A view from the front door at the stairway. I’d already started pulling cieling tile off, and figured it would be smart to take pictures before the whole thing fell down.

This is from the opposite side, looking from the stairs at the fron door.

Several hours later, this is what we were left with. The plaster on the cieling didn’t look too bad on the stairway side…

But over on the doorway side, it was completely hosed. Water had leaked from lousy piping in the bathroom above and destroyed the plaster above. If you can believe it, there was a layer of trash bags holding loose plaster and lathe bits up there.

At some point in the history of PVC piping, the drains had been replaced poorly—there was a leak in the joint where the elbow met on the west wall that I had to patch.