What we got accomplished...
Well, I've finally (sort of) recovered
from three (seven day) weeks of 16+ hour days of construction in Arkansas, so I can finally post some pics and text of what tod and I got accomplished in his shop...
What we needed to do was to come up with a layout that would have the least impact on work flow, wouldn't require relocating any of tod's large tools (dust collection, three phase, etc.), and would still accommodate a two bedroom apartment, with a full kitchen with washer and dryer, a full bathroom accessible from both the apartment and the shop, and some sort of 'living room'. So before I headed to Arkansas, I had tod run around the shop getting measurements and tool placements.
Armed with figures and photos, I spent some time in Sketchup and came up with the following:
That was the EASY PART!
When I got there, the first thing we had to do was start organizing and moving stuff around. After making/finding room, we moved several hundred board feet of various species of lumber...all to allow us to get to tod's 5' x 16' veneering table. Once we could get to and around the table, we had to partially disassemble it for its move. The new plan called for tod's 'retail showroom' to be turned into a 'veneering room'.
Here's the veneer table in its old location:
...and here it is in it's new home:
With space cleared, it was time to demolish the two existing bathrooms. One which tod used as storage, the other with only a commode and sink was the 'shop' bathroom. We tore out the existing fixtures and partition walls:
.....
...which allowed us to get to the existing plumbing in the slab. Then things got 'interesting'..
We had provisioning for a toilet and a sink, but needed to accommodate much more:
We needed a toilet, sink and tub/shower, in the bathroom. We needed a washer/drain in the kitchen, along with a normal kitchen sink/dishwasher drain. All of this also had to be properly vented...through the existing 3" ABS pipe that went up through the 'storage' bathroom!
After much head scratching, debating, arguing, etc., we decided we needed to find out exactly what was under the slab so we could come up with a plan. Off went tod to the rental place to get a jackhammer!
A few hours, cut and bruised hands, and loads of sweat later, we had uncovered what we needed to see:
It seems that the bathroom tod had been using for storage was originally designed to accommodate a commode, but one had never been installed...so we didn't realize that extra 4" ABS pipe was going to be under the slab.
Ok, now that we saw what we had to work with, it was time for much more head scratching, debating, designing, with a little less arguing thrown in. We finally came up with a design that would work...albeit a complicated/convoluted one:
A few trips to the borg got us all the fittings and pipe we needed. Ooops, a few more trips were needed once we realized we had forgotten a few details!
And then of course, as Murphy made sure, another trip to the borg to get the final few fittings we didn't think we'd need.
(That last trip we way over-bought so that we wouldn't run out....at least not on this phase of the plumbing!
)
On one of the last of the plumbing runs to the borg, we picked up a tub and surround, along with the fixtures and fittings we'd need to get it all installed. I brought the Pex leftover from my shop build, along with a few dozen Pex fittings and my crimpers and cutters.
We got to work and finally got to this stage:
With the tub in place, tod started putting down ceramic tile:
Ok, so almost ONE WEEK after I got there, we finally had the beginnings of a functional bathroom!
It was time to move out and on with the remainder of the apartment.
Since I'm at the post limit on pictures, I'll start another post to complete the story...
Stay tuned...
- Marty -