Main Floor Bathroom

Undoubtedly the first floor bathroom was in the worst condition of any room in the house and required taking it down to the bricks and studs and even replacing the subfloor.  We also rewired the room and redid most of the plumbing lines.  This bathroom also had a door with opaque glass panels like the other bathroom.  The floor had been tiled very poorly and had a trap door in the middle of the floor to get into the crawl space.  The ceiling had been lowered from 11 to 8 feet and never finished.  We believe this was once a pantry off the kitchen as we discovered two doorways, one from the original kitchen and one from the dining room.  The original door to the dining room was closed off and used as a storage space and a new doorway (a third opening) was cut for the current layout.  In the space between the original and new ceiling, plumbing, heating and electrical lines had been run.  Apparently the heat was so poor though that two of the plumbing lines were wrapped in heat tape to keep them from freezing and plugged into an extension cord hidden from sight.

Pretty ugly but  kept the price down!

Original doorway used as storage area

Nice tile job with well-concealed trapdoor

The ceiling when we bought the house

Above the sheetrock - notice the classic light fixture

We knew we were going to put the kitchen back in its original space so that meant reopening the doorway into the dining area and closing off the current doorway which then meant that the toilet had to be moved as it was in front of that doorway.  All the walls were in such bad shape that we stripped plaster from the brick walls and old sheetrock and lath and plaster from two interior walls.  There were about three to four different levels on the main floor as well so we tore up the floor not only to level it but so we could more easily replumb for the sink, tub and toilet.  The sink and tub stayed in approximately the same location but there was enough change that it required major adjustments.  There were also abandoned lines that needed to be cleaned up.  The ceiling had been lowered to the top of the window so that ceiling was torn out and we put in a new one a foot higher but still two feet below the original.  This gave us space to run new vent stacks and wiring and still hide the previously installed water lines.

Opening up one of the original doorways

Doorway to dining room

Brick wall after sheetrock and plaster removed

Partially torn up floor so plumbing can be redone

Upstairs bathroom drain exposed in lower  bath

Framing in a new wall around the stack

Original doorway into kitchen

Hauling plaster a bucket at a time

The room is very small (approximately 7x7) so we saved some space by using 1x2's as studs for the sheetrock on the two brick walls.  We also recessed the toilet into the wall to save space and to keep it out of  line-of-sight from the dining room.  This also provided space for me to construct a built-in cabinet above the toilet.  We also installed a vent fan and a committed circuit for a gfci plug next to the sink.  The room was totally rewired for sconces on each side of the mirror, an overhead chandelier, the vent and the gfci.  This is one of the rooms where we did all of the work except for laying the marble floor which the son of a friend did for us.

Raising the ceiling and adding framing

New location

Soldering on shut-off valves for tub

Partially sheetrocked

I'll stop here and in the next post show the renovation that ends with one of my favorite rooms in the house - favored for its appearance NOT its function - although that certainly has its place.