Work continues even though I'm still just destroying stuff

Construction restarted on 205 #2 with demolition in the kitchen and bathroom needing completed before we could start putting it back together. Since we had pulled down a section of the drop ceiling during the demo of the wall, we came to the realization that we could add more sunlight to the kitchen by taking it back up to its original height. The 2-3 feet that the ceiling had been dropped was simply blocking out light from the taller windows, so it was as easy as removing the drop ceiling in the kitchen to add back this light. My friend Kevin came to help take down the ceiling and we used my Christmas present, a new Sawzall, to make short work of the steel grid framing that held the drywall up. 

Once it was all down it was a dramatic change to the room. The nice thing was that there are already furring strips to reattach the drywall back to the full height. I'll do sound insulation and resilient bars before attaching the new drywall to the joists. You can see that I also found an old gas line in the middle of the ceiling from an old gas light.

The next weekend I took out the old flooring so that the subfloor was the same level throughout the entire apartment (besides the bathroom). I plan on putting some foam underlayment and a floating snap-together laminate floor that looks like hardwood.

And then this weekend I took the drywall off the wall that separates the two apartments as well. I plan on putting some foam insulation to reduce noise, as well as re-drywall it so that it'll be flat and you won't be able to see the seems. I've learned after refinishing numerous old chewed-up walls that sometime it's much easier to just take it down and put up one new sheet. I also need to do some electrical work and to make the electrical switch/outlet boxes more secure and recessed into the wall.

I plan on doing the same thing on the exterior wall around the windows so that I can insulate better. I figure that if I'm going to go this far I better do it all at once the right way.

In the bathroom, I removed the old tub and toilet. I'd considered keeping them and re-glazing, but a  lot of the subflooring was rotted out between the tub and toilet. The more we got into it, the rot was under the tub and some of the subfloor wouldn't have been solid enough to tile on without replacing. It'll allow me to insulate behind the tub and upgrade to a low-flow toilet. I'm going to use some mold-resistance subflooring as well so that there won't be a chance of future issues.

I'll need to add some framing before putting the subfloor back in place so that it's solid. I'm going to reuse the layout of the bathroom even though having the window next to the shower is weird. I've looked and thought about alternatives, but haven't been able to find anything that really works better than the existing layout. I'll frost the bottom pane of the shower window and tile/caulk the window frame to slope back into the tub. Since the window is vinyl, it should be alright and not have a rot issue if I do it rest right.