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January 13, 2006
Bathroom demolition, phase one
Amongst my other projects today was the removal of the mirrored tiles and the linoleum (walls and floor) from the main floor bathroom. I will admit that this was done with more than a small amount of glee. I literally tore the lino off of the walls and cabinetry, then pried up the sticky floor tiles with a scraper and heat gun (a smelly, sticky job). Then, I attempted to remove (intact) the multiple mirrored tiles, managing to break far fewer than I'd anticipated.
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There's some mold on the wall behind the toilet, but it's not as bad as we'd feared it would be. It appears that the wax seal has been seeping and, as we're not living there right now, this should dry out, at least to some extent.
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The worst problem, which necessitated an earlier trip back to the city than I'd planned, was the bathroom ceiling. The previous owner, at some point in time, installed ceiling tiles throughout the main floor of the house. Those in the bathroom were sagging considerably, so I decided that they, too, needed to be removed.
This was a very bad plan. I'm not, at this point, entirely sure as to what's going on up there, but it's not good. When I finally managed to pull down one of the tiles, I was showered with seeds and mouse turds. Yuck. So, out came the ShopVac to clean up the mess. Without taking down more tiles, which is going to be a two-person job to keep the mess to a minimum, I can only speculate as to what the problem is.
As the bathroom is below the narrow attic storage area that runs the length of the house, I'm assuming that this is where the debris originated. We know that the previous owner had mice up there (likely because the roof sucked . . . but that's an entirely different story), living in with the cellulose stuff that's masquerading as insulation.
It appears that the original ceiling plaster (in blue in the following photo) was badly damaged, so the previous owner fixed it with his favourite--plywood. The plywood is nailed, with short roofing nails, into what remains of the plaster and it's this, not just the tiles, that appears to have separated from the ceiling. I don't think that we'll really know what's going on until we shovel the cellulose away from the bathroom ceiling (on the attic side) and get the rest of the ceiling tiles removed.
Posted by plainstext at January 13, 2006 10:48 PM
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