More New Windows

We decided to replace 4 of the 5 window in the sun room. The 5th window would be another special order window since it's 4ft by 4ft (not a standard size anymore). The other windows were not standard size either, but with the help of uncle mike we built all new supports for the windows and in the process sured up a lot of areas that had termite damage.
This time we got the Pella windows from Lowes and I would say it's worth the extra couple of bucks over the home deopt windows, just because they have the cool feature where the window folds inside the house so you can clean both sides of the glass from inside the house. Other than that a couple windows make some noise when they open and some of the screws on the latches don't screw down all the way, but if the little lady would have allowed it, I'm sure they could have been replaced no questions asked...pick your battles...


When we removed the old windows, there were no supports between the 3 windows.We built supports above, around, and between the 3 new windows.
Hard to believe we removed 4 windows, built new supports for new windows and replaced all with new windows in one day.

Cabinets!

After spending months of planning with the pre-fab screm em' together cabinets in mind. "We" of course had to change our mind and special order some different ones from Home Depot. We got the "American Craftsman - Del Ray series" after the planner at the Depot assured us that any of their cabinets would be fine for Granite countertops (the counter tops were another change in plans). But they look nice and they have so many adjustments, that if any thing is a little off when they arrive, it can be fixed. Hopa was quite relieved we didn't have to send anything back and further delay the Kitchen we desperately need.

...and drywall for all

We put the sheets of drywall up ourselves, us being myself, Hopa, Chet, and uncle Mike on various days and weeks. Then I hired a guy to mud and texture the ceiling. He did a good job and as the drywall gets finished, it starts to look like a house.

Insulation & Drywall

We were going to to do the cellulose insulation in the walls and in the attic, but we decided to focus on just getting the kitchen done for now. The cellulose thing is really a much bigger project, what with the machine and all the bags you have to buy, someone to hold the hose, someone to shred and feed the chunks in to the machine, etc, etc. So we went with the itchy stuff for now and covered it up with some dry wall sheets. At least we know one wall in the house that has insulation now.

Kick out the Lash

How to break off Lash spacers after the mortar hardens...fast.

Black Granite...Floors?

Yes, granite floors. We were going to do a marble and granite pattern, but after the Home Depot guy went around and literally scratched every stone in the store with his utility knife, we decided on granite. It didn't scratch even when you take a utility knife to it. With Gravy running around, the marble would have lasted about a week.
I put down a backerboard with a built in moisture barrier to it. I actually ended up pulling up the 4 sheets that I had down and reinstalling them after putting down Versabond underneath at the suggestion of one of the tile guys. Then on top of the backer board, I put more mortar. By the time the tile got to the floor the floor was feeling pretty solid.


We installed the granite using these things called Lash Spacers, (http://lashspacer.com/) again at the suggestion of one of the tile guys. I felt like I had been duped, because I probably ended up spending about $100 on the spacers and the yellow triangles that are sold separately. But, for the novice tile installer, I have to say they work pretty good. It does kill your hands pushing all these little triangles until they are tight, but at least the floor is nice and level. The triangles are reusable for future jobs, but the plastic spacers hook under the tiles so you have to buy new ones everytime you do a job, at ten bucks a pop for a bag of about 50. Also you get to kick them all off when you're done to let out the frustration about spending $100 on plastic pieces. Video here.

Water, water everywhere and all the boards did rot.

I had already planned on replacing some of the subfloor boards, just based on a cursory glance from under the house...they were nasty. But confirmation came when Grandma fell through the floor while cleaning.
Might as well make a project out of it. I removed three subfloor boards and the area where the floor decided to cave in. While I was at it I sistered in a joist next to a questionable one, you can probably see it on left side in this shot. I also secured another joist that was only sitting on about an inch of the cement support.
I also grinded out the old waste arm from the sink which was made of some soft metal, not sure what alloy, but the vent is cast iron.
And new boards for the subfloor in their place:

How to salvage old wood floors

I read up a little on the internet about salvaging old wood floors. There was not a lot of information and the consensus seemed to be that it was not worth the time. I disagree. Especially when you have old heart pine wood flooring. When you consider that this wood was probably here when some of the first settlers arrived. Some of the original trees harvested were over 300 years old. You don't get "heart pine" any more because they harvest pine before they get big enough to have this type of wood. Being that I have a little background in wood floors I decided to take on salvaging the wood that was not water damaged, because we have several areas in the house that need boards replaced or just plain holes in the floor from various old pipes etc.
I decided it would be best to set the nails. I used my long nail sets and a piece of the flooring to assist me. You can see the subfloor above where the floors used to be. Here is my fancy instructional video for all those people who say it's too much work:

New washing machine / laundry room update

We went out and got baby a nice brand new front load washer. It was a must, because no one should have to go to the Laundromat. Well at least not baby. We got an LG front load washer. The front load washers use about 14 gallons of water compared to 40 with the top loads. Plus it's cool because it weighs your clothing and then decides how much water to fill in. It also has pretty lights and plays a song when your laundry is done.
The washer arrived before I could finish fixing the weird conglomeration of wood that had been nailed to the wall, so I covered up the new washer and finished up ripping out the wood and putting in a new support for the water heater shelf across to some new studs along the outside wall.

The dryer courtesy of uncle Joe and Danielle arrived shortly after and it too had to wait for some construction in the laudry room.The new shelf support attached to new studs:
Finally I put in a new vent for the dryer and attached it with carriage bolts and caulked all around for a nice seal:
The laundry room will have to wait for a floor and finishing, it's functional, so I move on to the kitchen...

The magical dissintegrating wood

I just sat down with my hammer and chisel ready to remove the wood along the outside wall of the utility room and magiacally with the touch of my hand the wood came right out. I knew the wood was water damaged but it was practically a shell of a piece of wood.
After removing all the wood and nails from this section, I replaced the board with a nice new piece of pressure treated wood.

after

a floating wall

and the beast lay slain...

this palm really was a beast, but it had to go. It was right up against the house and in the way of the dryer vent and plumbing for the washer/dryer area. As you can see the roots are not very big, but there are a ton of them. I had this tree practically laying on the ground and there were still roots holding on.
Once the beast was out of the way I dug out the dirt against the side of the house and prepared a moisture barrier at the base consisting of tar, tarpaper, more tar, and more tar paper.
I still haven't found a good skirt for the bottom of the house there, but I still plan on digging a drainage ditch along this side of the house, since the neighboring lots basically drain down towards this side of our house.

Warning: If you have a fear of rodents...

Then you might want to skip this entry. In removing the plywood floor in the utility room, I may have uncovered part of the reason for the smell.
Here is a glimpse of our new friend after removing the plywood to revel the palettes that were holding it up:
Our friend and his nest:
The disinfected area:
(I placed a wood barrier on the left hand side with a layer of tar paper and two layers of that panel insulation.)
Finally I built a makeshift support for the water heater, because I plan to cut the shelf in half and remove all the crazy random boards they used to patch over the outside wall on the right.

Bacon 19 cents / lb!

You come across some interesting things when you remodel a 75 year old house. Remember when bacon was 19 cents / lb? Me neither.
We've finished gutting the sunroom of the wood paneling so now we're considering insulating with cellulose. You get your blowing machine rental free when you buy 20 bags or more of cellulose. Unfortunately it's about $11 per bag so it would be a minimum of $220. But the attic could be done at the same time. For now it's time to make sure baby has somewhere to wash clothes...i'm off to prepare the laundry room for the new washer.
vine growing inside the wall...nice.

Termites!

We've been a bit lackadaisical in our efforts to post lately, mostly due to the missing usb cable for our camera. One which Gravy chewed up and the replacement, which has gone missing.
It was a bit sickening opening up the walls and being greated by nearly 100 years of termite excrement, but I guess I would rather it not reside in my walls any longer. I removed the areas where there was major damage and replaced boards or "sistered" in boards next to any boards that looked questionable. It's deflating to spend hours tearing open walls only to find more work, but it's necessary and the house will be stronger for all of the work.
Nothing special here, just removing damaged wood with saws and/or chisels and replacing with new wood, but I did get the chance to plug some more holes with caulk or "Great Stuff".
There was no insulation in the "sun room", so we put up a vapor barrier with tar paper and prepared the walls for insulation as well.

oops

The shower fiasco (part2)

I returned to my shower fiasco with the problem of building up enough space between the studs and where the new tile should meet with the old tile. I had some 1/4" backerboard, which had been purchased from the scraps section at Home Depot for a different purpose. But since I changed my mind how we would handle the concrete pier in the kitchen I had this backerboard laying around. I cut the backerboard into strips to fit the width of the shower. However since there used to be about an inch and a half of plaster on the wall, I had to figure out a way to make the 1/4" backerboard meet with the old tile. I ended up cutting shims from an old pine stud that was still in good condition. With some help from brother (aka Gladiator) we cut them at full 1" blocks and nailed them to the studs, after putting in some tar paper for a moisture barrier of course.



After double nailing each shim to the studs, I screwed the backerboad into the shims. You might be able to see at the bottom there is a strip that kicks out a little bit. I tried to get fancy and have some angled tiles at the bottom to encourage the water to drain towards the old floor. In the end the angle wasn't enough and had to use more caulk than I would have liked between the last row of new tiles and the old tiles. But as Grandpa Stanley says: "Caulk is the best carpenter on the job".
finally the tiling began. At the advice of a Home Depot tiling video I decided to use a batton positioned at the center of my tile wall and tile up from there. We ended up spending almost a hundred bucks for the tools and tiles and supplies. Tiles, trowel, grout float, grout, mortar, caulk, spacers, fiberglass tape, etc...We plan on working out a realistic cost of total remodel with and without out puchase of tools and supplies. After taping and mortaring all of the joints in the backerboard, I tile up to the top. Luckily brother let me borrow the wet saw, which made cutting the handle hole much easier.
After removing the batton I tiled down to the floor using tape to keep the tiles from sliding down. Yes this tape was necessary as I quickly found out. Tiling down is completly different than tiling up. As Radiohead said: "he used to do surgery for girls in the eighties, but gravity always wins".
Finally the whole wall was grouted and caulked. Finished pictures coming soon...
Update: The finished shower wall:

New Window

My mission has changed temporarily. Our new window has arrived and "baby" wants the window installed. What baby wants, baby gets...so in goes the new window. We went with Home Depot, their windows were slightly cheaper than Lowes. We got a double pane insulated glass with Low-E. If you don't know, Low-E is a treatment that reflects the sun back outside and keeps the house cooler in the summer. The brand is called "Silverline" it is an Anderson Window company. We had to special order a window, because the windows in our house aren't exactly standard size. We ordered a window 4ft by 4ft. I didn't pull the trim off or pull the window out before ordering, luckily my measurements were pretty good. When the window came it measured 48" (4ft) on the bottom and 48-1/4" on the top. My stand-in contractor "grandpa Stanley" and I made it fit. More pictures below:

The shower fiasco

I made it my mission to have a working shower, so we could stay at the house and work. We have stayed at the house on the weekends twice, but not being able to shower puts a damper on things.
The plumber had to knock out a bunch of tiles to install the new water lines. So, I decided finish the job and just take out the one wall of tile. I'm not exaggerating when I say these guys had about an inch and a half of plaster or concrete masonry or whatever they used on showers 1935.
I tried to save whatever tile I could, because I knew we would never be able to match this mint green tile. So the idea was to save some and work it in to make the tile job seem cohesive.
Originally I was going to go with a black and green classic art deco type design as shown below:

But it would have taken too long to remove all of the mortar and grout from all of the old tiles. So we decided to go with something simpler and easier.
(by the bye, if you're doing any remodeling and you want to plan things out visually and spatially, use google sketch up. It's easy, it's free, and there is a warehouse full of things already made that you can use in your sketches...i.e. ovens, drawer handles, etc.)
more on this fiasco to come...gute nacht.

Plumbing the depths

The plumbers spent two full days in, under, over, and digging around the house. We re-piped hot & cold for the whole house; two full baths, kitchen, hot water heater, washer hook-up, 2 hose bibs. We got a brand new water heater, which ended up costing us $100 more than originally quoted 6 months ago. Their costs have gone up in the 6 months since the quote, they only charged us for the increase in the water heater, because it's not one of their parts. But apparently water heaters have gone up a hundred bucks in 6 months, who knew water heaters were such a volatile market? The other surprise was the valve box for the washer and dryer, which was about $250, too bad they retail for about $25.
I guess with so much going on at the house i'm going to "take a bath" here and there. (pun intended)
We had a little leak where one of the toilet water line meets the floor, so they came out to fix it, after they left, the electrician there was a leak in the toilet line. I said, I know. He said no, this other toilet. It's ok they're coming back to hook up the fridge any way right? He wanted me to build a wall behind the fridge where he can put a valve for the fridge. Luckily, this was included in the original quote price.
More plumbing pics below...

The plumbers box o parts

Our new hole for the fridge, we pushed it back in the wall so it will be even with the 24" cabinets

New water service line.