Main bathroom soffit demo

I rip out the 1980s style soffit as part of an entire main bathroom remodel.

Ripping the dual-sink vanity and the giant mirror out of the bathroom makes it look a lot less 1980s. Same for the wood louvered medicine cabinet. But there is still that soffit with buzzing fluorescent lights inside it. It not only screams "old-fashioned," it makes the room look smaller. I have already received the new vanity, and just ordered the medicine cabinets, and vanity lamps. Time to demo.

The next-door neighbor ripped a soffit out of his bathroom, and he warned me that the plywood top is not over the ceiling drywall. When the plywood comes down, so does all the insulation in the attic. So I will rip out the soffit structure, but I have to leave the plywood ceiling board, and there is a stud in the front that is also open to the attic. I will put the small stuff in the garbage. Dump run later.

After popping out the plastic frosted panels, the frame for the light comes out in one piece. The key thing, and perhaps hardest, was getting all the corner bead pulled down. There was alot. I put the detritus in trash bags for the garbage person. It's a messy job.

The face drywall came out pretty easy. Be sure to cut the paper tape up to the ceiling. There was a lot of metal corner molding on the inside rim. Cut that corner paper tape or some of the ceiling drywall might come down as well.

The metal corner bead starts to collect on the floor before getting folded up for the trash. Checking the construction, these inner end caps have to come out next. That lets the front inner drywall to pop out in one piece, it is laying on the drain lines now.

Working on the frame was easier from the middle out to the left corner. The cripple studs come out easily once the lower frame piece is levered out. The back rail was tough. It was toe-nailed into the wall studs. Lots of twisting and pulling.

The upper rear frame rail was nailed to the plywood, a hammer helped coax it out. I had to leave the front top frame rail in since it opened to the attic. Same for the plywood. Lots of little cripple studs, but nice dry wood that did not weigh a lot in the garbage can.

The metal corner bead got bent up into a trash bag, the wood rails are for a dump run. The job is not done until the room is cleaned up and the demo stuff tossed out. Two great things, I now know where the ceiling joists are, and I will rip out all the drywall.

Main bathroom soffit demo

Categories