Bathroom Redo | Part One - Demo

Some exciting (and dirty) things have been happening lately over here. Last week I mentioned that I had already moved our things into the basement bathroom. I have to mention how grateful we are to have a 2nd full bathroom in the house, even if it is a crappy basement one that we've been using for storage/construction clean-up for the last 2 years. When I was younger, my parents renovated the only full bathroom in the house, (knocked out a wall and expanded into an office, so it was a big project). Every night we went to the local wellness center/natatorium where we would shower. It sucked. So, even though the basement shower is half the size, and I have to keep a watch out for spiders, it's way better then community showers and locker rooms.

So, back to the progress. Unfortunately, I got knocked on my butt by another bad cold, so Mike was on his own for demo. Not that I would have been much help if I was healthy, it just sounds better if I was unable to help. He started by taking out the brick from the chimney behind the door. Remember this area:

This is what happens when we get tired of looking at all those people and their sheep.  Let this be a lesson to all the toile hiding in our house:

If you look down, you can see Mike tore out the bricks below the floor boards so that we can close up the bathroom and pick back up when we start the kitchen and tear out the next level.

The bricks were a messy job and I was sick and didn't feel like taking pictures, but we had about a half of a truckload when we were done and we took it over to our friend's farm for some soil stabilization.  We're trying not to rent a dumpster and reuse/give away as much as we can, so we're finding ways to get rid of everything as we take it out.

Mike wasted no time and turned around and tore out the vanity, mirror, lights, and toilet.

He put the toilet in the shower to drain before carrying it downstairs.

We had planned on taking out the vanity and cabinets carefully and donating them to ReStore, but they were actually built in place and impossible to take out as a whole.     

After this first day of demo, we Mike rested for a couple of days and before long, (actually 6 days later) he was at it again.  This time he attacked the wood backing behind the cabinets and mirror, the tub, shower surround, tile along the walls, and the wall bump-out.

This is to the left where the vanity and sink were, with the toilet to the right underneath the striped wallpaper:
 

This view used to be obstructed by a half wall with the tub and shower:

This is behind the door with the wall missing, and a giant hole where the chimney used to be.

And, an overall shot that makes it look huge!

It's come a long way in a short time from this don't you think?

We have a bit more demo, (I'm really excited to finally get rid of that soffit with the lights), before we start framing and adding the big things like the tub, but we're moving right along!