June 23, 2005
More plaster dust
That's all that's left of the walls and ceilings in what used to be the butler's pantry.
Our current project has been to gut that room, divide it in roughly half, add doors (pocket doors, to be exact) and turn one half into a laundry room, well, more like a laundry hallway, and other half into a bathroom. OK. A water closet, because it'll be about the size of a closet. But, hey, if it works, it works, right?
It took me four days at about three hours each day to fill up that dumpster half full. Amazing how much crap there is to slog out. It's also amazing how heavy plaster is. And dusty. Plus the absolutely class act idiots who remuddled the house previously did stuff like put drywall over the crumbling plaster, so it was double the work for me. So, after half a week and much cursing, noise, sawzalling (I had to remove a really crappy built-in bookcase, no it wasn't original to the house), and many bruises and scrapes to me, I'm ready to build it back up again. I've got someone coming over on Monday to teach me how to frame out walls, so with any luck this will all be done by the end of July. Hopefully sooner.
There have been some interesting discovers during this project. Like a fully functional pocket door that I've got to extract from the wall, strip and fix up. And the discovery that our house used to have gas and electric fixtures. Plus, I found out that the oak floor that was hidden under the crappy vinyl tile is in pretty good shape. At least they used 1/4" plywood under the tile so it all came up pretty easy. Why they covered over the oak floor, I'll never know.
I've also found out that even though I'd really rather support local business, I can also find much better deals shopping on line. Case in point. I got a Toto Carlyle toilet from Faucet Depot for $400 plus about $15 shipping. Plumbing supply houses here wanted $680 for the same toilet. Too bad.
The dumpster gets picked up tomorrow and it's only half full, so if anyone else in the STL area has something bulky to throw away, you're welcome to it.
Posted by dlloyd at June 23, 2005 11:55 PM