It’s finally happening: We have moved downstairs, so we can work on the upstairs unit. First: the hallway and stairs to upstairs.
It’s just going to get more ugly for now. Here’s how it started out:
The problems are:
The stairs are steep, and also have ‘winders’ (pie-shaped steps that turn the corner) near the bottom. Both make the stairs more dangerous, so I plan to at least resolve the winder part by making a landing and then extending the stairs three steps into the hall.
Also, the head room for the stairs is very limited, and it’s made worse because for some reason they left a rather small ‘door’ opening at the bottom of the stairs. I plan to open this up and to raise the ceiling above the stairs, so there is much more head room (I’ll raise it up to the underside of the roof).
There are other miscellaneous problems, like the wiring for the lights is in a pipe on the outside of the wall, the plaster surface is not uniform, and the trim is just a mess.
The photos below show the problem we had trying to get our couch downstairs through the stair opening. Surprisingly, we did actually manage to get it through.
It was quite easy to open up the top of the ‘doorway’. I still made quite a mess — but nothing like what was to come.
The extra pieces of wood around the opening turned out to be difficult to remove, and removing them made quite a mess of things. I also took the 1/4″ drywall off the walls: It had been used to cover the damaged plaster, but it had got water damage at some point (as most of the house has). The plaster underneath was in terrible condition.
First step in raising the ceiling: Tear off the lathe and plaster. This is going to be a lot of work.
I had to change the framing supporting the roof, and re-route the drain line for the kitchen sink. Also, the wiring for the bedroom had to be moved. And while I was at it, I re-wired the light over the stair and the dining area.
But more interestingly: One of mole’s clients wanted her to design all the posters in the San Francisco Civic Center MUNI station! They were only supposed to be up for a month, but now they are going to be up through the end of the year.
Back to the mess: In the photo above, I’ve finished re-framing to raise the ceiling, but haven’t got it closed off from the attic yet.
I jammed 3″ rigid insulation tightly between the old 2×4 rafters. The old wood is almost 4″ deep, leaving 1″ for a vent gap between the roof and the insulation.
Here’s the new ceiling installed. Doesn’t look much different from before I started, but there’s much more room overhead.
Switches installed, and walls patched (partially).
Here’s something that will be a challenge: Traditional Victorian corner details use a dowel attached at the corner. The the plaster stops at the dowel, but instead of just being a plain round corner, they put a reveal next to the dowel. I’m going to try to reproduce it here.