work! And Joey started this work by completing the demolition that needed to be done before all the new stuff goes up. (Click here for the early demo done last summer.)

In case you are wondering what I was doing while Joey worked away at destroying this tiny room, I was cleaning up the layers of dirt and dust left all over the first floor of the house from this process (*sigh*).

I'll give Joey credit that he tried to keep the dust contained in the bathroom by hanging/taping plastic in the doorway, but dust manages to find it's way out and about somehow! Sneaky little thing dust is...



Looking at the picture above, I can hear the Wizard of Oz with his booming voice saying, "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT [BATHROOM] BEHIND THE CURTAIN!" At least, that's what I wanted to say to the guests we had over this weekend.

Anyway, to begin the demolition, Joey removed the toilet - which is original to the house (that makes it about 82 years old... I clean it often) - so that he could break up the tile on the floor. The sink "floats" on the wall, so that wasn't in the way of the floor and was left in place for the moment.




We (well, I) considered getting a new toilet for our "new" bathroom, but decided that this old toilet was piece of our house's history that we (well, Joey) just couldn't let go. So, the toilet is here to stay and will be re-installed in the end. So, for now, it sits in a little plastic tub out of the way.



Let it be known that we are officially down to 1 toilet in the house. May there be no crises between now and February 5th (*cross your fingers*)...

Next comes the destruction of the tile floor. According to Joey, he used something called a Rotary Hammer. He bought it the other week from Home Depot as a combo pack with a free angle grinder (don't ask me what this is for, I have no idea).


The rotary hammer (along with a sledge hammer) is what Joey used to (loudly) pound out the rest of the tile - and all the flooring underneath the tile.




In case you questioned why I had dust all over the place...




The floor became a giant pile of rubble that got dumped into many large trash bags. I wish our garbage men well as they toss these bags into the truck.




A shovel was used to scoop it all up and Joey sweeped it out and used the shop vac for an extra clean feel.




And here are the "final" demo results... You can see the sub-floor planks where you can peek into the basement (which, by the way, allowed A LOT of rubble and dust to fall into our basement - Joey cleaned that part!). Joey also removed the sink from the wall after I convinced him that we needed a new sink. I caved with the 82 year old toilet. I was not sticking with the 82 year old sink.




Joey even managed to get plywood down and the durock down in preparation for laying new tile, which has been ordered but hasn't arrived. The old medicine cabinet came out too.




Well, that takes us through our messy weekend. More to come this week!