Surprise! What else can I find?

Well, week 2 of the Theory of Chaos Project (aka Me and My Bathroom) started out ok. I now have the shower actually on-site in its entirety. Not assembled yet, but at least in the general area. Which is more than was possible this last weekend.

In other news, there have been more adventures of the type Surprise. As mentioned earlier, we have no insulation apparently anywhere in the house. For certain in the Master Bedroom, but now also there is no insulation in the Bedroom-that-shall-be-Two-Baths.

If you look closely, or click and make the picture bigger, you can see all the way down past the first floor to the foundation wall of the house. I was kneeling on the second floor with my head down the stud cavity. I also found out if you are not very careful when poking around in the wall, you can poke yourself with the sharp ends of the nails that hold the siding on. They really do stick all the way through the walls of the house! Good thing my tetanus shot is up-to-date.


In addition, there were also random wires-going-to-nowhere located behind the plaster in the open wall cavities.


As part of the project, we pulled up the carpet in this room. It was old and dingy and was actually the only room in the house with any carpet in it, so I'm pretty happy to get rid of it. We did find out, however, why the previous owners had laid the carpet. Here's what the flooring was underneath:

This was supposed to be a bedroom! Not a kitchen or den or basement! How dark and ugly can you get for a bedroom?!

The look of this room was enhanced even more when we pulled off the drywall from where the heat vent goes. We found out that the enclosure was about 2x the size that it needed to be. This is good news indeed - as we have the same bumpout in our den below and it takes up WAY too much space.

A closer look at the area where the heat vent is revealed some very 80s wallpaper. Pastel and seashells.
Imagine this coupled with that dark vinyl flooring. What a treat that room would've been to sleep in! This, however, was not the end of the surprises for the week. Oh no. Of course not. What was next discovered was that at some point an addition had been put onto the first floor. When this was done, the ceiling in the den was lowered about 16" from all of the rest of the house.


So, on the positive side, there will be plenty of space to run the plumbing and electrical in the Bedroom-that-shall-be-Two-Baths. On the negative side, when this addition was done, the doers just cut through the floor joists on the second floor as well as through the vertical studs on the side of the house. This means that apparently our 2nd floor has been hanging in space for some years now, held up only by the wonder that is "structural" plaster & lathe.

What next?