3yr + Dinning room project

Yup, you red it right. This is one of the first projects we started simply out of curisoty because of a door that was walled over with drywall. Christie wanted to see it opend up and theres no stopping that woman when she gets a bee in her bonnett. I come home from work one day and she and her friend had a large of debris piled on the rear deck. to my surprize they had nearly gutted the place. Never undeerestimate the power of women. So what we found after the unveiling of the door was that the room above had been the original bathroom. Which to my dismay had leaked most of its life. The wall with the door had suffered the most from this I thought at the time and every stud had rotted away at the bottom. SO I got busyfixing the wall with new studs and sistering the remaining good ones and in the meantime a friend donated a doorcasing salvaged from anotherhouse of the same ers. I didnt mention that this part of the house used to bne a seperate house built by the same familys father in 1846. so its construction is quite different from the Queen Ann part and totally new to me. All framing in this aera is mortice and tennon and this room had suffered most over the years due to carpenters that didnt care to understand that adding a doorway in a corner could compromise the integrity of the whole room. During this period we also decided to completly gut the room above. That`s when it got scary. The room above had remained aq bathroom with various remodles including a hot tub at one point. It also had been divided into three seperate rooms at one time.A bath a storage clostt and a Laundry room. After gutting this room we wanteed to put it back to a bedroom. I took out a "LOT" of weight with two studwalls, shower/tub, Toilet, Sink, fullsized washer and dryer and a 40 gal waterheater. I really cant beilieve the floor didnt cave in.Ok now skip a few months to removing drywalled and plaster ceilings upstairs and drywall downstairs.Very dirty work. We found the original wood ceiling downstairs which had been rotted by all the leaking. Now for a photo.

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Comment by Donald Mitchell on January 10, 2010 at 4:12pm: Christie doing her thing.

Comment by susan surplus on January 10, 2010 at 4:58pm: How devine! You're a lucky guy.

Comment by Donald Mitchell on January 10, 2010 at 5:19pm: Cool wallpaper in a closet in the corner. I think its the oldest in the house.

Comment by Donald Mitchell on January 10, 2010 at 5:23pm: After much demo. The door to the right of the fireplace is a closet door from the next room and will become a bookcase for that room. the other shows the framing and some more old paper.

Comment by Donald Mitchell on January 10, 2010 at 5:32pm: The wooden ceiling before demo this week. I liked it but the boards were so cupped from water that they didnt fit into our plans for a nice dinning aera, so it will be drywalled. Two of the original horsehair plaster walls will remain, the rest were too far gone for repair,

Comment by Donald Mitchell on January 10, 2010 at 6:25pm: Fast foward 2010, the fun part. I got all the dirty work done and now start construction. One joist was cut for plumbing and also the beam at the wall. These I knew about but I didnt know the next joist was split and cracked. This one carried the weight of the washer, dryer and hotwaterheater. Im glad thats all gone now. So I have to sister these two joists,and I have already fixed the beam with additional studs to carry the weight where it was cut. I`m writing this as I work so its kinda slow.

Comment by Donald Mitchell on January 10, 2010 at 7:43pm: The joist are finished. screwed naied and bolted with 1/2" bolts. Next Ill block the joist to try and remove any spring in the floor above.

Comment by Donald Mitchell on January 10, 2010 at 7:47pm: Brief pause as I recover from missing the last step on the ladder. To be continued............................