Living in a DIY zone has its dangers.  Like random nails, screws and tacks lying about on the floor.  No matter how many times you sweep up, they always somehow manage to magically appear in the most used footpaths.

I’ve stepped on these little floor tacks enough times now that I feel I’m more perforated than an English teabag. 

What is it about living in a DIY-zone that irks you the most?  Feel free to moan.  It’s cathartic, right?

Way, way back, many centuries ago,
Not long after the Bible began.
We set out to renovate the downstairs bathroom
And get it done pronto! That was the plan!

Ok, enough with channeling Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (love that musical). It seems like forever ago that we started renovating the downstairs bathroom.  Rick began by pulling out the existing vanity and grungy toilet when I was away in Harvard.  Next, we repaired the rotten sub flooring, made-over the vanity with a new faucet and vessel sink and then laid some new tile. And then … our progress halted. Seized up. We became constipated.  In the metaphorical sense, you understand. Many a month went by with us gazing longingly into the shell that was our bathroom, dreaming of downstairs facilities.

Well, our wait is finally over (ex-lax is key). We now have a working downstairs bathroom, complete with grouted tile and painted walls. But the passage wasn’t always clear (ok, enough with the toilet puns). Before we were able to grout anything, we first had to rip some tile back out.  Yes, you read that correctly. 

From our many trips going into the bathroom to admire our handy tiling work, we had accrued a set of small cracks in two or three of the tiles by the door. With both of us being perfectionists (Rick is the OCD type, I am the “work for 24 hours non-stop to get it right, even though it should only take 2 hours” type), neither of us wanted to grout over the cracked tiles. So, our only option was to bring those babies back up again. A couple of chisels, a hammer, a sledge hammer, a floor scraper (and two type-A personalities) later, we had the three offending tiles out of the way.  As the tile came up, we figured that the cracks were caused from an uneven join where the sheets of backerboard came together.

So with more backerboard laid down and a generous slathering of tile adhesive, we tiled the bathroom.  Again.

A few days later was Labor Day  – a perfect time to grout the tile.  Unfortunately, (ahem) I had to go into work, so Rick had the fun task all to himself. We chose a sanded grout very close to the color of the tile to make the joins look seamless. After mixing the grout with the recommended dose of water, Rick squeegeed it on with a rubber float.  After a 15 minute wait, he began wiping the tile with a damp sponge. Wiping.  Wiping.  Wiping.  Lots of wiping involved in grouting.  In fact, I think the whole process should be renamed wiping, instead of grouting.

We let the grout cure for 24 hours before applying grout sealer – this protects the grout from any stains.  Stains.  Bathroom. ‘Nuff said.  And then, we were *finally* able to set the toilet. And paint the walls a gorgeous slate blue color.

We are so close to finishing our downstairs bathroom renovation.  We still have a few finishing touches to do, such as finishing our vanity makeover, hanging the TP and towel holders, painting the ceiling and putting up some crown molding. Then, some decorative touches, such as some of my black and white photography, will be the piece de resistance to this makeover.  Stay tuned for the final reveal, complete before and after pics – coming soon!  Well, definitely sometime this century.

There is a reason why I am not an optimistic person. Usually, as soon as I start looking on the positive side of life, fate steps in to bring me back to the darker side.  Following my last peppy post, this is exactly what happened. I should have known better than to bask in the glory of the projects we have completed around the house since moving in 6 months ago.  There I was, gleefully claiming that we haven’t had many projects to blog about just recently.  Well, not any more.

Friday afternoon, I noticed that there was a puddle of water on our breakfast table.  I was puzzled by this, but not especially alarmed.  When Rick got home later that evening, I showed him said puddle, which had grown considerably in size. We deduced that the water was dripping down from the kitchen light fixture. We ran upstairs  to the spare bedroom above the kitchen and found this:

 

A section of the flooring was absolutely soaked through  – this was what was seeping into the kitchen downstairs.  The bedding and mattress were also soaked.  There was significant water damage on the bedroom ceiling, where water had busted through from the attic above:

There was so much water coming through that Rick had to empty the light fixture of the water (we made sure the electric was off!)

In the attic, we found the offender.  The tray under the air handler (for the air conditioning units) was leaking water. It had overflowed so much so that the water seeped through the attic flooring, through the bedroom ceiling, onto the bedroom floor and into the kitchen, two floors down.

As soon as we made this discovery, we called the peeps who have our home warranty and an hour later, a technician came round to look at the problem.  The guy found two issues: apparently, the tray should extend the whole way underneath the airhandler.  Secondly, the tray appears to be cracked, so it wasn’t holding in any of the water at all.  There was not much else that could be done so late on Friday night, except for turning the upstairs air conditioning unit off.  The guy will be ordering a new tray Monday, so hopefully it will be fixed sometime this week.  In the meantime, we need to start thinking about replacing the ceiling sheetrock in the kitchen and spare bedroom, plus the flooring in the attic and bedroom.  We’ll also have to replace that mattress – all that water means that it just isn’t salvageable.  We’re hoping the bedding will come out okay, although I’m not too optimistic.  Back to my usual self then

The house renovations have slowed down a bit lately.  Maybe all that new homeowner vim and vigor has finally run out. Or the money has run out. Or perhaps is just takes two to do the renovation tango.  Renovating can be fun, but it also can be a tough job for two people to do together, let alone on their own-some. My month long excursion to the UK didn’t help our progress. Plus, as soon as I got back to America, Rick had to go on a week-long work trip to Notre Dame university (I tried not take it personally). Yesterday, a good friend noted that I hadn’t posted on the blog for some time, to which I replied that we hadn’t recently finished many projects to blog about.  But it got me thinking about all we have done around the house.  Today marks six months being in our new house.  Six months! Where did the time go? Seeing as I tend to be a ‘glass half empty’ kind of girl, now seems like a good time to think about all the projects we have completed so far:

All carpet has been pulled up

Back yard fence was built

Front and back doors were replaced

Landscape lighting has been installed

Downstairs bathroom was gutted and new tile installed. Bathroom vanity made over with a granite top and vessel sink.

New exterior lights installed

Dining room window replaced

 French doors hung between kitchen and office

Foyer chandelier replaced

Two foyer walls removed and headers installed

Dining room floor painted

Master bedroom ceiling fan installed

Dining room chandelier replaced

Siding removed and rehung

Thermostats switched out

100,000,000 green bugs,  3,000 big-ass spiders, 2 bats, a mole, a lizard, a frog… and a partridge in a pear tree.

Pheww! We’ve been busy! But all this optimism is making me feel all Paula Abdul – I’m much more Simon Cowell-esque (must be a British thing).  If I wear my pessimist hat for a minute, I’d hate to compile a list of all the projects that we have left to do around the house. Wow, that list would be longer than a prize bull’s ba-donk-a-donk. We’ll get there in the end.  That’s what the bull said.

Don’t let this innocent face fool you. Puppy + small chihuahua teeth + insane amount of energy = chewed house. Reebs doesn’t chew the usual dog fare – shoes, bones, toys and so on.  Reebs is a true renovation dog – she likes to chew walls, wallpaper, insulation and siding. Yes, siding.

Now admittedly, the siding on the back of house by the deck wasn’t in the best of condition when we bought the house. It had already began to rot and tear away in some places.  So, in actuality, Reebs just sped the removal process along by chewing the siding off the house. And she made a good start on the underlying insulation too. Especially in the house.

When we replaced the old back door, we had to remove part of the walls, floor and subfloor to repair the rot and damage. We haven’t quite got around to covering the wall back up – so many projects, so little time yada, yada, yada. Since we moved the dog detention area from the dining room to the kitchen, Reebs has been going to town chewing on the walls.  She has completely chewed through the wall insulation from the inside, and with her siding project on the outside, she is well on her way to making her own little dog door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, this weekend, it was our priority to get the siding replaced. A couple of months ago, we bought some heavily discounted hardi-plank siding off Craigslist, in anticipation of this very project. So, we already had the materials and tools to hand.  The original siding came off with little problems. A few measurements, cuts and screws later, the replacement siding was up. 

It is not an exact match to the original siding, but it is a whole lot better looking than the half-chewed, half-rotting debacle that was there before. And hopefully, seeing as the new siding is hardi-plank, Reebs will not be able to chew through this stuff so easily! When in the yard, she’ll just have to amuse herself by chewing on some more bats, bugs and moles…

This weekend, we decided to tackle one of the outstanding projects left on our downstairs bathroom renovation. Above the vanity, we are planning on hanging a large silver mirror, topped off by a satin nickel vanity light.  When finished, (probably in the year 2012 at the rate we’re going!), it should look something like this artistic rendition.

In order to install the new light, we need to run electric wires to it,  either creating a separate switch, or splicing the vanity light into the existing wiring for the ceiling light.  We needed to figure out a way to run the wires without making gaping holes in the walls and ceiling.  We needed to think outside of the bathroom box. Literally.

The floor of the library upstairs runs directly over the bathroom. If we pull up the subfloor in the library, we will be able to access the ceiling light wiring and splice the new fixture. From our previous demos in the library, you may remember that the sheetrock walls and flooring have been removed, leaving only studs and subflooring – here’s a reminder pic of what we’ve been living with these past few months.  So it is really not much more of an eyesore/inconvenience/mess maker to temporarily remove the subfloor too. 

Now, in order to get to the subfloor, we first needed to remove the stud framing and the old door way. The wall that runs down the hallway is not a supporting wall, so could be removed with no worries. 

The wall that is adjacent to the foyer is a load-bearing wall, and so cannot be completely removed until a header is put in its place (much like we did with the two foyer walls downstairs here and here). To keep the subfloor sheet in tact, we did need to remove just a couple of the studs on the supporting wall.

Once the walls were out of the way, Rick was able to pry up one of the subfloor sheets. We did find an electrical box for a ceiling fixture, but unfortunately, it was for the wrong light! The hallway ceiling light sits just outside of the bathroom, so at least we knew we were close.  Another subfloor section coming up! 

By the time we sussed out where the bathroom ceiling lighting is, we were quickly losing light (generally not the best idea to be splicing electrics in the waning day light).  Just in case we hadn’t had enough fun for the day, before we laid the flooring back down, we got the fright of our lives. Earlier, I had been cautioning Rick be careful walking on the floor joists – one slip and he would fall right through the ceiling sheetrock into the hard tile floor below. No, Rick didn’t fall through, but one of the dogs almost did! As we had been working upstairs most of the day, the dogs would, from time to time, come and visit us and see what all the noise was about.  They would run up the stairs to the library, inevitably see that there was no flooring, and stop midstep at the top of the stairs.  But not our little T-Rex (who is either really brave, or really stupid…). He ran up the stairs oblivious to the missing floor and plopped straight into the cavity. My heart froze as I hoped the sheetrock would hold … which it did.  Luckily, Rex quickly realized the situation he was in (as judged by his ultra-wide eye balls) and jump out toute-suite. No harm done, just a few skipped heartbeats! So, with dogs rescued from impending doom, we layed the subfloor back down. We’ll deal with the electrics another day.  Stay tuned…

When Rick and I are out of the house for longer periods of time, we confine the dogs in one area of the house (in order to minimize “puppy presents” scattered throughout the house).  Of course, when I say confine, I don’t mean squeezing all 5 dogs into a 3×3 cell.  In fact, as far as dogs go, they have a pretty cushy life, spending time in our 300+ sq. ft dining room, replete with bedding, toys, food and water.  Since getting our new dining room set, we’ve been meaning to relocate the dogs to a new area and actually use our dining room as, well, a dining room.  Novel idea, huh? )

The problem is that after many-a-day of 5 dogs staying in the dining room while we are both at work, the room has become a little … let’s say, dingy.  Dirty. Smelly. Gross.  All are acceptable adjectives here. 

 

 

 

 

 

So before moving in our lovely brand-spanking-new dining table and chairs, we needed to clean things up a little bit.  Ok, a lot.  We knew the cleaning would need to go beyond simple sweeping/mopping of the floor.  So, in anticipation for this weekend’s project, during the week we bought a gallon of Kilz  to treat the floor. We got the oil-based version, as it is more adept at blocking strong odors and stains than the water-based version.

After Rick had cleared the room of the dog accessories and swept up, I got my first experience of painting a floor. The Kilz went on quickly and easily, covering all of the dubious stains and smells (some made by our dogs, some a left-over from the previous owners.

About an hour later, the paint was dry to the touch and we moved the dining room set in.  And voila! In addition to sealing any residual doggie odor, the white paint has the added bonus of making the room seem so much more airy and light. The painted floor will serve in the interim until we are able to put hardwood flooring in there.  Until then, the dining room is strictly a no-doggie area!

In addition to painting the walls and installing new floor, we’re getting ready to change out that dated chandelier with a modern light fixture.  Stay tuned for the big light switcheroo coming soon….

When Rick was not cutting tiles or rerouting electrical cables, he was demo-ing the other wall in the foyer.

When we first moved into the house, one of the very first projects we tackled was demo-ing one of the walls in the foyer to really open up the floorplan downstairs.  Move forward a few weeks, just when we finally got all the dust and mess out of the house (there’s only so much cleaning you can keep doing over and over again), Rick dutifully went and made some more mess! It will all be worth it though – the space downstairs already looks so much better by opening up the walls in the foyer. The staircase has room to breathe, and the small, dark and dingy corridors between the staircase and the two formal living rooms has gone. It takes a little imagination to see the potential of the space, what with all the sheetrock, dust and general mayhem going on.  But in my mind’s eye, I am envisioning how gorgeous the Brazilian Koa hardwood floors are going be in that whole space!  Stay tuned…

 

 

 

Rick built a 2×12 frame around the plumbing and added some 2×4′s to the back wall to give the new subfloor some extra support. He measured and cut the subfloor and plumbing hole, screwed it in to place and finished off by caulking the edges.  The new R-30 insulation will be placed under the subfloor from the crawl space (in the next few days).  Next, the cement backerboard was measured and cut – it’s amazing how much debris was kicked out when cutting the hole (although I’m sure it could have been minimized had we bought the correct carbide blade )

Next was the plumbing. First, Rick attached a coupler to the new 3″ pipe (using PVC primer and glue).  He placed it on the existing pipe to measure the length needed to attach to the flange, which sits atop of the cement backer board. After cutting the pipe to the correct size, he attached the new pipe and coupler to the existing pipe.  He then attached the flange and finished off by screwing it to the backer board.  Et voila! Newly supported,  tile- and toilet-ready subfloor!

So far on this renovation, Rick has been a carpenter, plumber and electrician (and photographer whilst I was away).  As my nan always tells me, I am so lucky to have married him … because he saves me so much money!

 Here is the tile we bought for the downstairs bathroom. The large 16″ square tiles in a natural stone color will be layed down in a staggered pattern on the floor, and continue up the walls to about 36″.   On the wall, the 16″ tiles will be topped with a decorative border of smaller tiles which complement the hues of the bigger tile.  The decorative border tiles can then act as a backsplash for the new vanity.

Before we lay the tile, we’ll put down a layer of tile backing board.  This will eliminate the need to double up on the subfloor, and provide extra support for the increased weight of the tiles. Now, we just need to decide on a paint color to go above the tiles…..