Post 28: Half Bath Re-routing and Re-installing

In our last post, we showed you how we tore down the furdown in our half bath.  

This time, we are talking about how we started to put everything back together -- "Phase 2."  I must warn you, this isn't a "pretty" post, but we do end up with four complete walls and a ceiling!

Phase 2: Re-routing and Re-installing

Re-routing Wires and Installing Can Lights

If you remember, when we took down our furdown, we realized that there were wires that were previously hidden by the furdown box.  

Now that the box was gone, we weren't sure if we could make holes in the studs without compromising the structural integrity of the room, so we called an electrician to make sure we were doing the job right.  He offered to re-route the wires and install upgraded can lights for a decent price, so we took him up on it.  Only thing was, we had to take down the ceiling to knock a few hours off of his price.  Alan agreed and brought down the ceiling in about 30 minutes!

This part of the project was done entirely by our electrician, but we paid close attention to see what we could do ourselves in the future.

To re-route the wires, he notched out a small section of the studs in the corner to fit the wires in, then he hammered in metal plates to cover up the holes in the wood and hide the wires.  (We are pretty certain we could do this part.)

Instead of re-installing our can lights, the electrician installed lower-heat LED bulbs that he said would last longer and take up less space in the ceiling.  Basically, he hooked up the new lights to the old wiring and screwed them in to the studs by their metal bars.  He placed the two lights caddy-corner across the room from each other so that the whole room was lit up.  (We probably could have done this ourselves since we were essentially just moving the lights that we had, but if we ever want to add recessed lighting to a room that doesn't already have it, we will definitely hire him out again.)

Mounting the Air Vent

Before putting the walls back up, we needed to re-mount the air vent in the ceiling.  Before, it came down through the furdown, so we just moved it directly up into the ceiling and faced it down instead of out.  Alan used a few nails to hold it into place and we were good to go!

Installing Drywall

I thought this part was really fun.  (Okay, I don't want to do it every weekend, but it was a pretty cool part of the project.)

We bought drywall and measured the ceiling and walls where we needed to put it up.  Then we measured where we would need to cut holes to leave openings for the lights and the air vent.  I made a drawing to reference to make this a little bit easier.

We marked this out on the drywall and used a jigsaw to cut the pieces.  Smooth. As. Butter.  I loved it.  We made sure to wear goggles and masks (that stuff sends powder everywhere).  

After we cut the pieces, we used drywall screws to secure each piece to the studs.  This really helped us see how much bigger the room looked without the furdown and made us feel like we were making progress.

One problem we ran into during this stage was that the holes for the can lights didn't line up exactly.  Even with all of our measurements, it was really easy to cut the holes a little bit off.  We were able to move the lights on the metal tracks and use the jigsaw to open up the holes a little bit, but we were going to have to figure out a way to fix this when we cut the paneling.  More on that later!

We taped and floated the seams of the drywall and then we were ready to install the paneling.

So again, we haven't gotten to a gorgeous room... yet!  Next time, though, we'll show you how we installed the molding and paneling and the room starts to come together!