Toilet Closet Demo: Day 1

So, how was everyone's weekend? Was it awesome? Was it just okay? Was it spent in a toilet closet? I kid! 

We actually only spent a few hours in the ol' toilet closet and to be honest with you I was only in it every ten minutes to scoop up the rubble with my heavy duty dustpan and then get back out of the way.

Pro tip: If you're going to demolish any part of a plaster and lath house, buy a really serious dustpan. You will not regret it when it comes time to scoop that junk up. Also, contractor bags. Looooots of contractor bags. 

Alright, so what did we do on day one? Let's have a look! 

Here's where we started: 

Then out came the toilet and off came the door: 

Then it got smashed: 

It took my dad about two hours to get rid of all of the plaster and VERY CAREFULLY remove the door frame and the window frame. 

If you're wondering why we had to do that it's because these houses are usually built with one piece inside of another, inside of another and as such, the lath ran behind the door frame and the window frame, not just up to it. So if we want to remove the lath and replace it with sheetrock, the frames have to come down. 

We started the day by putting plastic and an old sheet over the stairway down to the toilet closet. 

If you've never experienced the nastiness of plaster dust, trust me when I say this is a step you don't want to skip. STUFF.GOES.EVERYWHERE.

Here's the ceiling. It's lovely. 

I didn't really take any pictures of us during demo because 

a) dust + camera = no good

b) the room is barely big enough for one person to stand in alone, when you add pounds and pounds of rubble on the floor it gets increasingly difficult to move around, so removing debris constantly is recommended.

Now, you might have noticed the hole on the left: 

That is the reverse skylight thing we've got going down to the basement: 

But for serious, you can see the return air vent that I mentioned might be an issue if you look here: 

We looked at it this weekend and since the vent itself is a couple of feet and change wide and they just put the duct right in the middle, we think we can move the duct about a foot to the left and still be okay. That would give us about a foot of space and we would still be able to build a bump out around it and go farther back. 

It's highly inaccurate/totally not to scale architectural rendering time with Katherine, y'all! Gather 'round! 

The plan as of this weekend is to move the toilet over to the left wall and push it back as far as we can then put the sink on the right wall or corner, near the window. That way there's at least the illusion of privacy should someone run downstairs and fling the toilet closet open. They'll only see your frightened expression and your knees, instead of a full-on deer-in-headlights type situation. So you've got that goin' for ya. 

I know I also said I would share some inspiration photos I've been gathering but I really don't feel like I should until we have a more concrete idea of the layout. Cart before horse, chickens before hatch...blah blah blah. 

But I will share some ideas that I like this week hopefully. Until then, enjoy your Monday and we'll see you soon! I'm off to pull some lath down! Wish me luck!