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: