Last weekend I started tearing apart the bedroom closet. The closet is on an outside wall, abuts the bathroom, and has the bathroom pipes running thru it. It gets very cold in the winter. That is easy to forget in the warmth of summer, but with cold weather arriving, I found a lot of cold air coming into the bathroom. Since I had pretty much everything I need for a small project like a 2' x 3' closet, I got started.
At the start of the demolition, I took off the crown molding and found a huge air gap between the ceiling and wall sheet rock.
On tearing out the outside wall, I couldn't believe I had forgotten how the builder had never put plywood in the upper 8-9" of the outside wall, so it directly lets in cold air and wind from the eaves. ARRGGHH - it was in the low 40's and I had to hurry and scab in some plywood!
I caulked in around all the studs to stop air filtration and let it cure until Sunday early afternoon (I had a HOG meeting in the morning). I did roll on two layer of paint on the door wall and the back wall since I wasn't tearing those out. That took quite a while as the closet it so small that I ended up using a small 3-4" roller in order to have room for me, it and the step stool.
When I got home Sunday, I installed 1" rigid foam insulation along the outside wall and caulked all around it.
Since it was in fairly good shape, instead of tearing out the ceiling sheet rock I added rigid foam insulation to the inside. It shortens the ceiling, but since it's not like I can crawl up there thru the 18" door, I don't care.
The caulk had to cure, so I was pretty much done until today. This morning I went down into the basement to cut a piece of fiberglass insulation for the wall, and found that the only roll I had left was R19. Great, no, not really, I have to have R13. So I gathered up the trash and did a dump run, then stopped at the local hardware store and found they only had R11 - at $36+ per roll. AMG - that is about twice as much as I can get at HD. Alright then, they just made it worth the drive to Concord (30 miles). On my way, I decided to stop at the next town over and see if their hardware store had anything.
Ahh, lifesavers - they had R13 insulation and for $17/roll. Although a couple $$ more than HD, the drive time and gas would eat up that, so I happily gave them money and was back home shortly. I installed the fiberglass insulation.
Then I sheet rocked over the rigid foam on the ceiling.
Then I started on the floor, which is over the garage at lets in at least as much cold air as the wall did. I put down a layer of rigid foam insulation, then used that as a template for the plywood to go on top.
Then I pulled the plywood back up and used it as a template for cutting a scrap piece of linoleum. I used double-sided tape to secure the edges, then put the construction down on the floor.
Lastly, I sheet rocked the outside wall.Yes, that is two different colors of sheet rock. I was making the most efficient use of the drops from other projects and the only difference is the purple is for damp areas (like bathrooms) and the white is for living areas.
I still have to tape and mud, then paint and put up the clothing rod and shelving, but I'm happy with the progress I made today.
Aha! So that is what made the jog in your bathroom wall, next to the sink cabinet. Not a very large closet; but, surely worth the effort to do it up right. Well done!
Elder Bro came in last night & will leave around noon, tomorrow. He and we send best wishes. BTW: My Elegant Friend was pleased to get well wishes from you and wanted me to return with a "Hi" to you.
Posted by: Cop Car | November 12, 2016 at 07:57 PM
It just occurred to me that your closet is about the same size as the bedroom and coat closets at Vesta: the difference being that the front bedroom, originally, had two of those closets side-by-side which I combined into one closet. The back bedroom had only the one closet, so I can picture the size even had I not seen the jog in your bathroom wall.
Posted by: Cop Car | November 12, 2016 at 08:10 PM
All 3 closets in this house are the same size - so I have a whopping 18 sq/ft of closet space :)
Posted by: bogie | November 20, 2016 at 08:53 AM
Older houses didn't really have bedroom closets - people hung what few clothes they hung in a free-standing wardrobe chest. You may recall that your grandparents' home in KCMO had a walk-in hall closet, but the guest room had no closet and the back bedroom had a closet about the size of yours. Bedroom closets were a new-fangled invention 100 years ago! I don't know how rich people lived; but, most of us didn't have enough clothes to need much closet space! In college, one of the first things your dad & I bought was a metal wardrobe closet.
OTOH: In MY grandparents' home, there were hooks for clothing in the hallways, in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the pantry, and behind/on the back of doors in the bedrooms. (I have hooks on the wall and on the back of the door in my sewing room and on the wall behind the door to my den in this house!)
Posted by: Cop Car | November 21, 2016 at 06:04 PM
P.S. The two cedar chests have a history. My dad built a wardrobe from cedar wood. When my sister died, Mom had Dad tear the wardrobe apart and make the two chests from the wood. The wardrobe reminded Mom too much of my sister. (I don't recall why that was true.)
Posted by: Cop Car | November 21, 2016 at 06:07 PM