Nothing But Words

3 Months Later, the New Tiles for the Bathroom Floor

Topic: Home Improvement

Before:

The tile floor put in by the previous owners - blech! The tile floor put in by the previous owners - blech!

There used to be a closet here. It had a vinyl floor, which I removed, and there was nothing under it but the subfloor. There used to be a closet here. It had a vinyl floor, which I removed, and there was nothing under it but the subfloor.

The super-cheapo vanity installed by the previous owners The super-cheapo vanity installed by the previous owners

During:

The slab under the tile. I removed the old tile with a rubber mallet and brick chisel. The slab under the tile. I removed the old tile with a rubber mallet and brick chisel.	I had to build up the floor in the former closet area to match the height of the slab I had to build up the floor in the former closet area to match the height of the slab	I applied a floor leveling compound to get the height in the closet area to exactly match the slab I applied a floor leveling compound to get the height in the closet area to exactly match the slab
Starting the tile pattern - I had to start at the entrance, to make sure the pattern looks good when you first enter the room Starting the tile pattern - I had to start at the entrance, to make sure the pattern looks good when you first enter the room	Continuing the pattern - the tricky part was the curved corner of the tub Continuing the pattern - the tricky part was the curved corner of the tub	This is the section where I had to level the floor - it came out nicely This is the section where I had to level the floor - it came out nicely

After:

The finished floor The finished floor

The new vanity, from Ikea. The side cabinet still needs a small counter. The new vanity, from Ikea. The side cabinet still needs a small counter.

I finally have pictures of my bathroom floor tile project for you. I did this work back in July. Maria was in Newport with the boys for a couple weeks, so it was the right time to put in a new floor, since we only have one full bathroom in the house. I was away on the weekends, so I worked on the floor after coming home from work each day, for about 10 days. It was quite an undertaking, but it all came out nicely.

Removing the hideous old tile turned out to be not very difficult (it took several hours with a rubber mallet and a brick chisel, but it could have been much worse), but I didn’t know what I would find underneath. It turned out be a massive concrete slab. I excavated a corner to see how deep it went - 2 inches of concrete over 3 inches of gravel. I was amazed to see such a thing on a 2nd story. As yet more proof that you can find anything on the web, I used an aggregate tonnage calculator to get a rough idea of how much it weighed. It worked out to almost 2 tons. Now, in terms of framing, there is no direct support under the bathroom - that is, there aren’t any walls, posts or pillars directly under the floor. The living room beneath is a large, wide open room. 2 of the bathroom walls are exterior walls, so they’re supported directly on the foundation. One of the interior walls is supported by another wall directly under it on the 1st floor. The 4th wall has nothing under it, other than the floor joists. I figured it’s been there for at least 80 years and hasn’t fallen down yet, and it would be an absolute nightmare to try to remove the slab. So I decided to leave well enough alone. But I’ll be sure to never put a waterbed in the bedroom that’s over the bathroom!

The section of the bathroom that used to be a closet was not covered by the slab. It was lower than the slab, and incredibly warped. So I had to put down a couple pieces of plywood of different thicknesses in different parts of it, to get it roughly equal to the slab (that’s the 2nd picture). Then I had to use about 60 lbs of floor levelling compound to get it completely smooth (that’s an awful lot for a 3′x4′ area, especially given the plywood is doing most of the work). I also ended up having to move the light fixture in the ceiling! Raising the floor a couple inches in that area resulted in our Ikea closet unit coming close enough to the ceiling that there wasn’t enough space between it and the ceiling for the light. Overall, I probably spent as much time working in this tiny section of the bathroom as the rest of the room.

We decided to go with in-stock tile from Lowes - it all cost less than $300. Even the cheapest special order tile would have cost 3 times that. The plain white tile was boring, so we decided to jazz it up by running it diagonally, and putting in a black border. To make sure the diagonal cuts looked good in the entryway, I had to start in the front of the bathroom, which is the opposite of what you’d normally want to do - the mortar takes 24 hours to set, which can make getting out of the room a challenge! But I discovered I could leap into the hallway from the tub, so it turned out to be not much of a problem.

I’m probably most proud of the tile cuts around the curved end of the tub. I figured out how to do it with an electric wet blade tile cutter, which is intended only for making straight cuts (call me and I’ll tell you the secret technique ;-)). The grout work was probably the most boring and labor intensive part. I’ve worked with small tiles like these only once before, and I forgot how much more work they are to grout than the big tiles!

After I finished the tiling, we had a contractor refinish the tub. He did a good job, and had a nice technique for putting the finish over the caulk as well, so we’ll never have to worry about leaks in the caulk.

For installing the faucet for the new sink, I learned how to do cold pressure welding. The faucet had a specialized flex line, and it didn’t reach the valves. I went to my local hardware store to see if I could figure out how to patch another flex line to it, but the guy who worked there considered that an unacceptable solution and simply wouldn’t let me leave without agreeing to do it the “right” way! So he explained cold pressure welding, drew me a picture, sold me the stuff I needed (which ended up being cheaper than the stuff I was planning to get), and sent me home. I had a couple false starts, but after I got the hang of it, it came out nicely.

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No Longer the Scary House on the Block

Topic: Home Improvement

A year and a half ago, I posted some exterior shots of our house - it was after we had replaced the windows and ripped out all the old, overgrown shrubs, but before we had painted. If you’re too lazy to click the link, here’s one of those pictures:

Before painting:

Last fall we had the house painted. I didn’t do it myself, as it would have taken me forever, and because I try to avoid spending time on tall ladders (it comes from knowing more than one person who’s been seriously injured falling from a ladder or a roof). We picked the same colors that we used on our house in California. We spent a fair amount of time picking those colors, and since we painted right before we moved, we never got to enjoy them. Even though our house here is quite different from the California house, we felt the colors would work just as well. We also had the front door replaced and shutters installed.

Last month I planted the small shrubs you can see there. I would have done more, but that’s all I had time for. We figured we’d get the “big” plants in now, so they can start to grow in, and we can put in smaller plants when we have more time in the future (yes, I know, that imaginary future that has “free time”).

If you’re wondering about the bright, garish flag, it’s for the Japanese May 5th holiday, Boys’ Day.

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Moving In, Again (pictures added!)

Topic: Home Improvement

I haven’t blogged much this month as I’ve been burning the candle at both ends, at home and at work. Eidan’s due in a few weeks (it’s nice not calling him Baby X anymore!), and Maria and I are having a race to see who finishes first: she’s determined to have the baby at least a week early, and I’m just as determined to get our house not just livable in time for the baby, but actually comfortable. Over the past month I’ve finished the dining room, our bedroom, and the rec room. Before Eidan arrives I need to finish the 3rd floor stairwell (it has no railing or balusters at the moment) and the 3rd floor bathroom (it’s painted, but I haven’t installed the sink and toilet yet). Pictures are below.

This past weekend wasn’t about construction or painting though, it was about unpacking. Last November we packed up just about all of the stuff that was in our old rec room and put it in boxes. This weekend we unpacked it all for the new rec room. Since most of it was Kai’s toys, and since Kai can barely remember as far back as November, it was like Christmas in July for him. He spent the whole weekend playing with his “everything old is new again” toys. That gave Maria and I some time to sort through baby clothes. We have Kai’s old clothes, plus some clothes given to us by family and friends, and even more from a surprise baby shower Maria’s friends had for her last week. So if you’re thinking of getting something for Eidan, please don’t get clothes, we have plenty!

We’ve even hung art on the walls in the dining room, the rec room, and the bathroom. Seeing the pictures on the walls after we put them up provoked a lot of feelings for me. We had spent two and half years working on our house in San Mateo, and didn’t finish it until about 45 seconds before we put it on the market. So we never got to enjoy it. If you don’t know the story, here’s the two sentence version: picture Mike, Maria, and infant Kai living in a 790 sq. ft. house for two years with Maria’s parents, while Maria’s father went through a liver transplant, and we didn’t have a kitchen (we put an addition on the house, and it attached on the kitchen, so the kitchen was unusable for most of that time). There are pictures of the old house on my first Route 50 page if you want to see how it came out - the addition more than doubled the size of the house. Then we moved here to PA, and we’ve spent the past two years fixing up this house. And we now have a few rooms that are actually done - so done that it makes sense to put pictures on the walls. So after more than four years of working on houses, putting up the pictures made me feel like we’ve finally arrived.

Note that when you click on one of the picture’s below, don’t click on the page’s navigation arrows for the next picture - click your back button to come back here, and then pick the next picture. (The problem is that my photo albums for the house projects are organized by floor, but that’s not how I’ve organized the pictures here. This is another good example of why I’ve starting working on my own software that’ll let you distinguish a slide show from a photo album.)

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The Race Is On

Topic: Home Improvement, Kai and Eidan

Baby X is due Aug. 18 - almost exactly 8 weeks from now. Now that the drywall guys are gone, I’m busy painting and finishing up the new electrical wiring. The question is whether I will finish everything that needs to be done before the baby arrives. Maria has millions of years of human evolution working for her, so the baby will definitely come around the time he’s supposed to. On my side, I had the flakey drywall contractors who set me back well over a month.

I finished painting the dining room a few weeks ago, so we’re excited that we no longer have to eat in the living room. Last week I finished painting our new bedroom, and I’ve assembled the “closet system” for inside the closet. Yes, a “closet system” - that’s what they call shelves and rods these days. This kind of marketing-speak drives me nuts - I even saw a sign for “meal solutions” at the grocery store the other day. Silly me, I thought it was called “food.”

Ok, I’m over my Andy Rooney moment now. Anyway, our new room and the baby’s room have the last of the original (and totally trashed) windows in the house, so we’re replacing those next week. My goals after that are to paint the baby’s room and the stairwell, and build balusters and a railing for the stairwell (to replace the wall I took out) before Baby X arrives. I had wanted to finish our half bath as well (right now it’s an empty room with no toilet or sink), but I’ll probably run out of time.

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Living Large in the Kitchen

Topic: Home Improvement

Our house in unreasonably large, yet our kitchen is about the size of what you’d expect to see in a Manhattan apartment. Tonight, the kitchen is my home.

With the drywall work done, the next step was to get the floors fixed up. So today and yesterday “Vincent” and his boys worked on my floors. What a night-and-day difference compared to the drywall experience. Vincent showed up when he said he would, sealed off the work areas with plastic and tape, and after he left, there was no indication that he was ever there (except, of course, the floors looked better!).

In addition to working on various spots on the 2nd and 3rd floor, they put a new coat of varnish on the first floor this morning, so I can’t walk on the floors tonight. In anticipation of this, I put a mattress on the kitchen’s tile floor. I’m sitting on it right now, with my laptop (the kitchen was the first room we fixed up, and I put a cat5 network connection in it - this is the first time I’ve used it!). I also have the sink in the kitchen, and I can get to the toilet in the basement, so I’m living large. The only thing I didn’t plan for is the fumes from the varnish. So I’ve taped up some plastic between the kitchen and the dining room. So far it’s proving good enough to prevent a headache, but there’s still a strong odor, even with the windows open.

The floors will be ready for foot traffic just in time for Kai and Maria’s return tomorrow afternoon. With the floors and walls done (except for painting) we can finally go back to living normally in our house. Like the story It Could Always Be Worse (scroll to the bottom of the linked page for a synopsis), just getting things back to where they were 6 weeks ago - before the drywall rubble bomb went off - will seem like a huge improvement.

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Picking Up the Pieces…Lots of Little Drywall Pieces

Topic: Home Improvement

Last Saturday Kai and Maria left for Denver, and they’ll be back on Friday. While they’re away, I’m painting and cleaning up the monumental mess in our house. The drywall guys finished on Saturday…actually, I should say, “stopped working.” Here’s the whole story:

We were hoping to get the drywall guys started in the 3rd week of March. Greg, our general contractor, hired a crew headed by a fellow known as “Nacho” to do the drywall work. We kept hearing they would start “soon,” and as one day lead to another, “soon” eventually revealed itself to be April 19. The plan was to deliver the drywall through a 2nd floor window, to save the effort of lugging it all up from the ground floor. But somehow the supplier’s driver didn’t get the message to have the equipment with him for a 2nd floor delivery, so he canceled for that day, and would come back “soon.”

“Soon” this time happened to be one week later, April 26. During the hour or so this huge truck with its small crane was in front of my house, the township inspector happens to drive down my street - what are the odds? I wasn’t there, but Greg told me that, oddly, he just drove right by. But Greg was worried, as he was fairly certain Nacho wasn’t licensed.

Nacho’s guys showed up the next day and put in a full day’s work, putting up about 80% of all the drywall. Greg warned us that the house would look like a bomb went off in it, and in fact, that’s exactly what it looked like - an almost unbelievable mess. They were working in the bathroom, the 2nd floor hallway, the dining room, and all of the 3rd floor, so the mess was just about everywhere. But it was all supposed to be over in a few days, so we just had to bite the bullet and get through it.

I was worried about my floors, since we had them all refinished when we moved in. Before the work started, I was imagining these guys dropping nails and grinding them into the floor with their boots, dropping hammers, etc. So I had Greg buy some drywall boards, not for the walls, but to lay down on the floors to protect them. It turns out that the delivery from the truck didn’t have enough boards, so without asking anyone, the guys just used the boards that were on the floor. I still had a layer of plastic and tarps that I had put down under the boards, so hopefully they would be sufficient to protect the floors (with all the mess, it wasn’t possible to put down something new).

The next day the guys showed up, and the inspector was waiting for them. They weren’t able to show him a license, so he got Nacho’s number from them, and then ordered them off the premises. I learned from Greg that Nacho told the inspector he had insurance, so he just had to make a short trip to the township building to do the paperwork for a license. Well, a week and half went by…Nacho was having trouble with a fax, then he was waiting for a document to show up in the mail, etc. In the meantime, our house was still a huge mess. Maria and I spent many hours cleaning just to get the place at least to a “barely livable” state. One evening during that time, Nacho’s guys showed up at 5 to finish putting up the boards. I guess they figured they wouldn’t get caught by the inspector if they showed up after hours. I don’t know if it was the right decision, but I let them in. A few days later, they showed up during the day, and Greg sent them home, since Nacho still didn’t have his license. We were ready to write him off, when on Friday, May 6, he called and said he finally has his license. He said his guys would be there that weekend to finish. So we made plans to be out of the house so they could work.

All weekend, nobody showed up. They finally appeared on Monday and put on the 1st and 2nd coats of joint compound. All that remained after that was to put on a 3rd coat, and then sanding, so we’re hoping this finally will be over by Wednesday. I called Greg and told him he needed to make it crystal clear to Nacho that the job has to be completely done ASAP if he wanted to get paid.

Nobody showed up until Friday, when they put on the 3rd coat. Friday night I had the privilege of speaking with this mysterious Nacho character myself. He managed to mumble some sort of apology. I did my best to balance my rage against my interest in just getting this done, since we were finally so close to the end. A while back I just wanted to drop him, but Greg said it would take a while to get someone new on the job. If we had any idea it would take this long to get to the end, we would have gotten rid of him. Nacho promised his guys would be there first thing on Saturday morning.

So two guys show up at 2 in the afternoon. They sanded for about 30 minutes and then took off before I realized what was happening. They did maybe half the sanding, and left all their broken drywall, empty soda cans, etc. all over the place. I called Greg and told him that I didn’t want them to come back, and that I’d finish it myself. Greg sent one of his own guys to help clean up.

I spent the rest of the weekend sanding, and for the rest of the week I’m painting and cleaning. My first priority is the bathroom, since we’ve had no shower curtain rod (and hence no shower curtain) all this time. One lucky thing in all of this is that my floors survived unscathed- I guess the plastic sheeting and the tarps were enough to protect them.

To top it all off, Greg checked with the township and it turns out Nacho never got his license. Which means he almost certainly lied about having insurance too. I’ll let you know what happens if and when Nacho sends a bill. It’ll be interesting to see if he has the nerve to ask for anything more than payment for materials.

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The Home Improvement Slide Show

Topic: Home Improvement

As promised, here are the home improvement pictures. You’ve seen some of these in previous posts, but most of them are new. The pictures cover the work I’ve been doing since November. I’ve been busy the past few days doing some last-minute stuff and putting plastic and old blankets on the floor, so the drywall guys don’t trash my floors. They’re supposed to start today! That makes this both a good and bad time: good because we’re getting that much closer to the end, and bad because now we’re really pressed for space. Most of the 1st floor has become storage space for everything that was on the 3rd floor, and since I removed the closets at the end of the hallway, our current bedrooms have no closets. Maria and I are moving to the 3rd floor and its new closet when this is done. And the other 3rd floor bedroom is for Baby X (we offered it to Kai, but he wants to stay in his current room - we’ll get him a free-standing Ikea closet unit to replace his lost closet).

There are extensive captions explaining what’s going on in each picture. Note that I’ve organized these pictures into 3 different albums (one for each floor of the house), so when you reach the last photo for a floor, the forward arrow won’t do anything, since it’s the end of the album. You need to jump back here or go to the House Projects main page and switch to the next album.

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Crazy Busy

Topic: Family and Friends, Home Improvement

This may be my last post until April 9 - the day I take the GREs. I’ve done a couple practice math tests, and - without publicly humiliating myself by revealing my scores - let’s just say I’m not doing very well so far. It’s frustrating since I did well on the GREs way back when in 1992. And that time I didn’t prepare at all… aside from being fresh out of 4 years of college ;-). Let’s hope I can relearn this stuff over the next week, and that I haven’t just grown stupider with time.

But it’s not just that. Kai and Maria were away in Denver last week, so I worked on the house in the evenings, and then put in a couple 15 hour days over the weekend. I’m trying hard to wrap up all my re-wiring and related tasks, as the drywall guys are supposed to start putting up the new walls next week, and we don’t want to delay any further. We originally thought we’d have the new drywall installed already, but that’s before I went beyond our original goals and got really ambitious. I’ve gone even further since then - while Kai and Maria were away I re-wired two bedrooms and knocked down a couple walls (with help from friends Chris and Ed). Once I’m done with the GREs I’ll post some pictures of the recent house work (and of Kai in Denver too). I’m pushing myself to get all the house work done because we want to have it all wrapped up before the baby comes. After the drywall is up I still have to put in the trim, paint, fix up the bathrooms, move furniture, etc, so there’s still plenty more to do. August may seem far away, but it’s not.

But for the next 10 days it’s all about the GREs. Wish me luck, and I’ll be back when it’s over!

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The Destruction Continues….

Topic: Home Improvement

As sometimes happens with home improvement projects, my current one is getting out of hand.

In two previous posts (here and here) I described the demolition of the interior walls I’m doing on our third floor. Here’s a description of the thinking that has caused this project to sprawl out of control:

Since I have the walls open, I’ll run new electrical lines (4 circuits: one for all the lights, one for Kai’s new room, one for our new room, and one for air conditioners).

And why not coax and cat5 too - two lines of each per room?

We can hardly call this a master bedroom if it doesn’t have a closet. I’ll build one.

The sink in the 3rd floor bathroom is really old and needs to be replaced. Installing the new sink we want will require some solder work on the copper pipes. Now’s the time to do it since the walls are open.

The stairwall leading up to the third floor is awfully dark and narrow. Since I’ve already removed its interior walls, I’ll completely remove the wall on one side of the lower half of the stairwell and open it up to the second floor hallway (so it’ll get some light and won’t feel so claustrophobic). Then I’ll install ballisters and a handrail so it’ll be safe.

There’s a low spot on the ceiling in that stairwell too, where I sometimes hit my head. I’ll see if I can modify the framing to raise it a couple inches.

Since I’m having a drywall crew come out to install the new walls, I ‘ll have them put in new ceilings in the bathroom and dining room too, as they’re in bad shape.

Since I’m going to have the bathroom ceiling open, I’ll put new electrical lines in there, and a ceiling vent fan too. That means installing vent pipe to the outside as well.

And we don’t really like that closet that’s behind the bathtub - I’ll demolish it and open up that area to the room. Y’know, the plaster on the closet walls is in bad shape. I’ll tear it all out and have new walls put in there too.

I’d like to have a ceiling light in the bedroom adjacent to the bathroom. With the bathroom ceiling open, I have access to snake the wires I’ll need to install it.

I may as well run new electrical lines for the light in the dining room ceiling while the ceiling is open.

I found some old water damage in the roof decking after I opened up the third floor ceiling (and a dead mouse, yeech!). The guys who installed our new roof last year really should have fixed that. I better get them out here to take care of it. And I don’t know why I didn’t have them put a new roof on the sunroom when they were here last time. It’s gutters are in bad shape too. I may as well have them take care of all that while they’re here.

I probably have about a month to go before I’m ready to have the drywall crew come out.

Below are some pictures of the bathroom ceiling demolition. I did this after I came back from Denver, but before Kai and Maria came back. I ended up working late into the night. When I removed the framing for the closet door, I was very proud of myself for having cut it out as one giant piece. The trouble was, between that and all the rubble that had accumulated on the floor, I had managed to barricade myself in the bathroom, as it was impossible to get the door open. It took some doing to finally get myself out.

It was late and I was tired, but I needed to take a shower before going to bed, as I was completey encased in plaster dust. As you can see in the picture, I cleared a tiny path through the rubble so I could get to the tub. I was smart and plugged the drain before starting the demolition, but somehow the plug came out and the drain was full of plaster rubble. I had to sit there with needlenose pliers, plucking bits of plaster out of the drain before I could finally take my shower and go to bed.

I finished the cleanup work the next day. You know you’ve gone too far with your weekend home improvement project when the cleanup requires a shovel.

I took this picture after I had already cleaned up all the lathe, so about
half the mess was already removed.

I’ll run new electrical lines through the ceiling, for new vanity lighting,
a wall outlet, and a ceiling vent fan/heater/light/nightlight unit.

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Kai and Maria in Denver, Mike Renovating

Topic: Home Improvement, Kai and Eidan

Kai and James riding a mini bike in Denver

Kai and James riding a mini bike in Denver

Kai and Maria spent Thanksgiving in Denver with her folks and her sister Yoko. I was supposed to go too, but I came down with a nasty flu before my flight was scheduled to leave, and I didn’t feel well enough to travel (her dad is ill, so it wouldn’t have been good for me to be around him anyway). They had a really good visit. Kai particularly enjoyed riding James’ mini bikes (James is Yoko’s boyfriend) - see the video below.

I was down and out for about 36 hours, and then I felt surprisingly good. I still had another day and half before Maria and Kai came back, so I got a lot done on our 3rd floor renovations. I built a closet in the room that will be our new bedroom (there wasn’t one before) and ran new electrical lines. I still have to finish tearing out the highly flammable fiber board walls (from what I’ve learned, there was a brief period of time, decades ago, when it was actually legal to use wood fiber board for wallboard). Once that’s done the drywallers can come put up the new walls.

Framing for the new closet I’m building in the 3rd floor master bedroom	I’m about halfway through tearing out the old wallboard in this picture - the boards were actually wood fiberboard, which is a real fire hazard	The new electrical wiring I put in the 3rd floor
Kai and Tony (“Jiji”) watching TV at Yoko’s place in Denver	James’ mini bikes	Kai and James riding a mini bike in Denver

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