Fourteen Steps To The Blue Door: Progress......and a setback

Well, I've had a pretty good week getting stuck in with Project Bathroom, but unfortunately I was a little bit gung-ho with exuberant ceiling plastering and I exacerbated an old back injury - enforced layoff for several days while it got better. I think it is my 60+ year-old body saying, "Hey, you're not eighteen years old any more, you know!" It's nearly better now, so I'm proceeding.....carefully!

Here's what I got done before I hurt myself:

Door and architraves removed, creating an opening between the laundry and bathroom (Love that un-building tool!)

Studs added to fill the cavity and gyprock cut to size for the opening.....glued and nailed in place. If you are wondering about all those little extra blocks - well, it's because modern stud timbers have considerably smaller dimensions than an old hardwood 4x2 from 1962! I had to improvise a bit to get flush surfaces on both sides to attach the gyprock to. It works. Solid wall.

..........and plastered.

The bathroom ceiling had this nasty, grotty, unevenly applied bubbly textured finish - it had to go! I wasn't sure quite how to deal with it. In the end, I decided the best thing to do was to re-plaster it. It's had one coat of plaster and it's working much better than I could have hoped. One more coat and it should be a fairly smooth finish. It won't be mirror smooth, but I'm confident that I'll get it acceptably smooth! Hopefully it won't all come down on top of me when I'm in the tub one day.

While all that was drying, I turned my attention to the laundry side (or as a friend of mine refers to it - the "butler's pantry" -not sure about that, but it is definitely more than just a laundry) This room was still in it's original dingy state with old cigarette smoke smells deeply embedded. It had a decorative wallpaper frieze around the top of the wall which I removed. Underneath was another one, which I removed. Underneath was another one.......but wait! The final one was actually a rather neat stencilled on design, and not a wallpaper frieze at all. I might keep it; I haven't decided yet. I washed the walls and ceilings down with sugar soap ready to paint when the plaster is dry and lo and behold the awful lingering smell has finally gone.