2nd Floor Reno - Week 6

This week, the electrical was done.  Here's a photo of the junction box where all of the bathroom switches will go.  Here we'll be able to control the in-floor heating, vanity sconces, exhaust fan, chandelier, recessed lights and the hallway light.

Recessed Lighting AND copper for the shower head.

Shower main

Exhaust fan and wiring for speakers.  On a side note, we are running wire room by room so that, eventually, the whole house will have speakers. 

Closet light switch and pocket door frame

Vanity electrical - three outlets and three sconces

This photo was taken from inside the master bedroom.  The whole in the wall is for the cables and power that we'll run into the master closet for the TV that will go on this wall.    The plan is to have the cable box and dvd player run on RF (radio frequency) so we'll hide them both in the closet on a shelf. No need to have ugly TV equipment in the bedroom!

This is a photo of the 2nd floor hallway. Previously, there were two entrances into the bathroom.  One was by way of the master bedroom, and the second was through this door in the hallway, which made no sense.  It was probably fine with the previous owners because they had their laundry in there, but it made no sense to us, so we had it taken out.  Now the en suite is only accessible from the master bedroom, the way it should be.  We also removed the sconce (since it's now off-center with the door taken out), and moved the thermostat into master bedroom to completely clear the wall.

We needed another switch for the hallway light since there was only one at the top of the stairs, so we put this one in over by the bedrooms. This will be SUPER helpful trying to navigate the hallway/stairs at night :) Electricians were nice enough to add an outlet at the bottom as well.

We also needed another hallway switch for the BACK hallway (second staircase).  This is temporary though because this wall will turn into a closet in the future.

Gas lines for the dryer

2nd Floor Reno - Week 5

We are officially in week 5 now.  Good thing I didn't believe the contractor when he said the reno would only take 4 weeks :)

Here are some shots of work from this week. 

This shot is taken standing in the bathroom. The header on left is for the doorway. The header on the right is where the shower would be.  We need a header in the shower because we are having a niche built in below the showerhead.  The space on the other side of this framed wall is the new walk-in closet.

Vanity wall plumbing

New toilet flange

Laundry room plumbing

More laundry room plumbing

Here's a shot from the kitchen showing the laundry room plumbing. Unfortunately, that wall will actually be removed next year when we renovate the kitchen so this is actually a temporary fix :/

Holy Vanity! These are all of the cabinets and drawers that will make up our nine foot vanity.

Here is what they will look like assembled. Lots of storage!

2nd Floor Reno - Week 4

Now that everything has been supported and framed, we can move on to plumbing!  Here are some shots of the plumbing going in this week.

Here's the new bathroom stack.  It was moved to the other side of the room, roughly 8 feet over. This is the view form the 1st floor (in the future powder room). Even though we're currently only renovating the second floor, a little 1st floor demo is also necessary.

Framing new partial wall for laundry room, so the plumbing is away from the exterior wall.

Punching Random holes in laundry room to figure out how best to run plumbing.

Punching more holes, this time in the kitchen which is directly under the laundry room. 

Mo Money, Mo Problems

Or actually, it's mo problems, mo money for us :(

The good news is that structural engineer came in and determined what was needed in order to have a safe home and a bathroom that could support the 1300 lbs pounds of tile and a tub full of water as well as also correcting what could have caused additional problems in the future.

The bad news is it added a good amount of money to the renovation and made us increase the budget.

Picture of the contractors installing new floor supports. You could also see the second bathroom on the second floor :).

Here are all new floor supports. Glued and Screwed (Just like Mike Holmes Likes It) to the old supports

Installed new header in first floor dining room entrance. This sits right below master bathroom.

Installed new header on the first floor future powder room. This sits below both bathrooms on second floor.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 3

The Structural engineered came today, looked at everything and provided an engineering report.  The bad news is that we'll need to fix the structure in every floor, not just the 2nd floor.  Right now we'll focus on the areas around the second floor bath.  So looks like we'll need wood, wood, and more wood.  

HOWEVER, some good things happened today too!!!  The Washer and Dryer were delivered.  We bought an LG washer and dryer. We've never had our own washer and dryer in our old place because it was an apartment so now Lauren thinks Life's Good (ha)

ALSO delivered, 1300 Lbs of Bianco Carrera Marble Tile.

Hold Up, Wait a Minute

So, we have a holdup. Work is delayed because of structural concerns.  First, the contractor wanted to make sure that the floor could support our new fixtures, including a full freestanding tub and 1300 lbs of tile, so they took a look into the ceiling of the first floor and discovered that there weren't any headers.

Here is a picture of a 5 ft wide entry way with no header. This is the original construction from 1895. Kind of surprised it's held up this long.

Our contractor also removed the entire sub floor in the master bathroom to take a look at the floor support beams.  He found that several beams were cut into and had lost the complete integrity of the beam.  The floor had also sunk 2 1/2 inches at its worst point. 

Our contractor will be bringing in a structural engineer to determine exactly what is needed to support the second floor.