Coming OUT Closet

That's right. The walls of the closet were coming out. Our house was built in 1956 and in that era, insulation was like - "What are you trying to say?"

You know - "insinuation". Get it? It's a joke.

Anyways it was also an afterthought.
The houses of the day were double brick. That is. Cinderblock and then regular brick on the outside.

There's 1x2 slats to make a 3/4 inch air gap. That was our insulation. Thin air + gyprock and plaster. I found out later that lathe is the metal mesh strips they use to bind where the walls and ceilings butt together. Things you learn when you got dust up your nose and debris in your mouth.

We've been thinking about doing this for some time because the closet has two walls that are on the exterior of the house. And in the winter time we were getting condensation since warm air was hitting a cold wall and there was no circulation in the closet. Also we've got enough coats and jackets and shoes to outfit a medium sized Croatian village (from babies to adults).

The problem: we were getting mould in our closet. From the condensation on the walls. We threw out some jackets because they were ruined.

So with hammer and crowbar and a beer in hand. And no kids or mamma's in the house for a week. I began to tackle the job. Never having done anything like this before I asked a lot of questions to the folks at Rona, my brother Mel (I even asked if he wanted to stay at the house for week to help me, but he refused - DAMIT) and my neighbour Joe.



So they told me do things like put up a plastic sheet to limit the dust from the demo. But my old shop-vac got around it by spewing like Mt. Pinatubo. I was vacuuming some of the little debris and noticed behind me that the shop-vac was spewing out dust in 4 different directions for complete coverage. DAMIT!

So much for trying to keep the rest of the house relatively clean.



I have to say I have a new found respect for drywallers and bricklayers. They make it look so easy and then when you actually get around to trying it. It takes a lot of skill. No wonder they call it 'skilled trades'. DUH.

So putting up drywall was a lot tougher than I thought. Having a lathe and plaster house where the walls aren't always square really makes it even more funner (as the kiddies would say it).
Good thing there were no kiddies were in the house cuz I was cursing like a construction worker.

Anyways, I'm done. Feel pretty good. Even Tresa was surprised that I knew what to do.
I didn't, I just went slow and asked people what I was trying to do and what I should do, and whether what I was doing was right, and I also visited Rona 3 times a day.

I made some mistakes but this is a closet so it's a great place to learn.
I didn't realize taking out the closet was so tough.

Now the bathroom.