A long day

I started today with some phone calls, and then headed off to the permit office. I had a few things to take care of there. I forgot to put one small item on my permit, so I have to add it. I also wanted to find out what was required to make a backyard-facing window into a door. C and I are getting new windows since the old ones are rotted out, don't work well and have bars on them with no release (yeah, in other words, if there's a fire between you and the door, you die). We had been talking about making one of the windows a door, and figured we would do it now rather than spend the money on a window only to change it later. Turns out we can't put it where we wanted it due to the driveway space requirements, and the only other appropriate window is in our bedroom. Oh well, it's good news and bad news. The good news is it eliminated that choice and this item is now not a "habitation" item (e.g. we don't have to tackle this before moving in). The other good news is that the only place left for a door to the backyard is right off the center hall, which is a better place for it anyway. It will just be a longer term project as it will require plans and cutting into walls. The bad news is that we won't have a nice door to the backyard for a while, and it will be a bigger project than if we had used the window to make a door.

The other thing I wanted to check out is the requirements for changing the appearance of a window. In general, we are not changing our windows, only replacing them. But, our new bathroom plan has the only bathroom window now almost in the shower water. I want to enlarge the window and make it mostly glass block (for watertightness and privacy) with a small ventillation window on top. I found out I need an architect or engineer to draw up plans and then it has to go through the approval process. It's not the worst news, but it does add another project to my remodel. I just don't know how else to get around it.

After the permit office, I went to the house for a bit before lunch. I wanted to take down a rusty, wrought iron gate that was attached to the house. I thought it would be one quick thing that would make hauling all the demolition debris easier. It took an hour! The gate was attached to the house with three bolts, and the middle bolt was stripped and covered with paint. Combined with a warped plate on the gate, I just couldn't get a grip on it. I tried all sorts of things. I did a lot of wiggling the gate, hoping I'd loosen the stucco around the bolt. What finally did it was all the movement warped the plate enough that I was able to turn the gate sideways and jump up and down on it and the bolt popped through the warped hole in the plate. Lesson learned: go with whatever works.


I was proud of myself for actually taking a full lunch today. I haven't been doing that, and have been putting in 10 or more hours during the week (not all labor hours, I'm including calls, runs to the home store, meetings, etc. in this) and another 4-6 per day on the weekends. Taking a break really helped, and I figured if I really was a contractor, I'd have a lunch break.

After lunch, I spent some more time demolishing the bathroom today. I have to admit, it was a bit discouraging today. The actual demolition is really fun - it's like solving a series of interlinked puzzles. But I was working on a wall of the bathtub surround and it took forever and I didn't even get one wall down. Anywhere there is tile is really tough - this tile was backed by an inch of cement and chicken wire which was nailed to the framing. It has to be dismanteld layer by layer and the chicken wire needs to be cut or nails pulled one wire at a time. I did make progress, it just feels like not enough. Also, I got so much done last time, I think my expectations were higher.

A nice milestone today - I signed the contract with the electrician and he installed temporary power! There are 4 nice, heavy duty plugs near the panel. Looking at my white board, the temporary power is a huge critical path item for so many jobs. This means I can have any other contractor start at any time! The electric in the house is so bad that he was relieved to see I had all the breakers off and he locked the panel so noboby could turn anything on.

As it got dark, I worked on filling my dumpster since it's being picked up Wednesday. I also made a stop at the home store to get a shovel and bucket. The small dust and scrap from the demolition is getting so thick that it's getting in the way. I want to get it all in the dumpster.

Finally, I spoke to the plumber tonight and checked his references. He should be starting by the end of the week. Now, I'm really tired! It was a long day filled with a lot of different things. Also, demolition is very physical. Try swinging a sledgehammer hundreds of times! Also, today I was working a lot overhead, making it even more of a workout.

Here is the half demolished wall:


Here is a shot of the nasty underlying structure of the tile: