"We Pause this Restoration for Station Identification"

(Or something like that....)

I had to put this project on "Hold" for the summer (2018), as there were some issues with the house that needed to be dealt with.

What type of "issues"? HVAC, plumbing, and electrical, all of which necessitated my pulling down the ceiling in the Family Room and Bathroom.

First, since the carpet is relatively new, I had to lay-down some sort of protection:

"Ram Board" paper covered with 3/16" "Eucaboard". To be honest, I'm not really sure what "Eucaboard" is, but it's the least expensive 4' x 8' plywood-like sheet I could find at Home Depot.

After protecting the floor, I punched a quick hole in the ceiling where most of the issues seemed to originate....

(My wife thought it was funny to get an example of me in my "normal" state: With my head up my....uh..."ceiling"!)

But not finding anything significant or obvious, the next step was to pull-down the whole thing:

 

Toss it out the front window:

 And load it onto the trailer:

That's 1,300 pounds of 5/8" fire-rated sheetrock to get rid of!

The result:

Note the generous use of "flex-duct" in the pictures above, as well as the lack of duct hangers. Simply throwing ductwork up into the trusses, without hangers, and connecting them with only one screw (if any!), is a good example of the wrong way to do things!

So instead of working on the 1452 this summer, I fixed the ductwork:

Spray-foamed, and insulated, the rim joists:

Repaired the plumbing:

Moved (and correctly vented) the bathroom exhaust fan (I dropped it down for the 5/8" sheetrock after taking this picture):

Ran new electrical circuits throughout this potion of the house (everything was on one circuit previously!):

Installed an external FM antenna, and 20' mast, on the chimney (no pics), and ran quad-shield RG-6 cabling for the antenna, as well as Cat-5 for the computer in the basement workshop:

And when I was absolutely certain that everything was correct, I ordered new sheetrock (delivered!) from Home Depot:

I hired-out the job of installing the sheetrock, as there's no way my back would have been able to put up with it.

As of today (Sept. 2, 2018), the sheetrock is in place:

And the taping, "mudding", and texturing/finishing work is to begin on Tuesday, 9/4. (Not by me, by a drywall contractor.)

Oh. I also replaced the water heater this summer (replaced natural draft with direct vent).

Looking back on all of this, I guess I've been busy.

But as the saying goes, "The End Is Near", and I can get back to working on the 1452 in a few weeks!

In the meantime, I'll post some "odds and ends" that I finished-up before I tore the ceiling down.

(Someone get me a beer, please!)