week 7: december 19-25, 2011

one thing is for sure --  mike's crew always moves quickly.  when we came home monday after work, they had already put the framing up in the extension for the garden level bathroom!  having the room chopped up again further strengthened our resolve to look into moving the bathroom into the existing pantry space.  we measured the dimensions of the bathroom in the extension and checked to see what they were in the pantry.  the two areas had the same width (which meant the bathtub would fit), but the depth of the pantry was about 15 inches less than that in the extension.  to our untrained eyes, it still felt like it was large enough.

we took some more rough measurements and sent an email to anastasia monday night letting her know that we were reconsidering the bathroom placement and that we wanted to know how quickly she could assess whether it was actually feasible or not given that the crew would probably be doing additional work in that area during the week.  the next morning she sent us a revised floor plan and compiled a list of questions for mike regarding the impact this would have on the required plumbing, connections to the cellar, etc.  the crew removed a small section of the drywall to see what existing plumbing work was already there.  a flurry of messages went back and forth among the four of us throughout the day.

with some creativity, anastasia and mike found a way around a potential issue related to the location of the new ducts in the cellar and the required waste pipe from the bathroom.  they also confirmed that none of the existing cabinetry on the kitchen's south wall or in the butler's pantry (which was on the other side of the north wall of the pantry and important to us to retain) would be compromised.  in the family room, anastasia suggested that we could keep the double window as proposed but that it should now be centered on the west wall.  she was also looking into the best way to re-route the ducts that were necessary to supply the rear parlor as they were originally going to fit through the bathroom walls when it was located in the extension.

when we got home tuesday evening, we went back to the extension to look at the bathroom framing.  the more we thought about it, the more we realized that we really preferred the larger room and agreed that it would make for a better family room if we moved the bathroom to the pantry.  it was a big leap of faith as we had to pull the trigger one way or the other without having a complete assessment of the impact on our budget....but we knew in the long run, we would be much happier if we did so.  we let mike and anastasia know that we had decided to change course mid-project and that they could proceed from here with the new design plan.

click here to see the revised garden level floor plan.

examining the existing
pantry plumbing

old bathroom window
is boarded up

framing the bathroom
in the extension

in terms of the rest of the house, the sub floor was placed in the parlor floor powder room and the old drywall was removed in preparation for the new walls.

in the cellar, more HVAC progress continued and additional ducts were installed in the northwest corner.  the space between the beams on this side is more narrow than in other places, so the ducts didn't fit neatly between them and hung lower than hubby desired.  this was one of his sticking points and he was convinced that they could find an alternative route to make it work, so we added that to our list of things to discuss further with mike and anastasia and reassess.  she confirmed that the shop drawings did not depict that the duct placement would be below the beams and that she would work with mike and the HVAC engineer to locate between the beams where possible.

looks like smaller ducts could be moved
over to the left to fit between the beams

w
we made all of the final decisions on the plumbing fixtures for both bathrooms and got a quote from the supplier for the toilets, sinks, faucets, bathtub, and shower elements.

anastasia and mike were also coordinating all of the changes that needed to be incorporated into our amendment to be filed with the landmarks commission and DOB, including the relocation of the bathroom on the first floor, the changes we'd made previously to the fixtures in the master bath by adding the separate shower/wet zone and removing the second sink, putting in an exterior gas connection for a grill, and the location of the existing fireplaces.  mike confirmed that gas would be easier to rebuild than wood-burning, so now we needed to decide which ones to reactivate.

we left thursday morning to spend the christmas holidays with hubby's family.  we hoped that we hadn't derailed too much of the immediate work plans for mike's crew in the coming days given our bathroom relocation decision, but we were excited to see what else would have been started (or completed!) by the time we returned early the following week.