American Foursquare Remodel 4 - Dining Room Ceiling, Part 1

These BEFORE photos of the dining room were taken on October 18, 2009:

Facing east - toward the kitchen

Facing north - the 3-window bay

Facing south, toward the parlor

Facing west, toward the front door

Note the narrow space between the built-in china cabinet and the window on the right.

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On October 30, 2009, I was called at work by a panicked employee of Barrett Floors: there was water gushing into the basement from the second floor bathroom. Toilet. Mind you, I had basically just arrived at work about an hour before the call, after having met them at the house to let them in.

When I arrived back at the house, the two men had already shut off the water main and had the 'flood' under control with the wetvac. Trying to gather my wits, I wondered who the hell I was going to call; I was an apartment dweller for the past 10 years... but here, I was on my own.

I opened the yellow pages and - *POP* - I saw the ad for Gem Plumbing. Of course! I even started to hum their catchy jingle... 8-6-7, 5-3-0-9... Gem Plumbing & Heating spends a gazillion dollars in the Providence radio market. The Gemma sons - owners of the family business - and daughters are active in breast cancer awareness and fund raising since the death of matriarch Gloria Gemma. I was happy to call a reputable company with a well-developed civic conscience...

Arriving within 3 hours - while the floor sanders noisily transformed my floors - the plumber diagnosed the problem as a cracked stack pipe. A what? The main pipe that carries waste water from the tub, sink... and toilet, down to the basement, and out to the sewer line. Uh oh. He said he couldn't actually do the work; it required a salesman project manager to confirm, estimate price and book the work. Tomorrow. Greaaaaaaaat.

When I spoke with Guy, I discovered I knew his father - wow, small world! - who was also a plumber, and who occurred to me as an option to call to get another bid. But, I learned, his father had retired and the business was gone. My short list got even shorter.

Guy confirmed it was the stack pipe. Since it was cast iron, he also recommended the dining room ceiling be opened up to check the bathroom plumbing; if they were old lead pipes as he suspected, they could be damaged when the stack pipe was disturbed. I approved.

But what about the ceiling repair? I didn't want a patch in my new home - the old ceiling looked perfect. So we discussed applying sheet rock over the entire ceiling. $$$$$ but I know me - I would never be happy with visible seams and bulges from a patch. Guy assured me I would be happy... but the final estimate would have to wait until the ceiling was opened to assess the full scope of the work. We were talking a couple of thousand dollars though. *gulp*

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Some of the paneling on the basement wall had to be removed to allow fuller access to the stack pipe. (Of course, the pipe couldn't be located in the unfinished portion of the basement!)

There was another HUGE surprise waiting behind the wall: a wide open crack almost the full vertical length of another section of the stack pipe!

 

...gross...

The two-man team from Gem Plumbing & Heating arrived on November 11. First, they had to open up their work area. (Oh! My poor perfect ceiling!)

After cutting their hole of about 4 feet by 4 feet, they discovered that the plumbing was actually already PVC. That was the good news.

The bad news? Apparently my parents had already done what I proposed to do: cover the partially destroyed ceiling with an entirely new one, as there was evidence of a second ceiling already in place in the rest of the room, with only one ceiling - much of which Gem had just removed - in the area under the bathroom. All work stopped. Guy the salesman project manager was called in.

New plan: since a third ceiling could not be applied, the entire dining room ceiling would have to be demolished, new furring strips / strapping applied, and then the sheet rock for the new full ceiling installed.  

Wait. Demolished?

Guy said he'd call the company's "Handyman" to come in assess the situation and help establish the cost for all this unexpected work. Tomorrow. The two-man team then opened the wall and went to work on the stack pipe itself.

The narrow "box" for the pipe was only as wide as the pipe joint - about 5 inches. It was also tucked a tad behind the china cabinet (see picture above). That meant the cast iron pipe could not be cut, and slid up and out as planned. Instead, it would have to be broken in place. In fact, the space was so tight that, as the plumber was hammering the front of the pipe, the back of it broke through the opposite wall.

Now I had a hole in the wall of my staircase, too.

And this was only the beginning.