August 01, 2008
Bathroom update
Good news and medium news and bad news!
The good news is, after the first ceiling tile came down, subsequent tiles pull right off very easily. To the right is an image of the ceiling right now, with just a few tiles down; it'll take about fifteen minutes to pull the rest down, and another half hour to pull the staples. Hurray!
The medium news is, the old mounting for these was 1-by strips on 1' centres. This is good in that it makes the old tiles very easy to pull down, and it's more or less good in that it they could've been attached with adhesive or something. (Which would have sucked.) And wood (either strips or sheets) on 1' centres is just what I need to mount my new ceiling tiles! The problem is, the installers were lazy and started the tiles on the edge of the room, so that the width of the room has five full tiles and one 4" tile fragment. It really wasn't a big deal for the old ceiling, because it had a fine random-scatter pattern. But my new tiles are on 12" repeats, and it really needs to be centred in the room. Which means that where I need the boards is at 8", 1'8", 2'8", and so on, but where I have them is 4", 1'4", 2'4".... Sigh.
The bad news is, the ceiling tiles are cardboard... and were installed in 1956... and rip and flake when I pull them down (at least at the staples and tongue-and-groove joints).... so the odds are pretty good that I'm looking at the A-word again. After I took the photos, I closed up the room and from here on out it's Tyvek and a breather (I just bought fresh filters, the kind that don't say they're not for asbestos protection) until I get the ceiling and floor out. And the wall glue remnants, because I'm none too certain about that stuff either.
"Houston is not so much a city but a climatic disaster masquerading as one." --Matt Frei, BBC
Posted by blahedo at 12:53am on 1 Aug 2008