There has been much progress made on the bathroom these past few weeks. Some visual and much more non-visual. Photos of the only truly new wall and additional drywall work will come shortly, but today I want to talk about some more discrete improvements.
Sunday afternoon, yes Halloween, I spent about 4 hours crawling around between the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of the second tying up loose ends with both old and new plumbing. When the building was constructed there was originally no space between the floors, but as time passed and various owners of the building converted it into more residential living space the average ceiling height gradually reduced. On the second floor there are some rooms with a simple drop-ceiling installed 2′ under the existing ceiling height to bring the room dimensions, and area that requires heating, down to 8′-0″. On the main level, however, most of the lowered ceilings were constructed out of gypsum board and lacked commercial access panels.
Some damage above the drop ceilings
But wait! There is one access point! The only possible location in which to gain access, albeit through advanced contortion maneuvers, is a removable ceiling within a built-in display case in the middle of the dinning room.
My father, attempting to share the experience
During the time spent between dimensions we accomplished many tasks, installed a new shower drain, removed lead block on existing cast-iron soil pipe, prepped and installed toilet drain onto said cast-iron soil pipe, anchored PEX water supply lines, and addressed various HVAC ducts in need of attention.
Allowing the eyes to adjust back to normal daylight levels
The sole access point
While I, unfortunately, do not have photos depicting the time I spent in this unimaginable darkness, I do have some photos of my emergence back into the light which I will share with you now in photo strip format:
