Old House, New Home: July 2012

Here is a quick update on what happened after we had the en-suite bathroom stripped...

Firstly, we hired a double blade wall chaser and industrial vacuum cleaner from Coastal Tool Hire in Durban. They were very helpful and we will definitely go back there for any other power tools that we need to hire. You can check out there website here: http://coastalhire.co.za.

The Wall Chaser basically cuts 30mm x 30mm grooves into the wall (in my opinion looks like an angle grinder with two blades instead of one). We used this to cut grooves in the wall so that the pipes for our shower and basin would sit inside the wall. How hard could it be???? (This is going to be our slogan and we are going to print it really big and put it up in our house, it is the story of our D.I.Y journey: HOW HARD COULD IT BE?) The answer is usually: Way harder than we originally thought. :)

Before we could start cutting the grooves in the wall, we had a plumber help us mark out where the pipes for the shower and basin would be. Then the cutting started and it took a good couple of hours, because it wasn't just cutting with the chasing tool. It didn't cut deep enough into the wall so Stu had to go back with and hammer and chisel and knock out a bit more. Thank goodness we hired the industrial vacuum that attached to the chasing tool - even with the vacuum and a sheet stuck up over the door, there was so much dust.

After the walls were chased and we were happy with it, we started on the plumbing and building the base for the shower. This process took place over a weekend and then the Wednesday after that was a public holiday so we finished it off then. We kept all the rubble and bits of brick that came out from chasing the plumbing holes and used it when building the base of the shower.

Then the next weekend we plastered the holes - our first attempt at plastering and it didn't turn out too badly. It was very frustrating at first but once we got the hang of it it went well.

These pictures show the finished product after the plumbing and plastering was done.

The next step was to grind back the wall where we would be painting.

There were lots of lumps and bumps and old adhesive still stuck to the wall. We used the angle grinder with a sanding pad to grind it back and make it nice a smooth to paint on. This process was very dusty and took about two weekends to do. It was one of those exersizes that don't really show much progression but have to be done in order for the next step to take place.

This grinding stage also resulted in a trip to the emergency room. Not wearing gloves when using power tools can have awful outcomes. Somehow the angle grinder slipped and caught Stu's index finger. But long story short, he luckily didn't lose the tip of his finger and after two months it has healed so well you can hardly see the damage.

After the grinding was done we plastered the top sections of the wall with a thin layer of Rhinolite plaster. The below pictures show the end result.

After the Rhinolite had dried properly we primed the section where we were going to paint with a general plaster primer and waterproofed the shower section with Coprox Masonary Waterproofing. The Coprox was really easy to use and apply. All we had to do was mix the powder with the right amount of water and paint it on. While it was drying we had to spray it with a light mist of water just to help the drying process and cure it so that it didn't leave a coat of powdery dust. We did two coats of this and we had some left over so we painted it on the entire floor to just add some extra waterproof protection.