Saturday I got back underway with the hallway project, which has been lurching along slowly while the holidays and other events have worked themselves out. The walls have been (mostly) washed of all remaining wallpaper paste, and about 75% of the the holes and cracks have been smoothed out. The 4′ X 10′ bulge by the stairwell was pulled out and replaced, and the odd concrete fill job has been patched. During the cleanup on Saturday I asked Jen if she’d like me to pull the ceiling tile down to see what was underneath. Jen, having hated the tile since we looked at the house, gave her OK.
After about fifteen minutes of demolition, I realized why the drop ceiling had been installed. When the doctor had replaced the shower tub and bathroom plumbing directly above, the workmen had to contend with a poured concrete subfloor, which meant a shallow 4″ run for the piping. (All piping should have a slight angle running downward to let gravity help the water go where it should.) Thus, to avoid the concrete, the elbow drain for the shower extends about 2″ below the ceiling line in the hallway. I guess I wouldn’t be so upset if the work had been done well, but I’ve done better plumbing work on my first attempt. This looks like somebody’s bastard half-cousin used a cigarette lighter to sweat the joints in the copper and nearly set fire to the house in the process. Oh, and they sawed completely through one of the floor joists to put in the hot and cold lines.
So, there will be a few days of repair and remediation before we cover everything back up. As it turns out, there’s a slight leak in the PVC waste line that I have to fix, and I can also blow some fiber insulation in between the first few floor joists by the front of the house for added heat retention, as well as add some around the inside of the bathtub. Todd W. was good enough to answer his neighbor’s call and help me hustle five sheets of drywall from Home Depot the front porch, which means I can start hanging the ceiling anytime I need to. At some point this week, I’ll update the photos.
Saturday also marked the end of the Ghetto Driveway Tent; the seventeenth windstormof the season finally blew it all to hell and jammed everything up in between the garage and the side of the house, so I disassembled it and put it away. On the positive side, I took another look at the floor in the garage and I think I have a way to brace the wood subfloor up with enough strength to hold the Scout.
Efforts to get Apple Remote Desktop working have succeeded. Bring on my Mini!
*sigh.* I’m going to miss Dan Rather.