Demolition Day. Finally! A big, big thank-you to my sister-in-law Heather and Chad, Chloe and Olivia, for lending Dan to us.
For the most part, these need no explanation (for the before photos, see here):
Two layers of tile: porcelain tile and underneath that, a tile fiberboard, age unknown.
A backerboard of some sort behind the fiberboard tile
The cast iron stack. A steel-covered electrical line runs behind it up into the attic.
Three layers on the floor: wide-plank pine, plywood, linoleum. The plywood and linoleum are contemporaneous with the tub we just took out. As shown here, above, they were cut to fit the profile of the front of the tub.
Three mysterious marks on the north wall, where the toilet and tub were, showing historical features of the room. The lower white splotch on the left was where a toilet sat--not the current toilet, but the old fashioned kind with a tall tank. The blue square in the upper middle was something hanging -- a mirror? No idea what the lower white splotch is on the bottom right, or the circle just above it.
A close up of the ghostly image of whatever was hung here. This also shows that the room was painted blue and then gold.
No idea what this square mark is, bottom right, on the wall above. A very old tub? The long horizontal cut in the plaster, showing lath, is where the current tub was edged into the wall. But something was there prior to the current tub.
The wide-plank pine floor, with plywood yet to be taken up on the upper and lower righthand areas. The part of the wide-plank pink that was covered by plywood and thus hasn't ever been exposed to water from the toilet or tub, is unfinished and looks virtually new. Very curious. More on that below.
The electrical goes up in one corner and here, we think, comes back down from the attic. The patch in the plaster to the right of the sconces suggests that it was dropped from the attic and then fished sideways. We'll know more in another day or so.
Keep your eye on the little metal patch in the floor, bottom right.
Ceiling where the half-wall was. All of the build-out came long after the room was finished. No surprise there. Fairly certain this was a bedroom before a bath and that this is one of the only, perhaps the only upstairs room that has not had its walls moved. They're all original solid, horsehair plaster and lath.
Sink wall
Again, sink wall. Here you can see the imprint of the old, wall-hung sink, with the mark remaining of the high backsplash. There are bits of original wall paper here--can put up a photo of that in a later post.
Close-up of baseboard, which we have had to remove, to level and tile the floor. We'll reuse what we can. It was all fastened with enormous square nails, presumably the same ones in the floor. Also, in the center-left of the base are flakes of what seems to be the oldest layer of paint, a pale minty green.
Close-up of plaster and lathe, where it is exposed. The plaster is a good half inch thick. Solid as a rock. Most of it will be restored.
Here is a close-up of that metal patch in the floor again, upper left. On the lower right, you can see a knot-hole, where the knot has fallen out. We were trying to puzzle out why the original wide-plank pine floor is unfinished and looks totally new under the plywood overlay. The wide-plank pine is fastened with square nails, so it has to be original. And the plywood can't have gone down until plywood was invented. Ergo, the wide-plank pine was covered, somehow, from the time when it was laid until the plywood went down? Dan's theory, based on the metal patch, is that it was covered with something soft, something that required a knot-hole to be covered. Not wood, then, but carpet?
Square nail heads
Patch again
Freshly washed down, our new garden ornament!
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