Just call him sparky: Demo is complete!

Tom cuts through galvanized iron pipe in the area behind the toilet and vanity.

Hi all, apologies for not updating in so long. Sometimes our full time jobs and commutes and appointments and dogs just take up all of our time! I know I have some catching up to do here. Hopefully by the end of the week I won't be blog-dragging any more. :)

The big project, our guest bathroom, is our main focus these days but even so, we can only really work on it on weekends. So with one day last weekend and two days this weekend we have officially completed demo as this Sunday draws to a close. Tom spent two hours yesterday and about five hours today to cut through 50+ year-old galvanized pipe and drag it to the truck for the dump. That stuff was HEAVY!

Here's the wall behind the toilet/sink after Tom finished that fireworks display. Pipe is gone and ready to be re-plumbed!

Why did we remove the galvanized iron pipe? Well, basically because a plumbing contractor told us that was the right thing to do. See, our pipes were a conglomeration of galvanized iron and copper on the older parts of the house, and plastic on the newer additions. The plumber advised us to leave the copper alone but remove the iron pipes and replace them with plastic. Tom listened politely and then decided to do the work himself. He does that a lot--he picks the brain of the pro to see if we really need to pay for the work to be done of if it's something Tom can do himself.

Here's pipe cut and tied as Tom cuts that lower pipe from the bathroom below. I was really hoping that rope  held!

So anyway, it turns out galvanized iron pipe is REALLY difficult to remove and REALLY heavy. The plumber would have removed an entire wall but we were trying to avoid that. Here behind the bathtub area was this big heavy joint that gave us the most problems. Tom had cut it from the master bathroom below and we were trying to wiggle it free from the wall so we could remove it.

My job was to scream  if it looked like the big pipe was going to fall through the ceiling onto Tom's head as he cut it from below.

Here's what the hole looked like after Tom finally wrestled the big pipe out of there. That's our master bathroom down there!

 Here's the view from that bathroom below:

Oops! A bit more drywall repair than originally expected.

 This is where that iron pipe used to be. Its opening is covered by a margarine tub, and the wrestling is what banged into the drywall and cracked it.

Okay back upstairs for a few shots of the guest bathroom as it looks today.

   Definitely a blank slate, right?

Those are my blurry feet looking down at the floor. I guess I forgot to mention that when Tom was wrestling with 80-pound iron pipes, he was balancing on these floor joists. That's the ceiling sheetrock below the joists so if he had stumbled or dropped the pipes that would have been a bad thing.

Next on our list: a visit to the plumbing supply store for new plastic pipe. We're looking forward to building up instead of tearing down!