Ok, Dan, come out of the closet. Lol. earlier, Dan Rossi, wrote: > > >Those of you old timers on the list will remember one of my very first >home projects. This took place between Christmas and New years of 2005. >There was a large closet in the master bedroom approximately six feet >wide, and nearly three feet deep. However, there was just a single 24 >inch wide swinging door at one end of the closet. The door wouldn't open >all the way since it hit the radiator. The bar for the clothing was >hanging in the middle of the closet, front to back, and so this closet had >the worst use of space, and the worst access you could imagine. When you >opened the door, you would see the left 24 inches of the bar. 48 inches >of the bar were to the right of the door, so you kind of had to shove your >way into the closet and to the right, to get to anything that had the >misfortune of migrating to that end of the bar. Totally useless. > >So, I ripped out the entire wall, installed sliding doors, put an upper >and lower bar in, closer to the front of the closet, put shelving behind >everything against the back wall, and built a large shelving unit in as >part of the system. It is now a much more usable space. > >Well, the closet in the small bedroom, soon to be the nursery, is even >worse. It is only barely deep enough to hang a hanger, and at that, the >tips of the plastic hangars touch both the front and back wall, so god >help you if you actually hang any clothing on the hangars. > >It is five feet wide, and less than 20 inches deep. It also has a stupid, >useless, 24 inch wide door at one end. So in this closet, if anything >shuffles to the right of the door opening, it is truly gone, because you >can't even force your way into the closet to reach that stuff. > >Well, that wall is now gone. Over the weekend I decided to rip it down. >I first ripped off all the trim around the door, along the floor, all the >trim inside the closet, the shelf, the hanging bar, dot dot dot. > >I used my circ saw with a cement board blade on it to cut up the wall at >the right end of the closet on the outside wall, and then across the top >to the top of the door opening. I couldn't work the saw inside the closet >to do the same, it was just too tight. I started trying to pry the >plaster off from the outside, but the edges just crumbled. So, I got >inside the closet and just ripped down the plaster willy nilly. Some of >it came down in large pieces and some came down in many many many tiny >chunks. > >Let me explain the plaster in this house. It is some kind of precursor to >drywall. Breeze called it Beaver Board. It is bands of precast plaster >about a foot wide and maybe as long as six or eight feet. They are >nailed, horizontally, to the studs. The seams between the boards are >plastered, then a heavy vinyl sheet, like wallpaper is glued over >everything. > >Well, after ripping down the inner wall, I was able to gently pry off the >outer boards from the inside. They came off nicely, but were heavy as >hell. > >I was then left with two 2X6 studs, on edge. I cut through them with a >hand saw at the tops. They were toe nailed into the nice hard wood floor >at the bottoms, with six nails in each stud. > >I am going to build out the frame of the new wider opening so it stands >about three inches proud of the wall, then hang wooden, bi-fold doors. > >After talking with a neighbor, I have decided to rip down the vinyl stuff >all over the room as well, and strip the paint from the trim. I would >like to remove as much of the lead based paint from the room as possible. >yes, ripping down the wall paper stuff, will throw some lead dust into the >air, but I will be sealing the room off from the rest of the house, >putting a box fan in the window, blowing out, wearing a full respirator, >and ripping up the carpeting when I am done. Plus washing down all the >walls before having it painted. > >I've got three weeks before the little angel arrives. OK, I've got three >weeks before she is supposed to arrive, but they tell me it could happen >any day. I asked Teresa if she couldn't hold out until like February or >March. My black eye is heeling nicely. > >-- >Blue skies. >Dan Rossi >Carnegie Mellon University. >E-Mail:<mailto:dr25%40andrew.cmu.edu>[email protected] >Tel:(412) 268-9081 >
John [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
