Sunroom Plumbing wall removal

The sunroom was originally a wrap-around porch that wrapped around from the front of the house. It was built sometime in the 1940's. There is a bathroom directly above the Foyer and the plumbing ran down the sunroom wall, It appears that the plumbing wall was built sometime in the 50's.

The wall is about 1' deep.

I made an interesting discovery when removing the wall.

There was a window here before.I wasn't expecting this because the stairs are on the other side of the wall.

Another interesting discovery is the stud in the wall, you can clearly see the saw marks on it.

Saw marks in a V shaped pattern like this are indicative of being cut with a hand operated pit-saw. Another interesting discovery is the "shoulders" in the window trim. You can see the notch in the siding where the trim jutted out further at the top than everywhere else. This is a Greek Revival characteristic that went out of fashion right around the mid 1860's. These two things almost surely date the house to the earlier of my two possible dates, 1859.

As you can see the doorway was originally a window also.

Parlor Ceiling and walls

The drop ceiling in the Parlor came down next.

The original plaster ceiling is in good shape!

The upper walls however had to come down.

I used some of the old 1x6's to shim out the upper wall to get the correct depth for the sheetrock.

Then I put up the sheetrock.

Parlor Doorway Widening

I went back and forth on whether to widen the Parlor doorway. In the end I decided to do it because there are several other doorways that have been widened to 6'.

I'm really glad that I decided to do this because one of the main studs was almost completely turned to power by termites. It's no longer an active infestation but the damage has been done.

I cut the opening for the new entryway.

I checked the studs and found that even though they are load bearing there was no weight on them, so I cut them to height.

I then built a header beam out of some of the old 2x8's and 1x6's cut to fit. I also used the good main stud that I cut out in the place of the one that was damaged.

It makes a huge difference! I love the openness.