![plaster lath wall demo plaster lath wall demo](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c8/71/db/c871db389ba1fcc34c5aee095d7efaba.jpg)
My Dad and I worked on fixing the floating bathtub problem on our own. Joe was able to replace the toilet plumbing and the full stack down to the basement with new PVC pipe. This critical piece of plumbing was metal and was SO rusted out on the sides that it essentially made an open shit slide that connected to the toilet (are you picturing it?). If I hadn’t torn down all of the ceilings, I never would have found the corrosion to the toilet pipe and my kitchen would have been poo-city. I don’t have a before picture for the toilet pipe since I made the huge mistake of looking inside it and am scarred for life, so I’ll just describe the situation to you. My biggest problems? The main toilet pipe and stack were totally busted and my bathtub was essentially floating over the kitchen. The biggest benefit of tearing apart the walls and ceilings of a super old house is that you can see all the problems very clearly. It was the best thing I’ve ever done and it was so nice to finally be able to look into the kitchen and see something promising. Sometime during this stage, I just couldn’t look at that lime green and orange paint anymore, so I haphazardly slapped up a couple coats of the Benjamin Moore Half Moon Crest paint I was using as my base color for the house. The tiny leftover pieces of drywall, plaster, and lath along the edge all had to be removed piece by piece with some pliers. Then I was left with this wide open view of the hardwood floorboards upstairs, and this very rusty and gross ductwork. Then I would yank the loose lath boards from the ceiling and throw them on the ground. I was wearing glasses and a mask, but I definitely could have had a stronger mask. My technique for removing drywall, plaster, and lath ceilings involved aggressively hacking away at it with both hands on the crowbar. The sound of ceiling hitting the ground haunts me to this day. We worked in approximately five-foot-square sections and then tried to sweep everything up and haul the trash and debris outside. It really pays to have the right tools.Īfter Joe got the layers of ceiling busted open and rerouted the plumbing, my Dad and I were able to start breaking away the rest of the drywall, plaster, and lath ceilings. So he brought out some giant reciprocating saw and sliced through it himself, before rerouting all the plumbing. I tried to cut through the two layers of drywall (ceilings #3 and #4), plaster (ceiling #5), and lath (ceiling #6) to make a channel in the ceiling for him to tuck the pipes into, but I couldn’t break through all the layers with my hammer. Before he could get to work, he said I had to deal with another couple layers of the ceiling.Ī quick note about my plumber, in order to save me some money, Joe would leave all the prep and clean up for me to handle, so instead of paying him to sweep up the mess or cut some holes, I pay him for the things I can’t do myself.
![plaster lath wall demo plaster lath wall demo](https://www.archilath.com/img/expanded-metal-lath-brick-walls.jpg)
So I called my plumber, Joe, to come take a look at rerouting the pipes so that they weren’t just taped to the ceiling with packing tape and were actually tucked into the ceiling like they should be. It was pretty clear that the drop ceiling was installed to cover up this very lazy plumbing job, and I definitely couldn’t leave the pipes shooting across the ceiling like this. My sister Jennifer and I got to work popping off the square acoustical tiles (ceiling #2) and the packing tape plumbing supports, and after that, we were left with these glue spots and plumbing that was getting in the way. I got one quick win by tearing out that cabinet to get better access to the refrigerator, but I was still left with a bunch of horrifying plumbing dangling from the ceiling:
![plaster lath wall demo plaster lath wall demo](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ac/ad/b9/acadb9b543164ac683b0164a0b59b173.jpg)
Now buckle up, because this is a long post with a bunch of pictures of hideous ceilings and piles of trash. In the last post about tearing out the cabinet, you can see a little bit of this CRAZY wallpaper and I didn’t call attention to it at all. Today, we’re talking about removing drywall, plaster, and lath ceilings that were hiding under the drop ceiling.