Pounding and Plumbing

I have looked at House #1 on the property map, satellite map from above, and street views, yet I had no idea House #1 was right next to Christmas Town.

Over Thanksgiving break, we worked at the house early in the mornings and afternoons, leaving before dark, so we could enjoy the evenings by the fire.  Last night was the first we've been at House #1 after dark. 
Wowzers. 

There are six inflatables and lots of blinking lights you can't see in this photo. 

It will be even prettier with snow tomorrow evening.  (That love of Christmas sneaks out again.)

Walt Kowalski is still working on the Waterworks in the basement.  (What's Waterworks?)  There was a hot water tank in the basement when we bought the house.  It's dented and looks a little rough around the edges.  Walt Kowalski has his doubts if it will work or not.

 

This is a during the plumbing process.  I forgot to get another photo last night.  Walt Kowalski now has hot AND cold pipes running to the tank. 

 

Holding his breath, he tested the tank.  The tank holds water!  When he flushed the tank, the water ran clean, too.  Now we need a little power to test the heating element.  Even if the tank only lasts a few more years, we'll take it. 

 

The area behind the hot water tank will eventually be painted.  The furnace is next on the list.  Until then, it's too cold to paint.  I need to call the gas company.  

 

In the meantime, with a little assistance from Walt Kowalski we successfully removed the tub.   He pounded and pounded and pounded and pounded with increasing hammer sizes and strength.  The darned tub wouldn't budge.  There were no screws or nails holding it.  There was nothing we could SEE that was holding the tub.  Obviously it was a magic tub. 

 

Enough of this dillydalling around.  Get the sawzall. 

 

As it turns out, it was a fiberglass tub with a mechanism that locked the tub to a track screwed to the floor.  We didn't own a big enough hammer to break the tub. There was no way we could have removed the tub in one piece. Excellent system, but you would never be able to remodel and reuse the tub. 

 

 

The mama of House #1 and I also removed the layers of floor in the laundry room.  (The room with the fan in this photo.)

 

 

The laundry room was easy.  A few small nails, a little prying and POP! up came the floor.  She even tackled the hall and front entrance floors. 

 

The kitchen is not so easy. 

 

In total, we have counted two layers of vinyl flooring, a 1/2 inch piece of plywood, another layer of flooring with a tar paper backing, and finally several sheets of newspaper dating back to 1955. 

 

The amount of floor isn't the problem.  It's the nails.  They nailed the plywood, which is now the middle layer, with twist nails in 1-inch increments around all of the edges and in 5-inch increments across the entire boards.   

 

They used at least 200 nails on each piece of plywood.  *sigh* They must have had concerns that the floor might accidentally float up to the ceiling.

 

With a flat, long-handled coal shovel, a pry bar and a crowbar, the three of us were able to remove a single 3foot by 3foot section of plywood from the kitchen floor.  We are going to need the digging bar we use to remove rocks from the garden. 

 

Digging in the kitchen.  That will be Sunday's adventure.