Elba Farm House: Bathroom Remodel: Phase II

Our first floor bathroom has been in need of an update for the last half century. The plaster walls were covered with a veneer of fiber board which was then painted. Over the years cracks developed around the edges of the board and the top coat of patching and paint crumbled away making the wall quite unsightly. For this project we will be demoing the room down to the original studs. Removing the fiberboard, old horse hair plaster, then the lath will be a messy task.

Looking into the bathroom from the doorway.

The old vanity with a solid surface top was cracking and on it's last leg.

Old style ball lights and surface mount medicine cabinet.

The drop ceiling always made the room seem a bit smaller than it had to be.

Old tub stall with stained walls and peeling caulk.

Taking the drop ceiling out revealed some interesting electrical runs and some of the old wall paper.

The old tub area severely crowded the toilet area.

Someone left their jet engine above the tub.

I may have a couple of little helpers in the near future.

The false ceiling above the tub and toilet were removed.

The next step was to start peeling the walls off down to the studs. None of it came down easy. It was peeled off one slat at a time. Most of the plaster crumbled off once the lath was pried off.

As each section of the wall came off it had enough material to fill up the bathroom with junk. This created a continuous secondary job of bagging and carting out the trash just to make room to work.

Toilet is out. Two more walls to go.

Tub is finally cleaned out and removed.

I think we will donate the vanity and sink to the ReStore in Flint.

Just managing the trash was a big job.

We probably ended up with about 20 bags of plaster and other junk by the time the walls were all down.

This will probably be the final update as the demolition is now complete. It took a weekend and 4 days of after day job effort but it's finally done.

Before the addition the only way to get into the basement from inside the house was to use this door in the bathroom.

An old window opening that was behind the old tub wall. Here is what it now looks like inside that window opening. This will eventually become a closet for the room next to this bathroom.

Newer plumbing from the big addition project.

We located the exhaust tubing that was put in during the addition construction. We'll tie into this for our new bath fan ventilation.

Tearing out the area around the toilet was an odd experience since this water damage was one of the first things we ever repaired in the house, before we even lived in it.