Tub and floor are no more

     We finally got the tub out. It took four men and a bruised toe, but we got it. It is now sitting in my garage waiting to be used for something constructive. I am up for suggestions.

I just came to the realization that all of the 1st and second floor has hardwood flooring underneath. Much of it is exposed and used in the hallway and in about one room per unit. This does open up some more possibilities for replacing the gross linoleum in many rooms. However, this hardwood floor has no sub floor; it is nailed directly to the joists. That isn't a big deal for the first floor, but it certainly doesn't lend itself to very good sound dampening between floors one and two. If possible, i'd like to put a layer of insulation, cause that is probably the best i can do without removing the floor completely.

As i tore out the flooring in the laundry room i discovered that the wall is falling apart. There is molding about 4 ft up from the floor so i am hoping i can get away with just replacing it to that point. It appears to be a different type of wall from that point up anyway. It comes off in large chunks, so removal shouldn't be too difficult.  I do wish i would have realized this before removing the rest of the floor. Floor removal would have been easier without the walls and now wall removal will take a bit more work without the floor. I don't want to do the sub floor before removing the wall so i guess ill just screw in some temporary plywood so we don't have to balance on the joists.

My wife and i will be temporarily moving into a top unit today. One of the perks of owning a multi-unit house is that we can live in one unit while renovating the next.

There are currently 2 units occupied and 4 unoccupied. The latest renter to leave left the apartment a mess. There is an old couch, lots of trash, and a disgusting bathroom. It is so bad that my wife wants to hire a professional cleaning service. I, however, have spent multiple weeks doing cleanup and repairs after hurricane Katrina. I will spare you the details, but trust me this unit is nothing compared to that. Still, we do have gloves and masks for a reason.

We cut down a tree and finally got the wood out of the tub and bathroom.

     There was a tree growing about 5 feet from the house and up against our white picket fence. Obviously, it needed to go. I don't know what type of tree it was, but due to its location and size i assume it was not intentionally planted. It is only about 16" at the base where three forks meet that are each 8-10" thick, but it reached higher than my two story house. Apart from personal safety, the most important thing is controlling the fall off the limbs/tree. We had about a 20 degree angle between the house, two power cords, and the neighbors house of which we had to land everything. By notching it the direction i wanted it to fall and having Stephen guide it with a rope, we avoided any property damage and landed every limb in the same spot. I left the stump about 3 feet out of the ground. I am not sure what to do with it now. Uprooting it with a truck would be problematic since it is surrounded by fence, and i'd rather not rot it out because of its proximity to the house and potential pest issues. For now i am happy. It wont continue to push out the fence and hopefully the roots wont get into and pipes or foundation.

     Due to its size, i opted to use a reciprocating saw (sawzall) with a wood cutting blade. I have cut and trimmed many trees in my day and i recommend using a sawzall if the limb is less that 12" thick. A sawzall is lighter, easier to control, safer to use, and battery powered. Since i climbed the tree for the top branches the maneuverability of the saw was quite nice. It was much easier to rest it on my leg or hang it from a branch than a chainsaw would have been. The drawbacks are limited battery life (we went through 2 batteries) and it does not cut as fast as. It probably added 15 minutes to our cut time of 1.25 hours. However, on smaller projects i think that extra cut time is offset by the time saved from chainsaw maintenance. (gas, oil, or power cord)

Now we have a big pile of limbs and branches behind our garage. Cutting that in to firewood will make a nice project in the future when other work gets scarce.

We finally removed all of the lose wood from the bathroom and are now ready to move the cast iron tub. That will be a fun update.
 
Progress will continue to be slow until i get everyone out of the house. Thankfully, one of the renters moved out last week and my wife and i intend to move in to the available unit by the end of this month. We will live in this unit while we fix up the unit we really want. For now, we just need to clean it up and move our stuff over. That is one of the very convenient things about having multiple units.

The only work being done to this unit

I hate plumbing!

Currently there is only one unit that is unoccupied.It is a very small two room apartment with a separate bathroom in the shared hallway.We plan to turn this unit into a common area for everyone and the bathroom into a laundry room with a half bath. Since everything else is occupied, i decided to start with the laundry room as my first task.
Here is a quick list of what i intend to do:
-Remove the cast iron tub.
- Wire and plumb it for a washer and dryer
- Replace the sub floor
- install a platform to elevate the the front loading washer and dryer
- re-paint
- fill the remaining wall space on that side with a counter for folding clothes
- install a clothes rack for hanging clothes the full length of the same wall.
- install tile flooring
- install a wash basin sink
- install an overhead light
- possibly replace some of the electric
 here are some "before" photos

 I would like to save the tub but i am not going to cut out a wall or door frame to make that happen. Nonetheless, before i can move it i must unhook it. That was made considerably more difficult since there was no shut-off valve for the cold water. After tearing up a third of the floor trying to figure out where the pipe comes from, we discovered that there is no way to shut off the water to this tub other than the main valve. That means, in order to remove the tub, i must turn off water to the whole house and install a plug. This is not a big deal for a small one-family house but it is considerably more annoying when there are multiple tenants. Since it was late and i was lacking the necessary plug, we decided to wait until the next day to unhook it.
At 11:00pm i received a text from a tenant informing me that water was coming through his ceiling. Apparently, in all of the moving around, we had managed to knock off some of the rust on one of the pipes and cause a slow leak. Since Wal-Mart was the only thing open at this time i bought some tape that claimed to stop leaks. Unsurprisingly, it didn't. Since the leaking water was not going to do any more damage (the drop ceiling piece had already fallen through) i told the tenant to leave a tub under it and i would fix it in the morning.

The next morning i bought the necessary supplies, turned off the water, cut the pipe and plugged the end that i thought provided water. I was wrong. Water came spewing out of the other end after i turned the water on. So, having only bought one plug, i switched it to the other side.
After turning the water on for a second time, i discovered that i had inadvertently knocked off the rust on another connected pipe that ran under the tub. So, by myself , i moved the cast iron tub (which was now full of the flooring and sub flooring) to the only corner left with a floor. I then tore up more of the floor to get to a pipe joint and finally plugged it.

 Then i turned the water on a third time and there were no leaks."And there was great rejoicing. Hooray!"

And that is the story of how i unhooked a bathtub.

Here are a few of the things i have learned:

-I hate plumbing

-If you can avoid it: don't even touch old plumbing unless you are fully prepared to immediately replace it.

- Don't mess with the plumbing while other people are living there.

- Don't ever assume you know which direction the water flows.

- I can finally appreciate pipe wrenches.

- Stephen Eldridge is a good helper.

- It looks like i'm going to replace the plumbing throughout the whole house.

- I really hate plumbing

Well, i fear that i have reached an impasse with the laundry room. The plumbing cant be replaced until everyone is out after January. Therefore i cannot lay the floor or do anything else until then. However, i still need to get rid of that tub. We shall see how that works out.

We bought a house!

I am going to attempt to chronicle the remodeling of our new home. Here is what i am working with:
- Built in 1910 this 3000 square foot home was converted in to 6 one bedroom apartments.
- I bought it as a foreclosure for $22,500.
- It currently has 5 residence but they will all be leaving by february.
- I plan to live in one unit, rent out 4, and turn one in to a common/game room.

Three days and 9 miles

My brother and I spent three days backpacking through Dolly Sods this weekend. Since I don't feel like using proper grammar or paragraph structure I will use my ol' friends the bullet points.

• We left Friday morning, returned Sunday evening and hiked roughly over 9 miles.

• In the same day we hiked in an open field, marshy bog, shallow river, a dried up river bed of huge rocks, over multiple hills, sparsely wooded areas, and brush so thick that we had to climb on it.

• We spent the last half mile of our hike climbing through and on top of mountain laurel.

• Saturday night we camped in an AMAZING spot that I hope to return.

• We stopped about every half hour to pick blueberries.
  

• I saw 2 deer, a snake, and caught & boiled 11 crayfish.

• We set multiple small game snares but caught nothing.

• Walking sticks are great tools. They help with stability and determining water and sod depth.

• My best hiking friends

  • Sleeping bag - $50

  • Knife - $25

  • Water filter - $75

  • Framed backpack - $50

  • Waterproof hiking boots - $125

  • Wool hiking socks - $15

  • Quick drying underwear - $25

• Yep, nothing like spending over $350 so one can “rough it” in the wilderness.

• Camelbaks are ridiculously convenient.

• We built lean-tos and I used sod as my roof.

• Tents are for females.

• Since it has a tundra climate it is great to hike in 70 degree whether in July.

• My brother lost 9 lbs and I went down to 140.

• It feels good to do something unnecessarily manly every now and then.

Ultimately it was a relaxing weekend of enjoying God's creation and brother bonding. I am an incredibly blessed guy.