Wow... it's been a while

A lot of things have happened since the last time I posted... Let's try summing it up. I pressure washed and stained the deck, built shelves in the cellar to hold our Rubbermaid storage containers. I know... It's still not organized, but it's a hell of a lot better.














After that, I started converting a closet we have into a half bath. We don't use it and it's 10'x4' so it will make a nice addition to the house. I haven't done much yet, I've just started; You can see here I'm still in the process of taking down the drywall.



















After that, I started some serious projects. My father in law dropped off a 50hp Kubota and a backhoe so I decided to work on a new drainage system so we can hopefully avoid that pesky water problem in the spring the previous owners lied about. Here's a picture of the back yard, and if you look close you can see the spray paint on the lawn we put down to mark where everything will be done.














Here's a picture you can see I'm connecting a drainage line to a window well. There were 8 separate lines that connected to the main drainage line running to the street. We connected 3 window wells, 3 gutter down spouts, the new driveway and the retaining wall. We used up nearly 300' of 4" perforated pipe. If you look close in the first picture you can see an old pipe in the ground I'm assuming was left there from when this house was converted to city sewer back in 1978. Good thing I didn't pull too hard on the controls when the backhoe caught on that!!

























Since I had all the equipment here, it was easy to dig a little hole in the front yard. After a few hours of digging, driving around to get a tree and replacing the sod we pulled up we now have a new ash tree in the front yard. Hopefully this baby will give us a little shade in the spring

The bathroom is finally done

Here is a pretty sad attempt at a collage.









Here's the sink.

Almost done

It appears we only have a few things left to do. The shower is usable and quite nice I might add. It'll need a bar soap holder and probably a better shampoo rack.

The sink is already purchased and at the house; I'm hoping a day of setup will get that in working order. After that we'll need to paint the door, add some baseboard molding, and hang the towel racks and this room will be good to go. Only a little bit longer and I can move on to the next house project ;)

ahhh... a shower

When we first bought this house we did what most homeowners do, we cleaned. In our cleaning we found a brand new shower head all wrapped up. I took a chance and installed it.

Last night was the first night testing out the shower and I have to say I couldn't be much happier with our find. What a relief that I don't need to go out and pay for a $100 shower head.

shower fixtures

I added a shower head, shower curtain rod, faucet, drain and all that was needed to shower. This bathroom is getting closer and closer.

Notice in this picture the darker grout lines in the corners where the tile meets the tub, or the tile walls meet each other. I picked up some caulk, made by the same manufacturer as the grout. Like the grout the caulk went on a little darker than I liked, but unlike the grout it never got lighter as it dried. A note to self, anytime they advertise they can match grout color to caulk color they can't.

let there be light... well.. some more light

After we primed the walls, on went the paint. I was skeptical at first about the colors Shelly chose. I thought the dark color would've been a little to dark for such a small room. She was right though and the color went well with the tile in the bathroom.

In addition to the light over the tub we've recessed a vanity in the wall and added lights on either side, complete with their own switch. This is a complete necessity for any guy who hates to shave and leave those scraggly hairs all over his face because he can't see himself in the mirror.

optimus prime

The last wall was tiled, and then the grout was put in place, and then of course sealed a few times.

The primer in this picture was meant for sealing the drywall so that's what we started with. Everything will be painted eventually so we might as well prime both ceiling and walls. The room looks brighter with white walls!

And now for the side wall

This wall took about 1.5-2 hours. It provided its own difficulties, particularly lining up the tile on the outside. It was particularly difficult to make it look good, but Shelly stood over my shoulder and made sure everything came out ok. :) One more side wall, a set of border tiles and this tub will be ready for some grout. Pretty soon this bathroom may actually be ready to use.

If you take a look in the fourth course of tile you can see where Shelly added a few design tiles (nicely spaced out of course) to break up the monotony.

the back wall

It took a little longer than planned, but I've never done vertical tile before so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's quite a bit more difficult and time consuming but I think it will look good when we're done. I learned that with vertical tile it's very difficult to lay out the tiles before you start so a lot of precutting based on my measurements had to be done. Unfortunately, that led to a necessary break in the middle of tile laying to "adjust" some tile cuts, oops. This back wall took about 3 hours.

A working garage

Now that the bathroom is completely drywalled, we're able to clean up our drywall staging area. I swept up, moved some stuff to the shed and programmed the garage door opener so there's a place to park. This will prove useful very soon as at least one of the cars is in desperate need of an oil change.

How are we gonna do the tub?

I started the tub tiling by creating a 3/8" plywood stand to hold the tile off the tub and so that everything would be lined up on the bottom.

Once I had the plywood in place I did a little dry run of tile laying with a little help from my friend duct tape. We decided to go with an offset pattern, and we pre-cut the tiles, but I just wanted to make sure everything was going to line up. It turns out I learned a few things when performing this little experiment so it turned out to be worthwhile.

The floor came out great, but I fear the wall is a completely different beast. With a little planning though, I'm sure everything will come together.

time for some tape

Thanks to the time spent by my father in law, the taping has a great start. With a little more work, the room will be ready for some priming. woohoo, this room will be finished yet!

Ode to my crapper

Ahhhh... The toilet is in. Although it'll be temporary (i.e. we'll have to remove it to tape and paint), it's nice to finally have a toilet. Now I don't have to run to McDonald's when I reach critical mass ;)

Tile tile everywhere

One week from the beginning of the project and the tile is on the floor. Here is a shot after the grouting was put in and it was sealed. Damn, that's a mighty nice floor.

Back to the bathroom

You can see that we covered the window in the bathroom. I know... some people would call it a travesty but it just wasn't functional. Natural light in the bathroom is wondeful, but not when it is at chest level in the shower. Since windows are pulled out from the outside of the house, covering it is not a big deal. We'll start that project when the weather is a little warmer.

Another mini project we started was the ceiling. It was just easier to rip it down. It had old drywall tape seams on it anyway, and it made installation of the overhead light and fan easier so it was a good thing all around. When we did pull it down we found a pretty useless layer of insulation so we replaced that with 6" of R19 and then added the vapor barrier.

Here you can also see some of the other things we accomplished. We insulated the exterior wall, putt up a vapor barrier, sheet rocked it, set the tub, durocked the floor and walls in preparation for tiling. Oh.. and all the wiring is done now too!

Welcome home Aiden

During the bathroom project, Shelly decided to set up the baby's room. A little paint, some baby furniture and some curtains turns that room around quite nicely. I'm sure Aiden will love it.

Let's just start from scratch

This is what happened after the first couple days. My father, my father in law and I went to town on the bathroom with crowbars and claw hammers. We tore everything down to bare studs. It turned out that there was no insulation in the one exterior wall in the bathroom so you can see we're adding some R13 here.

My step father made a cameo appearance, and with him came his vast plumbing knowledge and we fixed all the plumbing. Thanks to the late night spent there, it appears that all the plumbing is now roughed in. We moved the sink lines closer together so they'd be hidden behind out new pedestal sink. We changed the tub faucet configuration and added valves in the cellar to section off the bathroom pipes from the rest of the house, and yes... the valves can be faulty ;) Nothing a good tightening can't fix.

The first project

As you can probably see, the bathroom is in dire need of an update. Since we've got a son due the first week of May, and a bathroom is pretty much a necessity in any house ;), we've decided to start this project first. My wife is a little to large to help nowadays so I'll be staying at the house on a part time basis to "fix" the bathroom.

Our first house, bought at the end of March 2006

ok, so we've bought a house... and it needs a little TLC.