Dining room restoration

Project updates and progress reports
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vvzz
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by vvzz »

Mick_VT wrote:Okay, after a few weeks off I am about to fire up this project again. On the newly insulated exterior walls I have decided to replace the thickness of the original lath by using 7/16 OSB as suggested by another member here. Then I will put either 3/8 or 1/4 sheetrock over that.

So a quick question for you all though. Would you put the vapor barrier between the OSB and the insulation or between the OSB and the sheetrock?

:chores-chopwood:


This is a pretty debated topic in the building science world, but lately most respected building scientist recommend against vapor barrier:
http://www.energyvanguard.com/blog-buil ... r-Barrier-

Texas_Ranger
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by Texas_Ranger »

vvzz wrote:
Mick_VT wrote:Okay, after a few weeks off I am about to fire up this project again. On the newly insulated exterior walls I have decided to replace the thickness of the original lath by using 7/16 OSB as suggested by another member here. Then I will put either 3/8 or 1/4 sheetrock over that.

So a quick question for you all though. Would you put the vapor barrier between the OSB and the insulation or between the OSB and the sheetrock?

:chores-chopwood:


This is a pretty debated topic in the building science world, but lately most respected building scientist recommend against vapor barrier:
http://www.energyvanguard.com/blog-buil ... r-Barrier-


I can see his point but it seems a whole lot easier to prevent air leakage with a thoroughly taped vapour barrier than with plasterboard alone.

BTW, are air leaks around sockets and light switches considered an issue in Canada and the US? In Europe the entire boxes and wiring have been put inside the vapour barrier for at least two decades (2" firring strips on top of the plastic as wiring/plumbing space).

phil
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by phil »

In new buildings the boots are required. I never heard any mention of it in a rewire on an old house, maybe if you added an addition the new section would have to be to code. I guess it varies by area. I spoke to someone who had electrical rejected because they sealed holes made for wiring and the type of sealant was undetermined. I guess they were worried it might affect the plastic. I think you need the wall completely open and the wiring to be not run yet in order to install them, otherwise you'd have to pull the wires out of every box.

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Mick_VT
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by Mick_VT »

long overdue for an update here!

Progress has been slow the last few weeks, for no other reason that I have been distracted by other things. Current status is that I have finished the rough wiring, the exterior walls have had the thickness of the lath replaced with 7/16 OSB sheathing, I tore the false ceiling down to reveal a very unhappy remnant of the original plaster ceiling. That was removed and taken back to the lath as well. I then covered the ceiling lath with 1/4 plywood which will help make sure the drywall screws all hold even if I miss the lath, but also in the interim it stops random dust dirt, bits of plaster and rodent droppings from raining from above. :D Pictures below.
Gotta love the look of that old hand split lath!

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original K&T light location
original K&T light location
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Mick_VT
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by Mick_VT »

A few more pictures

Got one of these, as I no longer have a helper to hold things overhead - makes life much easier, even if it does take up half the room!

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Plywood installed
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Mick_VT
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by Mick_VT »

While opening up some of the lath to install some stud work to suspend a heavy lamp, I had a somewhat gruesome, but largely sad discovery.



This large and very, very dark stain is what I believe to be blood. There was a shotgun suicide in a bedroom of this house back int he 1940s. I had always thought it was in the room which is now the laundry, but I could find no evidence of it there when I refitted that room. without going into too much detail, an awful lot of blood was spilled (family accounts) (larger than it looks as the joist spacing is quite wide) , so I had always assumed it would have got into the floors. Well here you have what looks very much like the remains of that. On close inspection it is pitch black under a UV blacklight and has gray circles where there would have been drips. The remaining residue looks very much how blood would look after all these years. I said a few words before I sheeted it over again. It left me pensive and a little sad. I know most of the story behind the suicide and have a newspaper article about it too. It made it all very real and current.

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Rest in peace Emmett.
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Vala
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by Vala »

On the first part, nice job and I kinda think that green ceiling paint looked nice. I always told everyone that ceilings should be painted, they looked at me like I was crazy, saying white ceilings is the way to go, until I showed them some examples of old buildings originally having colored ceiling.

On the last bit, Wow, thats just... I have no words.

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Mick_VT
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by Mick_VT »

Vala wrote:On the first part, nice job and I kinda think that green ceiling paint looked nice. I always told everyone that ceilings should be painted, they looked at me like I was crazy, saying white ceilings is the way to go, until I showed them some examples of old buildings originally having colored ceiling..


Hey Vala, I like colored ceilings too - this one however was a little too much like chromate primer for my tastes, and likely only dated to the 1950s. there was evidence of it being sprayed on, and it also seems that at least in one place there were already big holes in the plaster (covered with screwed on plywood) when it was done.

The new ceiling will likely be an off white when I finally get it up there.
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Don M
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by Don M »

The stain is just part of the history of your house. We looked at a murder - suicide house a while back. No indication physically but it was disclosed. We bought a place with more land.

Texas_Ranger
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Re: Dining room restoration

Post by Texas_Ranger »

Spraying isn't that new - when we removed some of our original 1914 floors we found plenty of overspray in the original wall colours on the subfloor. They used pump sprayers that look very much like garden sprayers back then.

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