First, the room (in this case, the dining room) as it was a few days ago. Note the cracked/patched plaster on the white wall.
DAY ONE
We start removing 100-years of layers, including (but not limited to) plaster, drywall, strange cork board, paint, wallpaper, and wood paneling.
Before sheets of drywall/gyproc existed, plaster was mixed with horsehair and spread onto the wooden slats (”laths”), and the plaster dried and became one’s walls.
Removing the plaster from the walls is by far the messiest and most time consuming part of the demolition. Once disturbed, the plaster turns into a powder and horse-hair mass that weighs a TON and creates a giant dusty mess.
Here I am coaxing the plaster from the wooden slats (”laths”).
Next, we remove some of the laths in order to be able to squeeze the insulation inside the wall cavities. Here I am using our neighbour’s reciprocating saw (one of the many handy tools that have been offered on loan by our favourite PEIers) to remove a few stray laths.
The latter half of demolition day is a massive clean up!!
DAY TWO
In an old house such as this, every wall cavity is a slightly different width because the beams are all different dimensions. What this means for us is that every piece of pink insulation has to be measured and cut before it is placed in each cavity.
DAY THREE
Once all the insulation is in, a plastic sheet (the vapour barrier) is installed over top of the insulation.
After countless discussions on this topic that invariably ended with a confused expression on my face, I think I finally get it:
Air in your house is hot! Hot air is strong, it can carry lots of moisture in it! Air outside is cold; cold air is weak and it can’t carry much moisture! When the hot air (sadly) leaves your house, it turns cool, of course. As this hot air cools, it feels exhausted and it just can’t carry the moisture anymore…so, the cold air gives up and abandons the moisture. As a result, we get moisture/water/condensation where the warm air becomes cold. (So, if you want vapour barrier to protect something, the vapour barrier should always be installed on the warm side of your precious item.)
Apparently, I neglected to take a picture of the dining room’s vapour barrier, so here’s a shot of the kitchen wall. I shouldn’t be too surprised that I forgot to take a picture, because I detest putting up vapour barrier for a variety of reasons, namely, it’s awkward, takes forever, and at the end of the day you look around and think, “This is all we’ve done today? Put up this sheet of plastic??”
DAY FOUR
Next, the easy part–up goes the drywall! So satisfying because it’s the icing on the cake!
At this point, our goal is to do the above steps (demo, insulate, vapour barrier, and drywall screwed to the wall [as well as lay plywood on the floors, not mentioned above]) to all of the downstairs rooms: kitchen, dining room, living room, pantry, utility closet, front hall, and staircase.
Once we have accomplished the above, we will putty, paint, and lay flooring in all these downstairs rooms.
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? It’s at times like these that we’re glad that we relied on our foresight and bought a house that it only 1000 square feet!
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Laura-Jane: “I just wrote a step-by-step entry on how to renovate a room!”
Cameron: “Very nice.”
Pause
Cameron: “How about a section entitled ‘Fix Structural Problems?’ What about an ‘Assess Bug Damage’ section?”






























