Demo Day in the Apartment

demo header

Bathroom Demo

We’ve broken ground (literally) in the mother-in-law suite and completed most of the demo work. It was a good five hours of work, but actually a ton of fun! We found some very interesting things behind the walls and floor.

If you missed it, we’re remodeling a bathroom for someone’s above-garage rental space.

Shower

demo shower

We started by knocking out the old sheetrock behind the shower insert.

demo day shower

Joe went around with the prybar and I followed him with my mini prybar to pull out nails.

We didn’t find any mold, so that was a good sign!

Floor

At least not behind the walls. The floor is a different story. We plan to replace a portion of floor boards around the toilet. There was a really flimsy subfloor here.

demo floor subfloor

Once we got the flooring up, we chiseled away at the subfloor. Pulling up the vanity was probably the toughest part.

demo shower walls insulation

But once we got ‘er we capped off the plumbing temporarily.

demo day bathtub

We also uncovered a covered up plumbing spot where the toilet must have been at one time, and then it was moved about a foot away. So many discoveries.

Walls

demo light switches and doorbell

Check out this light switch and doorbell! You don’t see that in bathrooms too often.

We’re a little stumped with this wall. There are inset shelves built into this whole wall, so we will probably take it all out.

demo day sink mirror

Next, we took down the mirror to uncover a lovely patch of wallpaper.

demo behind the mirror

There’s also a weird layer of linoleum squares on the wall in some spots under the paint. So many layers.

demo day sink mirror

And so many bags of trash. We made a pretty great team though, and vacuumed as we went along. I’d give us a 10/10 for efficiency, minus taking a break to snap a few pictures.

vintage green hooks

How cool are these green hooks? It will be interesting to see if these make the final cut back into the bathroom.

Next Up

We’re still hunting for the perfect teak vanity, but otherwise our next steps will be doing moister-barrier backer board for the shower and those fixtures. Then tile and floor. I can almost taste the sweet, sweet before and after photos. But we enjoy the process just as much, if not more.

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2 comments

    1. Bizarre, right? The guy who lived there before did a lot of strange work. Anytime they come across something like this they just shrug and say, “It’s an Earl thing…”