Another weekend, another dumpster

Well, it was another weekend of demo work at my house. It was mostly pulling off more plaster and lath from the walls of the master bedroom. It involved many, and I mean many, trips from the second floor out to the dumpster with a garbage can filled with plaster. These trips are reeking havoc on my poor back, I think a trip to a masseuse is in order. Most of the hauling of plaster was done on Friday, Saturday was all about tearing out the lath and scraping the popcorn texture off the ceiling. By the end of the day Saturday the master bedroom, master bath, and walking closet were all down to the studs. It was a wonderful feeling to be done with the demo in those two rooms, but a quick of the head towards the remaining two bedrooms wiped away that joy.

Sunday was a shorter day and I had a helper, my mother (my back was thankful). I had started to pull some of the plaster off of the bedroom that will end up being my office Saturday before I called it quits. So Sunday began with me hauling five garbage cans full of plaster out to the dumpster. Then the help arrived and she began pulling the rest of the plaster off the walls, while I started some demo on the hallway and down in the living room. A mere hour or two later the plaster was all off the walls in the office and had been hauled out to the dumpster. For our final job of the day we (by we I mean she) used the sledge hammer to knock out the cinder blocks that had been laid for the garage. I tossed them in the dumpster as she knock them loose, my back was happy the dumpster was only feet away. We also got rid of an enormous piece of concrete that I believe came from the basement way back when the contractor was pouring new footings for the support posts. No matter where it came from the damn thing was heavy and my arm got trapped beneath it as we lifted it into the dumpster. Had it stayed on my arm a few seconds later I'm pretty sure that tension I was feeling would have gone away and I'd have a broken arm.

The plumber was in again last week getting some more stuff roughed in. He managed to lock himself out of the house, something his wife (a colleague of mine) and I had a good laugh over. He's back in there this week, it sounds like he should be all done with his rough in by the end of the week.

No pictures right now, I haven't had the time to stop back and take any, but I promise some this weekend or early next week. Yes, I'll be back in there again this weekend, trying my hardest to fill up dumpster number five (I think, or is it six? no, pretty sure its five).

More progress

Spent another weekend in the house working and working. Here are some random blurbs on the progress.

The plumber started working on roughing in the master bath and new laundry. After some discussion with him it was decided that I needed to move one of the new walls I put up last time. Luckily I was able to save most of the first one and reuse it, this saved me some time and sweat.

I've now finished framing everything in, the master bath and walk-in closet are now clearly defined. The laundry and master bedroom's secondary closet are all there too. I even tore out an old section of framing and put in a new wall and the master bedroom is all framed in.

Money is starting to run low and its clear I'll be going over budget. My original plan was to have someone come in and blow insulation into all of the exterior walls and roll some insulation out in the attic. I wanted to do this to keep as much of the plaster walls in tact as possible. Because of budgetary reasons, and the fact some of that plaster is in worse shape than I originally thought, I've decided I'll be deviating from the original plan. So, the new plan is tear all the plaster off the exterior walls on the 2nd floor and insulate it myself, do the attic myself, and deal with the 1st floor when I do the siding (sometime in the next year or two).

The new washer, dryer, tub, toilet, and sink all arrived in the last week or two, and tile for the master bath has been ordered. The tile should arrive sometime later this week. Hopefully I'll have the master bath and laundry completed in the next week or two. The master bedroom should be insulated and sheet rocked at that time as well. I'll then be able to gut the remaining two bedrooms and upper hallway, get all that insulated and sheet rocked.

Here's some pictures of all the framing and the start of the plumbing work. Look for more later this week/early next week.