Starting the Bathroom: SubFloor

With the roof done, the scaffolding down, the balcony cleared and the downspout finished, it's finally time start focusing on the inside of the flat!

The first line of business will be to build our shower - but of course there is lot to be done before starting work on the actual shower. When we were leveling the floors back in January and February, we left out a few areas and never finished the sub-floor in the bathroom. So the first task will be to build and level the sub-floor - once that's done, the wall framing can go up and the initial plumbing (called roughing) can go in, followed by the waterproofing and tiles...

August 11th -montage of the bathroom before starting work

As noted in our posts about leveling floors, the first task here is to set up level string lines and then cut leveling strips from wood that matched the level line. Once those strips are cut, they are screwed into the wood joists. After they are all leveled, the plywood sub-floor is measured and cut into place. So far so good. Once the plywood goes on it needs to be screwed into place - and that's where the drama started...

The area that needs to be leveled - the previously completed areas are to the right and left

August 12th - the leveling strips over the joists and plumbing

August 12th - the plywood subfloor cut and positioned in place

So before telling you what happened, let me just explain that driving a screw into plumbing is apparently a very common DIY mistake - even professional builders do it. It's so common that a few days later, our building control inspector sheepishly admitted that he'd done it a few times himself! So if you're guessing that I drove screw into a pipe while fastening the sub-floor....you're right...I was working my way through the sheet, when i suddenly heard a sickening hiss...not too loud, but definitely there. It stopped me in my tracks, and it was only about 30 seconds later, when the water started shooting everywhere, that I realized what I had just done!

So I quickly removed the plywood, saw the hole, ran to the kitchen and shut off the main water valve for the flat. Surveying the mess, I realized it was not too bad and quickly soaked up all the water with paper towels and rags. Our trusty fan-heater was positioned to help dry everything, and within 30 mins there was no sign of the leak. In the meantime I had called our local handyman Alan - who again (!) saved the day by repairing the hole in about 20 minutes - so we managed to get it done before "Aglaya" came home to a soaking situation...

The "hole"- just to the right of my thumb...

The patched pipe - gotta be more careful from now on

So after all the excitement and stress I decided to take the rest of the weekend off, and resumed work on Monday. To prevent another incident like this, I carefully located and measured out the locations of all pipes and then drew their positions onto the plywood. To be extra safe, I also marked the joists, and then heavily marked the areas to avoid. I think this will be a new practice moving forward...

August 14th - the danger areas drawn on the plywood

The finished sub-floor - approx location of shower wall shown by the 2x3 on the floor

What about that Downspout?

In the last days our Marathon, I realized that if i wanted to catch my flight back to NYC something had to wait - something that was not critical (and something that would not leak or cause any trouble) had to be put on the back burner for when there would be more time. I ended up deciding to hold off on installing the downspout for the gutter that would be located over our (now reclaimed) balcony.

The completed dormer...but no downspout for the new gutter

Of course...it turned out that not having that downspout did cause a leak! Before we reclaimed the balcony it was full of debris - and because the downspout was letting water fall onto the balcony, the water ended up pooling as it could not drain properly (with over a ton of debris in the way!). Of course right where it decided to pool, was exactly where there was a hole in the old flashing around the balcony door....so the water leaked into the building's stairway ceiling. Since I was not around, our local handyman came to the rescue (again!!!) He determined what was causing the leak and  cleared a path to allow the water to drain, while "Aglaya" temporarily patched the hole in the flashing...

Because of this little incident, installing the downspout became a priority. We had to order a proper ladder in order to do this task safely, but once it arrived I was pleased to learn that I would actually be able to reach the gutter! The actual work was relatively simple: locating where the pipes would run, setting the angles, cutting the existing downspout to the correct length, drilling holes for the anchors, cutting the new pipes to length and then finally installing the pipes...

After some geometry, the existing downspout is cut to the correct length

Setting the angle for the pipe

Positioning the pipes so they aligned

Reclamation!

After a month in New York "recovering" from finishing the roof and that mad dash we called the Marathon , I'm back in London for more. Happily this trip won't involve too much continuous labor as tomorrow we'll be heading out of town for a friend's wedding.

The Dump: AKA our Balcony

Today's goal was to reclaim our balcony and the loft: the balcony had been our main dumping ground for roof debris over the last few months; the loft was suddenly so completely full of debris in the scramble to clear the scaffold before my flight last month that we literally could not walk through it!

Our poor balcony viewed from the Dormer above

The Loft - drowned in debris

Rather than hire a skip (known as a dumpster in US) we decided to go with a company that brings a truck with two guys to help for roughly the same price as a skip. Considering how much debris we had to remove - and that we don't have a laborer - this turned out to be a great deal. We also had an extra set of hands as our house-guest (AKA my mum) was back, and eager to help.

So we ended-up working in two teams - my mum and I were up on the balcony (one person pulling things off the pile - the other bringing them down to the 2nd floor landing), and the guys from the rubbish removal company brought everything from the 2nd floor down into the truck.

Pulling things of the pile of rubbish

It must have taken about 2-3 hours, but we completely filled their truck with probably 9 cubic yards of debris - that's probably 1-2 tons! So after these exhausting few hours...we had our balcony back!

Look - the balcony actually has a floor!

The view from above

After returning from our trip, we were finally able to enjoy the fruits of our labor...quite literally!