Wow! Half way through the ORC and it feels like we are just getting started. The one room challenge goes for 8 weeks, and we are officially starting week 4 this Wednesday. We have made HUGE progress this week.
. My husband Nick and I make a pretty good team. With every project there are things that we both feel more confident about. He has skills I don’t, and I am so lucky he is so talented. This week, he pretty much worked solo on the things he is the best at and got SO MUCH DONE.
This is where we are at:
All of the demo got finished last week with the removal of the tub… which was A BEAST. See more about how removed it HERE.
When we re-did the kids room in our house last year it was a VERY slow process. I attribute it to the fact that we didn’t really have a plan going into it. We literally just decided over Christmas break to redo their room. We started demo, and then stopped and said… well now what?
This led to 18 months of figuring it out as we went… not the most efficient use of our time. There are STILL small things we have not finished in that room. Here is a photo of a before and after of some of their space. Still more to do in there, but I know the bathroom is going to be so nice when it is finished.
So I am excited to say that we are already WAYYYY ahead of schedule on this bathroom when you compare it to our last renovation project. I still have no clue if we will actually get ALL of this done in 8 weeks, but you better believe I am gonna try my hardest.
One kinda scary thing we found this week was some hot wires hanging out in the ceiling. They were connected to the light switch on the wall that didn’t work for anything before. They just cut the wires and POORLY wrapped them in some electrical tape and shoved them in the ceiling. Once the particle board and insulation was down we could see where a light used to be framed in, and those wires probably went to that. Just crazy that they were sitting up there in the insulation for who knows how long.
This week, we bought lumber, electrical, and plumbing materials. We have a plan, so once we got to the point where it was completely gutted, and every last bit of old stuff was taken out, it was go time.
I shop vacuumed all of the dust and crumbs that I could, and yesterday my husband started insulating.
Insulating a cinderblock construction home is a little different than typical insulation. Once we got all of the tile, and lathe and plaster out of there, we were down to the bare walls. The cinderblock walls behind the tile are the exterior walls… There was NO insulation on them at all.
This is common on a lot of old house we have learned, but this Idaho house is COLD. Another issue we needed to fix was the lack of outlets in the space.
To remedy this we came up with a system. We bought polystyrene insulation panels that came in 8′ x 4′ sizes for about $10 each at Home Depot.
We also bought around 20 1″ x 2″ pieces of wood. These are cheap strips of wood that often are not the best for anything except things like this. They are NOT for finish work…
We also bought 12 2″ x 3″ pieces of wood. These were also not very expensive or super great quality wood. Some were literally oozing sap haha, but it is perfect for what we need.
Since these walls are NOT load bearing, structural integrity wasn’t a huge issue.
Have you heard of a floating or drop ceiling? Think of these as floating/ drop walls.
We are basically creating a frame structure on the wall for the drywall to sit on top of, so that we can insulate the space behind it and add outlets.
First we added the foam insulation to the wall. In the other room we did, we tried gluing it to the wall with no success. So we skipped that step this time.
Then the 1 x 2 were cut to the length of each wall were were hanging them on.
Next we pre-drilled each spot where we would be adding a cement anchor. We drilled through the wood first to try and prevent as much cracking as possible. Pre- drilling helps to make the screw go in easier without splitting the wood, especially when it is not great wood, or it is really dry.
After pre- drilling the wood, we busted out the hammer drill.
This was something I had never even heard of until we got this house.
I tried to hang a hose hanger on the outside of the house when we first moved in… I bought a masonry drill bit thinking it would do the trick….The drill bit was going NOWHERE. It literally got hot from just spinning in the same spot for too long.
Enter the hammer drill. This thing is nuts. Instead of just spinning, it also hammers in the screw or bolt WHILE it is spinning. It is the only thing that we have found to get through the cement wall. We attached a masonry bit to this, and drilled through the same spot that we pre-drilled in the wood.
After there was a hole in the cement block we then got out the impact driver drill.
This one is similar to the hammer drill, in that it pushes and torques a lot harder than a regular drill. We used concrete anchors with a hex head on them. They were 2 3/4 long.
We repeated this process all the way down each 1″ x 2″ piece of wood across the span of the wall. This takes some time.
Next, Nick (the hubs) vertically placed the 2″ x 3″ pieces about every 2′ on the wall creating a lattice pattern.
This creates strength, and more depth on the wall. He framed a little more in the areas we knew we would need it, like the heater vent that attaches with screws on each side of it.
He finished all of the exterior walls insulation today!
Other accomplishments this week:
- Capped off old plumbing we no longer need.
- Removed old wiring and lights that were just sitting in the ceiling.
- Removed dangerous hot wires we found sitting in the insulation in the ceiling
- Removed all wire mesh around the edges of the ceiling
- Found a FREE wooden shelf on the sidewalk of my neighborhood, snagged it for built in wall storage.
- Cut out extra 2 x 4 boards around the shower we didn’t need.
- Returned the shower pan we bought that showed up broken.
- Returned and re-purchased a different faucet after realizing it was too short for our vessel sink.
- Got lumber, plumbing, and electrical supplies.
- Framed in one of the walls for the water closet.
- Plus lots of other supplies showed up like, heating fan, bluetooth fan, shower drain, pocket door hardware and frame, a new toilet, and a bunch more tile for the floor!
This week we hope to finish up framing the walls, and get the electrical and plumbing finished. Then next week we will work towards other structure things like removing the hallway door and making it a wall. Check back on instagram to see more progress photos this week!
-Amanda
#ORC #oneroomchallenge #bathroom #artdecobathroom #remodel #diybathroom