bathroom remodel #1

mike and i finally tackled demolishing the hallway bathroom. we started in march with taking a sledgehammer to the tile around the bathtub but plans came to a halt quickly due to real life. it's a great experience doing renovations yourself, but when you have a full-time job... and full-time life... projects must be done in small chunks at a time that fit with your schedule. thankfully, there is more than one bathroom in our home, so we haven't been in a rush to get this done.

here's what the bathroom looked like before...



on may 26, we finished demolishing the tile. breaking down the tile took a couple hours including shoveling all the debris into the dumpster and cleaning up the area for the next phase.
 

we could have continued on demolishing the second layer of the foundation, but the dumpster we rented from the city has a 500lbs limit and has strict rules about weight and keeping the trash leveled with the top (nothing can stick out or hang outside the top of the dumpster) and we had so much trash in there already from unpacking more boxes, cleaning up the backyard, etc etc... we didn't want to risk breaking any rules and suffering further cost.

on june 3, we tackled that second layer of the walls... cement back wall supported by chicken wire... it was fairly labor intensive cutting the chicken wire and pulling it apart from the studs. it took us about 3 hours including breaks and dumping the debris.
 

the tools for our trade...

(left to right: grinder, wire cutters, hammer, small sledgehammer, crow bar) we started off using the wire cutters to cut the chicken wire, but that became too laborious. we upgraded to the grinder and boy that was fun!!! we used the small sledgehammer to break apart chunks of cement and the pick end of the hammer to chip away at small sections and pull nails out. the crow bar was used to chisel and pull the track off and any other stubborn nails, chicken wire, etc.

and just so you know... i get my hands dirty too... =)


phase 2 is complete!


next on the demolition list: remove bathtub (any volunteers??), remove flooring and sub-flooring, remove vanity sink and toilet.

oh, and here's a wider shot of the bathroom in case anyone was curious...


If you'd like to view the photos above in detail, click on the images below:

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