The Bathroom (trim edition)

 Now that we've revisited where the bathroom has been, let's take a look where it is now.

I had met with the contractor (finally) and we'd hammered out an (expensive) agreement. Stabilize the underpinnings, straighten the roof line, add ventilation, gut the room. I had mentioned that I wanted to reuse what was appropriate, and that is how I started demolishing the bathroom while living in it.

It started with removing the trim to be stripped, sanded and primed. One thing led to another...

Everything green, and with trim.

So much green. I'd removed the door to get better access to the door trim.

This came off with only a little fight.

This fought a little harder, and took some tiles with it.

Very era-appropriate tiles.

Well, no time like the present.
I removed all the tiles as carefully as I could, and then the drywall from behind it.
I salvaged about 300 intact tiles, plus the matching fixtures.

Then I moved on to removing the bathroom cabinet. It had been painted over so many times, in this picture it's literally hinged to the wall only with paint up the outer left side. (It pulled off the wall shortly after this picture was snapped.)

The evidence of where the medicine cabinet was. There were a lot of coats of paint. I feel fairly safe saying that this room was originally varnished wood.

Things found behind the medicine cabinet and in the cracks of the tongue and groove.

My fearless helper.

As it currently stands.

It's fun to see the shadows of the old appliances in the paint levels on the wall - the tub used to be a free-standing claw foot, and a much taller toilet used to stand in it's place until it was all covered with drywall and tile. I'm running into an issue where the T&G walls were up first - then the floor and ceiling, which is nice if you want it easily seamless. It does make it a little more difficult to take down. That's sort of been put on pause.

In the meantime, I've been dealing with the trim and door - Sanding, fixing, and converting the door from a swing to a pocket door.

Started stripping. This is with scrapers and a heat gun (and a respirator) in the basement.

Window trim stripped up pretty well.

My latest addition. Inspired by a "This Old House" hack for filtering air for viruses (they used MERV 13), I made a filter to scrub my air in the basement. I used MERV 10, and it might have been overkill, but it does pull the dust down FAST. It's just four 20" furnace filters duct taped together with a sheet of cardboard for the bottom of the box, and a fan to suck the air through taped to the top. It really works great.

The reason I don't want to replace my trim. Look at the nice tight old grain. And it's actually 1". Modern lumber isn't actually it's stated dimension anymore. Go measure a 2x4 at Home Depot if you don't believe me.

I was so happy to find shellac under the paint on much of this - it strips so nicely with heat.

Compared - Left is stripped and sanded, right is "as found." It was so nice, I hated to prime it, but none of the other trim on the 1st floor is natural.

So close...

Done! And hit with a coat of 50% linseed oil and 50% turpentine.
This wood is so dry, I needed to try to condition it.

And now with a coat of the black can "Kilz" oil based primer. Not that I ever want to, but I hope that means it will be strip-able for someone in the future if they need it to be.

Next post - The Door, and how we will never talk in polite company about what has been done to it.