The reason for the name change is because life took a little unexpected turn and my final goal once the house is renovated is to put it on the market and to move on.

I'll continue to update things as they move along, so check this space on occasion to see what's happening (or isn't happening in some cases).

Looks good... just have a few adjustments to make, including the installation of new drain baskets in the cast iron top that is still in the basement. I'm waiting to borrow a pipe wrench which should be in my hands sometime tomorrow afternoon. So hopefully by Wednesday we'll be cooking with gas... or at least washing dishes.

More to come soon... I hope.

LET THERE BE PAINT!

Wow... What a relief... It's taken a long time to get to this point, but I'm finally here! I can now cut out the outlets and get the sink upstairs and hopefully working by later this week. No more washing dishes in the prison shower!

One can still look to the left of this shot and see the cracked waste pipe, but I'm planning on using my tax return to pay for that service.

*fingers crossed*

This weekend I'll take out the fire boards and get the remaining drywall boards ready to go once the waste pipe is fixed.

Making a lot of progress... most of the other walls are ready for priming!

I would like to spend the least amount of money possible to get something that will conviently fit the space. Something like this would do the trick, but the price is a little too high for the convience.

Help me out people. Cost is an issue here, and there are no housing salvage yards in my area that I know of.

Then, I moved to the right of the header to the chimney. I always was curious about what appeared to be a patched hole in the brickwork. I didn't have time to snap a photo of the brickwork before, but I'll say that it was VERY brittle and crumbled when touched. Not good.

Here's a shot of what appears to be a round patch in the hole.

Then I cleared out the whole area after visiting Lowes and purchasing a bag of quickset mortar.

Any particles of dust would just get sucked right up the chimney. This reminds me to get a cap for the chimney come this summer.

I thought about keeping the mortar lines all nice and tidy but then realized I was going to cover this up with a piece of drywall anyways. So I filled in the bricks, then used the rest of the mortar to cover the whole brick patch.

Lovely, eh?

The next day was dedicated to drywall and taping/patching. I focused my work on the back door and the bar/entryway.

Here's a number of shots of the header with the bar area covered.

I also got quite a lot of rewiring done, but that's another story for another day.

Progress... I like it!

I addition to the new wall I got the header in for the wall/bar opening in. Since the wall isn't load bearing I decided to go with a single 2x4 secured to the studs coming down from the ceiling.

I also braced the bar wall, which was what I would consider very unstable.

Should be able to drywall this wall once I get the light switch moved over to the new bathroom wall.

10 dollars...

...for this (the bottom one):

That's my 12lb bucket on top of the 61.7lb bucket.

I don't think I'll ever use all of it, so I have a feeling this is something I'll be passing down to the grandkids.

Started like this...

And at the moment looks like this:

As you can see, I got the window cut out and you can see the green palette close to the one I will using to paint the room with. I really want to get this one wall done so I can get my renovated kitchen skin in the kitchen.

To start off with, remember when I said I purchased 2x4s that were too short? Well... I had to go back to Lowes and purchase 6 new 104" long 2x4s to get the job done.

I wish I had more photos, but I just didn't take time to snap as many as I wish I had.

First it started with framing a new wall. I debated on whether or not I wanted to mount the header and then use a plumb bob to place the footer. I tried that and wasn't too keen on using that method since it was my first time doing so. I wanted to get this done right!

So I measured and framed everything, leaving some room up top so I could raise the wall into place.

That was the end of the first day of work, pretty good considering this is my first time building a wall.

The next afternoon I set out to build the smaller wall that would help form an "L" shape from the old wall to the new wall. This space was around 10" and I didn't have any extra 104" studs to build it up with. So I used my remaining 96" studs, leaving some room at the top.

I then shimmed the bottom of the wall and anchored it to the floor beams below as well as the beams in the ceiling. I got lucky and the beams were perpendicular to the floor and wall:

Finally, after some final methods to secure the wall(s) in place, I took a few minutes to cut and mount drywall on the wall. Boy, is this easier than trying to mount drywall over a plaster wall!

I'm so very happy this wall is up. Now I can pee in privacy!

Looks like I'll be shelling out another 20 bucks!

At least I can use what I purchased on the kitchen/bar opening and the top and bottom of the new wall.

Hopefully they'll fit in my Jetta, as the studs I bought last night fit pretty nicely through the trunk and up into the passenger seat.

I'll keep you posted.

First of all, I had to remove all of the trim from the dining room side of the wall:

Next I had to remove the wood top from the bar/bottom part of the opening. That revealed a partial wall that isn't too stable. I will be placing a 2x4 across the top to make the wall much more structurally sound. I'll then place 45deg 2x4s on the inside to make the wall even stronger. It'll be interesting to see if I can do the angled pieces with the plaster sticking through the inside of the wall.

Here is a close up shot of the top of the opening. None of the 2x4s coming down from the ceiling were even with one another, so I had to take my circular saw and cut the bottoms off at the same level. I'll build up the top of the opening with a 2x4 all the way across the bottom of the top of the header (this wall is not load bearing so I'll be fine).

Here's an opposite shot of the opening. Quite the work I have ahead of me!

Here's a shot of the ceiling where I will be building out the new wall. I had to remove some ceiling tiles so I can mount a 2x4 on the ceiling for the wall studs. Need to find a plumb bob to make this easier for setting up the wall.

And finally... I'm removing the old drywall on the back wall of the bathroom. If you look closely, you can see the hardwood floor planks used for fireboards for plastering. Those will be removed and this wall will be insulated since it is angled with an outside wall.

Plenty of work, but I'm ready to tackle it.

Here's a wide shot showing what it looks like now compared to what it was before.

BEFORE

AFTER

I've removed the entire upper portion of the wall that was cut into and I am going to be bringing the wall out 9 inches to accomidate a sink inside what will be a small bathroom. The wall will be flush with where you can see the opening (from the dining room/kitchen) trim. (On the right of the BEFORE photo.) I'm also thinking of painting the entire wall with chalkboard paint so that we can use it for memos and recipes, ect.

Here is a series of shots starting at the top showing the detail of the bare walls. I've got a number of things to fix as you can see.

Here's a shot of the 2x4 in which the old wall once came down.

Finally... get ready for it... not fireboards to make a plaster wall but...

HARDWOOD FLOOR PLANKS!

Yeah, those are getting torn out. As it stands, there's no space behind the small toliet that I don't think I will be able to replace (small toliets are a hard find these days) and the wall is currently 1" and will then be 1/2" when I rip the wall out and replace it with 1/2" drywall.

As you can see, there's still a lot of work to come.

I'm going to hacksaw parts of the cast iron out in sections (unless I can find someone that has a repricol saw). I will then replace with a PVC line. I'm pretty sure I'll be reusing this connector:

By moving it to the top where the old/good cast iron will meet the PVC. I'll then have a PVC connection on the bottom where the new PVC will meet the slightly older PVC that you see in the above photo.

I've got to get this done because it's completely halted my drywalling work in the kitchen.

After that I'll be tackling my hot water piping which is all sorts of fucked up. Pictures of that to come.