Well, here we are at last--the epic bathroom remodel has begun. I promised regular updates so this is the first of many. The crew came last Thursday to prep, making sure that the floors were covered and the doors that weren't in use were taped up so that dust didn't get in.
The workmen were surprised to discover that even though we all thought the walls were drywall, they actually were laboring against sturdy plaster and lath. It was going to take a lot more power and a lot more time than we anticipated. They didn't get very far that day:
One of the side effects of having to use power tools on the wall is that we now have some cracks in the plaster on the bedroom walls adjacent to the bathroom. They've promised to fix them before the job is done...
They did manage to remove the toilet before the weekend, which in retrospect was rather bad timing--a weekend with very little demolition except a messy plaster-filled bathroom and no toilet. We probably should have asked them to wait until Monday for that.
Monday was more fruitful (though unfortunately very noisy on our day off). By late morning, they had removed most of the plaster and lath:
A few more house-rattling hours and the tile floors were gone, as well as the rest of the walls.
This is where the bathtub used to be:
Then they spent a couple of hours on plumbing. They said that, fortunately, the cast iron pipes were all in good shape and didn't need to be replaced. However, they did need to reroute the vanity and shower pipes to work with our new fixtures (see our shiny new copper pipes below). We asked why they preferred copper over PVC but didn't get much of an explanation. Oh well, whatever. As long as it works!
Stay tuned!
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