That said, your contractor should pull permits for the work they perform on your property (assuming permits are necessary). If you curious about why that's necessary, here's one article of many to illustrate!
I'd worked with my contractor in the past with few issues and wanted to work with him again to move the wall for the bathroom about 8 inches further out. As a 5' 6" by 6'6" bathroom, a transformation to 6' 2" by 6'6" makes a surprisingly big difference!
Planning a complete gut and remodel of a bathroom takes a while to plan. Think through the dependencies - the things that need to happen before something else can - well in advance!
 |
| This is what the floor looks like when you're planning for fixtures |
During my planning phase a few months back, I spent plenty of time looking through the layout with contractors, planning fixtures, etc. We figured out the most space I could possibly add for the bathroom (from an adjacent bedroom) was eight inches if I still wanted enough room for casings on both doors into their respective rooms. The door into the bathroom then moved as close to that wall as possible, about six inches to the right.
It was rather painful to get the permit with my contractor but well worth it. Eventually, with about 5 hours, a to-scale drawing of the entire second floor (yes, to move a wall eight inches), adaptation for a bigger door to meet code (because it makes sense to have a wheelchair accessible bathroom on a non-wheelchair accessible floor, right?) and lots of questions from the city, we had a permit and could get to work!
This is where we started:
No, it's not normal to have cracked, paint-dripped beadboard on your walls, an air duct in the shower or a tub with the taps on one end and the drain on the other but these were all real-life scenarios in just this bathroom, I promise you.
To move the right wall over, first I had to take down the medicine cabinet (wired into the wall - those sconces are built into the medicine cabinet) and detach the plumbing for the sink. Because the sink was an S-trap (where the drain goes straight into the floor instead of looking like a P that goes into the wall before dropping into the ground) I could mess with the wall without having to get everything out first. For the record, S-traps are illegal because they could allow sewer gases in),
Starting with the closet in the room we were making slightly smaller, I got demoing. If you're taking out a closet like this, remove all of the wood pieces and hooks first using a screwdriver or drill and a hammer and crow bar and remember to wear a mask, gloves and eye and hearing protection!
Once all of the wood's out, the easiest way to break out drywall is to kick it out. After making a small hole to make sure you're not directly on a stud, take the flat of your foot and kick straight out at the wall.
After removing the wood and drywall and carting them out to the dumpster, down came the plaster and lath, then the plaster on the other side of the wall.
A little more yet...
 |
| No, it's not load bearing, yes, the electrical was off! |
And we had, well, no wall!
In my personal opinion, this took about 3 times as long as it should have but, occasionally, we hit such bumps.
Once it was all down, I could get to rebuilding.
The wall took no time to get up (top piece, bottom piece and studs every 16 inches on center) and pass inspection!
Now to get the rest of the room demo'd... how does one remove a 400 pound tub exactly?
No comments:
Post a Comment