Day 2: Mousicles and More Surprises

Day Two of our remodeling project had just begun when our master carpenter Jim said to me, "Paul, you should come see this." I walked over to see what had caught his eye and plain as day was a mousicle. Yep, there was a dead, frozen mouse who had met his end while living in the spaces above the shower at some point in the distant pass. Jim had pulled down some insulation from where the ceiling of the shower used to be and the dead mouse, along with lots and lots of mouse dropping, fell to the floor. You can see me holding the little guy in the photo to the right of this text. It was clear that he had been dead a while. We quickly cleaned up the mess left by this mouse nest and Jim went back to work, demolishing what little the tile that remained in the space that used to be the shower.

Dee and I have been living in this house for seven years and we keep finding surprises. It became apparent soon after we moved in that the previous owners were not very adroit at home maintenance. Each time I began a home improvement project, I would find that they had done something interesting, such as painting over an electrical outlet instead of removing it. Also, at one time there were five incoming telephone lines for this house and it is quite a nested mess whenever I have to trace a phone jack. The demolition of this scond bathroom was no different: the walls hid surprises. The shower in this bathroom was always cold, and I chalked it up to the fact that three of the four walls on the shower were exterior walls. Well, once Jim pulled down the tile, I also saw that there was little to no insulation between where the tile used to be and the exterior walls. We also discovered that at one point in the area which was now the shower used to be part of the front porch. Yep, we found the remnants of the exterior brickwork on two of the shower walls. Jim will put lost of insulation between the studs so that will hopefully warm up the bathroom.

Demolition is essentially done. The vanity, sink and toilet are gone, and all of the tile in the shower area has been removed. I helped Jim pull up the underlayment that was under the existing white tile and found that there had been a slow leak from the valve which regulated the flow of water into the toilet tank. Thankfully, the underlayment absorbed all the water that had leaked because the floor joists which were exposed after the tile and underlayment were removed was bone dry.

Tomorrow Lance the plumber will return to rough out the plumbing lines. He will install new supply lines to the shower and the sink, and he will also plumb in the drain lines for them as well.