Plumbing is in. Hooray!

 Ugh.  Moving plumbing around is a little like extensive dental work  It's very invasive, a little painful, and you feel numb afterwards.  It stops your life in its tracks.

So in this remodel we are converting one ginormous bathroom into two medium bathrooms.  So even if we didn't move anything around, we would still need another toilet and shower which would require a jackhammer.  Once you have to break the concrete, you might as well move everything you want to.  The extra plumbing work won't make a difference in the painful parts: dust, noise, and general destruction.

These are pictures of the destruction:

And these show things put back together:      

The previous plumber was disparaged throughout this process, especially for having soft sautered joints under the concrete (whatever that means).  These guiys removed all the joints that were under the slab so we won't have to worry about that anymore. Why do tradesmen always have to trash the person whose work they are editing?  I don't get it.




 Also, we didn't have enough vents before which can cause slow drainage.  After two more holes through the roof, we should be free flowing.  I always get nervous with plumbers doing roof work, but I will withhold judgment until after the first big rain.





So now it is safe to get the electrical in.  I am thinking about having both ceiling lights and sconces in the bathrooms but I'm not sure the ceiling lights should be pot lights or track lights.  It may depend on how much access I have to get the romex run.  Next post will be about popcorn - not the food kind....

Walls up!

We are ready to pull the trigger on these two new bathrooms!  Instead of taking apart, we are now putting together.  We have our plumber's bid and it was just what we expected.  A lot of drains and supply lines will need to be moved to accommodate the new layout.  In order to have the plumber start, we need all the walls in place that will hold water.

So the first wall was to split the bathroom in half.  We debated the best way to build this wall because it is a little complicated by a tall, sloped ceiling and some decorative cross joists.  The center beam has another beam a couple of feet below it.

Originally we were going to build the wall directly under the center beam which would have been easy.  However, the side that will become the master bath needed a few more inches in width to work the way we wanted.  Plus the other bathroom will not have a tub so has more space to spare (not to mention, it is a kid's bathroom, more for the adults!).  So the wall had to go up right beside the beams.

To deal with the trouble of attaching the top plate to a sloped wall, we cut some 15 degree wedges to hold the top plate level and then sank nails into the hidden joists.  It was surprisingly easy to do.

Then we split the top plate into three sections to fit inside the joists.  We considered trying to cut the joists since we believe them to be completely decorative but we weren't sure we could do a good job cutting them in an attractive way.  So we constructed the wall in separate segments with the top plate split.




The height of this room at its tallest is 10' 7" which meant we had to  use 12' lumber instead of 8' or 10.'  To make matters worse, the Home Depot was out of 12' pieces so we went with 14' lumber.  Wow, those are so long to get home in your SUV!  Not to mention, this length tends to be very warped.  As it turns out, we ended up using a double top and sole plate so we might have gotten away with 10" studs.  Nevertheless, it is done.

Once the main dividing wall was up we had to build a short perpendicular wall that will hold the shower head.  That one was much easier because we built it 8 feet tall to fit under the lower beam.

 First step toward the new bathroom is done.  Hooray!

And here is my best carpenter.  Thanks honey!

Billiards anyone?

We finally have a pool table!  We had a lot of fun trying it out this weekend.  It turned out pretty good but it was a lot of work  Let's rewind and see how we got here.

Originally I planned to purchase a pool table from Craigslist and I expected to pay around $1000.  I planned to hire a local billiard supplier to move and reinstall the table for me.  I had two criteria that limited my choices of table - size and wood color.  Based on the size of my room, my research said that a small table would be better.  So instead of the standard 8 foot table, I was looking for one that was  7 or 7 1/2 feet long.  Also, since the shuffleboard table and poker table we already have are a mahogany color, I wanted a dark wood finish.  Finally I was able to find a table for only $450!


The table was located over an hour from our house.  The billiards installation business will charge a flat fee if the start and end point are nearby, but otherwise they add $$ per mile.  Then my cheapness took over.  Of course I watched some Youtube videos about how to take apart and put together a pool table.  The combination of Youtube instructional videos and my thrifty nature makes me take on tasks that I probably shouldn't.



So we rented a U-Haul for $25 and went to get the table.  The couple who sold it to us were in the process of moving but were super nice to help us take it apart and move it into the trailer. The move was uneventful.  The table sat halfway assembled for the last couple of months - begging to be set up.



One of the holdups was that the felt needed to be replaced.  There was a large spot in the middle of the table, which might account for the low price.  When you move a table you have to take the felt off anyway so I figured I would just get it replaced. No biggie, right?  So I took the old felt with me around town looking for matching felt so I would not have to replace the felt on the bumpers.  If I could find that I figured I could do the installation myself.

While I was looking for felt, I went ahead and started assembling the slate.  As you can imagine, the table needs to be VERY level.  Since the slate comes in three pieces you also have to make sure they transition well.  After using my level, straight edge and a whole case of shims, after a couple of hours I felt like it was just right.






I screwed in the pieces and used this stuff to fill in at the joints and screws.  Some people use wax but the Youtube videos recommended Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty and it looks like that was what was used on this table before.  It's very easy to work with and dries without shrinking or cracking.  I might use this for some other tasks.











Now all I needed to do was replace the felt on the bed and I would be home free!  Of course it wasn't that easy.  I went to every billiard place in town looking for matching felt.  Nothing could match it.  I scoured the internet, knowing that it is hard to pick a color online anyway.  The closest I could find was one that I had seen in person at a few places.  I found it on the internet cheaper than I could get in town and ordered.  This was pricier than I would have thought.  The felt I ordered was about $100 but you can pay over $500!  Wow!

Alright, I guess I am all in at this point anyway.  I went ahead and ordered enough felt to do the rails as well but I knew that I wanted to avoid that if possible.  That part looks pretty complicated.  So here goes:


I used an air powered staple gun (Hey, at least I got a new tool out of all this!) to do most of the straight edges first and to get the fabric stretched evenly.  The hardest part is doing the pockets.  You have to put an extra piece of felt underneath to add a little cushion.  The you have to make incisions along the material to allow it to lay flat over the pocket.







The side pockets are the hardest because you have to do a half circle instead of a quarter circle.
To finish it off, I bolted the rails back on top.  They don't match exactly and the difference is noticeable.  We'll see how much it really bothers me by whether I decide to try to replace the felt on the rails.




Things turned out pretty good but a couple of things I would do differently:

I would do the side pockets first before the felt is totally stretched.

I would use a spray adhesive like Super 777 to spray around the pocket to help the material stay in place.

Too late for that now.  But given that I am well under half of my original budget and the table functions fine I am happy with the outcome.

Bathroom demo, check!

Not too much to report after this weekend but we were able to finish the bathroom demo.  The toilet once sat inside it's own little room.  Adam got all of those walls down,  We also removed the last vanity/countertop.  Also, all of the floor tiles are popped up.  

Adam and the boys have been to the dump three times over the course of this demo for probably $120 total.  They are getting to know all the restaurants in that area - I guess hauling debris out of a trailer makes for a big hunger!

I tried to capture a picture from each corner of the room to give a better perspective.  This room is huge!  Can't wait to get started on two new bathrooms.

I will contact the plumber on Monday to set up a meeting.  Now that we can see where all the plumbing is, we can finalize our layout.  We may need to run a camera into the drain pipes to see which direction they travel under the slab.  The toilet drain has to be larger than other drains so that tends to be the most limiting factor.

New kind of flooring?

So I have been shopping around to get ready for our two bathroom remodels.  I have been looking at vanities, shower bases, bathtubs, and tile.  Someone recently mentioned to me a new flooring treatment involving epoxy but I didn't pay much attention.  But when I was looking at concrete floor finishes I came across some pictures of the new epoxy coatings and was surprised.  Here are a few.

These don't do the justice done in some of the videos of installation techniques.  From what I can tell, this is a pretty easy installation and the possibilities of finishes are limitless.  Most of the interesting colors powders are metallic which adds depth by the way the flakes reflect light.  Of course there is some prep to do to the concrete first but basically you pour the epoxy and then spread to cover.  You can add multiple colors and use different techniques to blend (or not).  The product remains flexible for about 20 minutes allowing for all types of manipulation.  Some people use torches, some spritz acetone, and others blow air, each with different results.  I think this looks like something I can do and do fairly quickly. 

I will likely have to float a self leveling concrete layer to make sure there is an even surface to work with.  But I would have to do the same for tile anyway given the amount of variation I have.  I don't know how economically feasible it will be, but I will report back as I move forward!

Pool Table Light

This light was originally in our kitchen over the island.  I thought it would look much better over the new pool table.  It doesn't hurt that the felt on the pool table matches the burnt orange color in the lamp.

It seemed fairly easy to move it from one room to the other.  So this weekend I had my husband help me take it down since it is pretty heavy and made of glass.

I was surprised to find that the wiring was not inside the standard ceiling fixture electrical box but instead the wire was fed through a hole in the sheetrock and the lamp itself was screwed directly into a joist.

Hmm.  The place I needed to move the fixture was also centered on a ceiling joist so maybe this would be easy.  No dice.  The direction of the joist was opposite the direction I needed the new lamp.  I tried a special fixture box made to fit over a joist but the holes for screws were in the wrong location.  So I went to Home Depot to find a metal plate that could screw into the box and allow screws in other spots.  However, once I tried that, I couldn't quite get the new holes where I needed them.  Uggh!  After many hours messing with this light I decided that we needed a couple of boards tacked up in the attic that we could screw the fixture into.  Luckily it was a cool weekend and my husband agreed traipse around amongst the fiberglass insulation.

Even then we still had problems getting the long electrical cord to go back inside the fixture.  Very frustrating!  After sleeping on it, I went out today and tried something new using tall scaffolding which allowed me to get the connections made while the fixture was very close to the box.  

Finally!  I feel like I have won a battle!  I hate projects like this that turn out five times more difficult than they should be.  Every time we overcame a problem, another would pop up.  I can see why some people refuse to diy if this is all they have experienced.

And here is proof that the electrical connection is good.  

I still need to patch the ceiling where the old light box was located.

 And now I need to get the pool table put together and the countertops done to finish out this room.  Can't wait to play a game of 8 ball!

Bathroom demo deja vu

Originally this house had two bathrooms.  Our first bathroom project involved a complete redo and expansion of the guest bath and adding a half bath next door.  Now we are starting a project with the master bath.  This bathroom is ridiculously large, spanning 24 feet long and 10 feet deep.  It had a large two person jet tub (which we were too scared to even turn on for fear of what would come out of the jets!).  There were two separate vanity areas, a separate toilet room, and a large glass block shower.  Taking a shower in the winter was a challenge because the shower was too large and open at the top.  Here is a shot of the half of the room with the shower and tub.


The plan is to split this room down the middle and create two bathrooms - one to serve the new master bedroom and one to serve the old master which is now the kids' bunkroom.







First things first, we hung a barrier (plastic and cardboard) in the open area between this bathroom and the bedroom to which it is attached.  This should keep dust down and allow us to keep using the bedroom for the kids.









We started on the tub.












Then the shower tile.













There were a few mishaps....

















That half of the room is pretty close to done.  We were surprised where the tub drain and water connections were.  That may change our proposed layout once we talk to the plumber.  It's good to have this part done before we lock in plans so we can take advantage of such information.








I removed this medicine cabinet, thinking I might salvage it.  However, it was really a bear to take out.  There were hidden screws coming from inside that wall that you could not access without ripping open the wall or the cabinet itself.  As you can see, I had to come in from the other side of this wall...












Still need to remove this vanity as well as all the floor tile.  Removing floor tile is back breaking work.  We are going to see if there isn't some tool we can rent to make it easier.















I also need to make a decision about the wall paper.  It is a textured scallop pattern that the previous owners have stained a maroon color.  I hate the maroon color but I might not mind it painted white.  I have already started tearing it off the wall in the first half of the bathroom but will hold off on the second.  So far, only the top half of the paper tears off, then I will have to wet the wall and scrape the sticky part off. Depending on the difficulty, I may like the wallpaper even more....



Our next steps after finishing demo is to meet with the plumber and finalize the layout for the two rooms.  Can't wait!

We've got game.....almost

We still have a few things to do in the gameroom, but these shots will catch you up to our current status. In this part of the room I replaced the ceiling fan with a newer model, found a sectional on Craigslist, moved a footstool from the master bedroom, and arranged the poker table/chairs.  I am about to mount the TV to the wall on a swivel mount so the screen can be viewed in several positions.I would also like a rug and some artwork on the wall. And a swag light over the poker table. But otherwise, this part of the room is pretty much done.  

The poker table from another angle.

The other half of the room still has some work to be done.  The most pressing matter is the lighting.  Now that we have bought a pool table, we can see where the light fixture needs to be positioned.  We also need to add the light fixtures over the shuffleboard table (you can see them sitting on the table in the background).  Once the light fixtures are in I can put the slate and felt on the pool table.  That should be a posting itself.  Then finally the countertops surrounding the entry half-walls need to be put in and the trim around that area finished.  Then we add the pennies!

We are almost there.

Gameroom trim and windows.

Once we saw the floor and wall color together I knew we would need a dramatic trim color to distinguish them.  I also knew that the color on the wall was looking a little sage green instead of the khaki we thought we picked - it all has to do with what is next to it.  I was hoping that the trim could make things look a little more current.

Through the rest of the house, we have been using whitewashed 1 x 4 cedar boards as trim.  I tried that in here but it just didn't look right.  So we tried staining the wood several darker colors but none of them worked either.  Finally I tried a color that I was considering for the interior doors.  It is a combination of dark brown and charcoal, some might call it a dark pewter.  It looked pretty good wiped on as if it were a stain but I ended up liking it best with a thin coat.  You cannot tell in the pictures but the wood grain is still slightly visible.  I think it brings a modern feel to the room while allowing it to be a little rustic.












There is no trim around the windows so this color is only on the baseboards, door trim, and trim around the new opening.  Not sure whether I am going to paint the closet door the same color or leave it.  We'll see.




Until now the window coverings were still the red paisley upholstery fabric roman shades that came with the house.  I knew I would need something pretty protective because the largest window gets a very strong dose of sunlight through much of the day.  Without those blinds, the room becomes an oven.  I also didn't want to spend a fortune.  I saw some cute posts on Pinterest of painted roller blinds and decided to try that out.

So I made my measurements and went to Lowes.  I picked the full light blocking shades and had them cut to size.  This roller shades were not nearly as cheap as I had expected, especially with so many windows.  The store was short the number of larger shades so I would have to find another one somewhere else.   Here is a shot with the blind installed.  Installation is VERY easy by the way.

Then, as I was waiting for the blinds to be cut to size I wandered down the aisle to occupy time.  At the end of the aisle I saw that Lowes had all of their woven roman shades marked down half off.  I actually like the look of these but didn't think I could afford them and knew they would not block all the sun.  But then I started thinking about layering.  Now that these were marked down so low, I could afford to use them. Again they were missing one of my sizes but I bought the others and took them home to see how they would look.  These also were very easy to install yourself.

This picture does a good job of demonstrating the amount of sunlight this window gets.  Here I don't have the woven shades all the way down, normally I would not leave them at different lengths.  I think the brown bamboo warms up the room nicely.  I was able to find that last blind at another Lowes (although not marked down as much as the others?!).  I decided that I didn't need the roller shades on the windows by the pool table because they are in the shade and we always leave the blinds open anyway

I am thinking I need to find some type of brown ribbon or cloth to block around the edges where the roller blinds don't cover.  Not sure yet how I will do that but I think it is possible.

That's all for trim and blinds.  Next up, lights and then furniture!

Rats!

Well, actually mice.  Field mice to be precise.  This house is in the country so there are any number of critters trying to see if there is better stuff inside the house.  We mostly find insects inside, but this summer we started to see signs of mice.  I have often heard things in the attic but that had not spurred me into action.  This summer I started seeing a few droppings around the house and then I found a dead mouse who had gotten trapped in my tub and presumably died of dehydration/starvation.  I thought, we maybe that took care of things.  Ha!  I was sitting in the living room one evening and I saw a flash of fuzz run up the rock wall next to the fireplace.  Of course the dogs didn't even notice, not even the rat terrier!  That night I swear I heard some scratching in the bedroom that was inside the room, not inside the wall.  Well, that did it.  I went and got some mouse traps at Lowes.  There are a number of different kinds and I bought two:  one that catches the mouse inside and you throw away the whole unit, and one that is spring action and looks like it has teeth.  I placed 6 traps around, including the attic and went back to our main house.  After a few days I returned and found this guy in the garage:

After catching several more that way I decided to get more traps.  I never caught anything in the spin/capture traps so I just bought more of the ones with teeth.  They work great and only take a little dab of peanut butter as bait.  

Soon after catching some inside I figured out what had attracted them.  My kids had been playing poker one night and didn't have poker chips so they used popcorn kernels.  They left a big stack on the table and we didn't think about it again.  One afternoon in the middle of all the trapping, I went to move a ladder that had been leaning against a wall for quite some time.  All of the sudden I was showered with popcorn kernels!  The mice had moved every popcorn kernel to their hiding spot on the ladder!

After removing every type of food or water (besides the toilet which I think is inaccessible to them), I have not seen any more signs of mice inside the house.  Periodically I catch a new one in the garage or attic but I feel like that is to be expected.  I have noticed that the traps seem to have a limited life as they wear out their trigger mechanism after several catches.  So my plan is just to always have a few traps baited in the garage and attic and, if I start catching a lot, maybe add a few in the house.

I try not to feel bad because the mice are very cute and look A LOT like the pet mouse we once had.  But they just can't live in my house....

Gameroom flooring

We went back and forth about which type of flooring to use in the gameroom.  The front hallway leading to the room has a light colored tile and the rest of the house has a natural hickory wood floor that is also pretty light.  However, in my mind, a gameroom should be darker.  We didn't want to pick a different type of wood so close to the other wood and we did not want carpet.  So we went with cork!  We have used cork before in our main house in both the bathroom and kitchen.  It is a very comfortable floor to walk on and it doesn't show much wear.  After shopping around I ordered the cork from ifloor.com  It is a click together product that comes in 12 x 24 in pieces.

First I removed the carpet and the carpet tacks.  Cutting the carpet into strips and rolling it up is the easiest way for me to remove carpet.  The pieces I end up with are manageable so I am not wrenching my back trying to deal with a massive piece of carpet. Then I patched the divots left in the concrete subfloor left by the carpet strips. After sweeping and vacuuming, it was time for flooring:

The first couple rows of flooring is always the hardest, no matter what type of flooring you choose.  It took a lot of trial and error, Youtube and a call to the manufacturer before I really got the hang of things.  In reality, the thing that helped the most was making my own tapping block out of a scrap piece of floor.  None of my sources mentioned this one but I had done it before with previous floors.  Because the tongue and groove on this flooring is fairly fragile, you do not want to try to tap it into place with something that doesn't fit perfectly.  So I made a block out of an end piece, I could put it against the piece I was fitting and pound away at the block.  Once I got that system going, the flooring only took a few more hours.  Here is an example of a tapping block.  I went through several

Here is the first half of the room done.  As you can see, there is a vapor barrier under the flooring just to make sure the concrete slab does not allow moisture into the floor.

And more progress into the other half.

The last row can be difficult to wedge into place





And Voila!

Just a note about the importance of the edges and corners.  A couple of the boxes I ordered got damaged during dropoff at my house.  I actually watched the guy scrape them with his truck.  He acted like it was no big deal, as did the company when I first called about it.  However, be careful with this.  If I had not ordered a full box extra, I would not have been able to finish my floor.  They tell you to use those pieces as "end pieces" where you don't need a full piece.  However, you will find that the part you end up discarding is generally the center part, not the edges.Of course this depends on the width of your room, but in my case, I needed 7 full tiles across and then one just slightly less than half.  The other half I cut off went to start the next row - it was not a discard.  And the corners are the most important parts of the piece!  It was frustrating talking to them.

By the way, the company was willing to send out a replacement box but I eventually decided that I didn't need it, just barely.