More Bathroom Demo on Small and Minimal 1930’s Cottage

We continue to work on more bathroom demo on our small and minimal 1930’s cottage with old historical charm to make it larger.

SMALL AND MINIMAL HISTORIC HOMES

There is something so special about older homes that I’m just starting to realize and only because we actually bought one. It was never our intention, but now we’re almost obsessed with historical homes!

Thankfully our minimal 1930’s cottage is absolutely tiny – only 744 sq ft! This helps with the large task of bathroom demo as well as remodeling the entire house. It makes the renovation process a bit easier I’m sure since there is less area to work on and materials to purchase.

Another reminder that we’re new at this and sometimes wonder what we’re actually doing or what we’ve actually got ourselves into!

1 Chronicles 28:12

He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things.

ORIGINAL SHIPLAP WALLS DISCOVERED

There is a lot more bathroom demo ahead on this minimal 1930’s cottage. As we carefully remove the walls to expand the bathroom, we have discovered, to our surprise, wonderful and beautiful original shiplap! We have preserved them and will reuse them in our small cottage to bring back that historical charm.

We love the idea of reusing old materials and maintaining the period our house was built in. 

As I check out the area where Nate removed additional walls, it was shocking and exciting. Crazy to think we are breaking up our house and finding all these old treasures along the way.

We have come to find an appreciation for original shiplap walls in older homes or structures. In fact, one of our neighbors in our historic district allowed us to remove the shiplap from his old garage (maybe around 100 years old or so) before they tore it down to rebuild.

I guess that saying is really true – someone’s trash is another’s treasure. It sure has become our treasure along with many other finds we’ll get to in future blogs. Stay tuned!

MORE BATHROOM DEMO TO MAKE IT LARGER

Well, it’s that time again. More bathroom demo! Slowly but surely we are tackling our bathroom renovation. It’s taking a bit longer than we expected as we are still new at this and have no experience. And Nate pretty much worked on it by himself for the most part!

Nate squats in the open area where he removed walls to show me where he thinks the toilet should go. Now that was a visual of using an invisible toilet that had me bust out laughing!

We have hope now to extend the bathroom. We didn’t think we were going to be able to make the bathroom bigger, so this is great news because the bathroom was TINY. So now we know that we can demo the bathroom and make it larger. And then we can have a separate bathroom door so that people don’t have to go into our bedroom to get into the bathroom. That was one thing we were trying to avoid.

EXPANDING BATHROOM INTO CLOSETS

Nate’s next demolition mission was to pull up the flooring in what used to be the water heater closet and the bedroom closet. He had already removed the water heater so now it was time to tear up the floors. That way he could see what was underneath them and make sure they were re-done properly. 

In the water heater closet area he began to remove the drywall off the walls. He used a pry bar to help him with this task. This is the area where we will be expanding the bathroom into. 

Now behind that wall is what use to be our bedroom closet. He is also knocking it down and we will expand the bathroom into this area as well. 

Nate stands in the laundry room looking toward the closets he just worked to demo and mentions how we are going to turn that whole area into a bathroom. 

REMOVING SHIPLAP WALLS FOR MORE BATHROOM DEMO

We had to remove the shiplap walls in order to really effectively expand the bathroom, but I wasn’t sure if that could be done. Nate wasn’t sure either and if there would be any structural issues doing that. The area was an addition to the house anyway, so it probably wasn’t a structural issue. Nate wondered if the beams in the ceiling were what made the area structurally sound. I was thinking we would be fine to remove them, but what do I know? I’m not a builder!

We decided to go for it and remove it! Nate used a skill saw to cut through the house’s original shiplap wall and we have saved it so that we can use it later. 

1930’S SMALL COTTAGE WITH HISTORICAL CHARM

In the midst of our bathroom demo on this minimal 1930’s cottage, we wanted to preserve the old historical charm of it.

When we watched the Waltons, Nate got an idea to place posts inside the kitchen area like he saw in one of the shows. Similar to the historical posts on the outside of the house, they also had them inside their house too. Like maybe using an older looking post to section off the kitchen from the living room, similar to the dividing half wall currently in place.  

We would watch old shows like the Waltons to get inspiration for our home since it was built in 1934. The show was set during the Great Depression era into WWII and we were hoping to get ideas from it. Our home was pretty much a depression era build and was built in a very minimal way as perhaps a means to offer affordable housing for many at that time. We are minimalists at heart and have really come to love older historic homes, so it’s been the perfect fit. Minimal and old character charm. 

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic home mostly on our own. Stay tuned for more progress updates ahead!

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

You can also watch a video about this here.

If you want to see more videos about our excavation and foundation work, click on the links below.

SURPRISING WALKTHROUGH AFTER EXCAVATION AND FOUNDATION REPAIRS | TINY FIXER UPPER

EXCAVATION AND FOUNDATION REPAIRS | FIXER UPPER IN POOR CONDITION