The Bathrooms:

One of the things about the house is that there are no bathrooms right now. So, typically we can't stay there for too long working in the house right now cause if someone's got to go, you have to go somewhere else. At which time Pat Guarracino (Anthony's father) is ready to leave anyways after all the hard work he's doing in the house that day. The house has always had one bathroom since it was built in the '20s, however, Papa G has completely smashed it to bits to get other water lines running through the house. Especially for a second, or rather a half, bathroom to be in the house. Remember what I said about the bath tub, when they smashed it up they kept the piece that was labeled from 1926? Well, within that bathroom it had about a foot thick layer of concrete flooring underneath. So, he's been having to clean some of that up to get to the pipes in order to clean out the pipes to set up more water lines. And yes, the concrete will be cleaned out within the next few months.

So, one of the water lines will lead to a half bathroom holding a toilet and a sink.
And this half bathroom will go where the front hall closet used to be. A week and a half ago I cleaned it out. There was a lot of things in there; it was stacked full. I found things from old dog foods and treats in a laundry hamper, to records, to small floor carpets, to depends and even plastic bags full of other plastic bags. And a few days before that, I cleaned off the shelves to the kitchen's cupboard that was behind the back wall of this closet. Papa G then proceeded to tear it all down between the two rooms. First the shelves, then the plaster, then the beams that held up the wall between the two rooms, then the wooden laths which held up the plaster, and lately he's been doing some cleaning up of all the wall stuff and re-wiring within that space.

Oh, if you didn't know, a wood lath,

is usually made up of narrow, thin strips of wood with spaces in between. The plasterer applies a slight pressure to push the wet plaster through the spaces. The plaster slumps down on the inside of the wall, forming plaster "keys." These keys hold the plaster in place.

These where put in old houses before plaster board.


So, we might have a working bathroom room eventually, at least that is what he is working for most of all right now. Besides fixing the one broken support beam in the basement. Also the plan was to extend that closet to get a decent sized bathroom, along with eventually ripping out the one wall that is between the kitchen and the pantry. The pantry was eliminated so that we can then extend the kitchen and make it bigger. I'll try to show pictures of that all also eventually.



This is a picture of the front hall closet after I cleaned it out and the plaster got torn down a few weeks ago:


The beams are now gone in this picture:


Here you can see the plaster and wood laths from the opposing side which is the stair's wall:


And here's a view from the kitchen leading into what used to be the pantry which leads into the bathroom:



These are some of the many tasks that lie ahead.

Hello Family and Friends!

I've finally made a blog for all of you to see the progress that is going into the house. I figured this would be a better way of going around it than just putting up pictures on Facebook. It's easier to explain a lot of the stuff going on with the house here in blog form. And easier for everyone to see since I know some of my family would like to see this and are not on Facebook. So you can all gradually check this blog, whenever I get time to post, as we do things that is the adventure of this pit called a house. Ha haa.

-Jessy