I Did That

It turns out that despite my extensive tool ownership, I am a few tools short of what I need to keep up the yard here.  In the old house I did very little yard work.  I paid someone to cut the grass and did what ever little pruning I had to do on an infrequent basis.  Here, I don’t have that luxury and will have to do a fair bit of yard work on my own.  So I’m going to need the tools it takes to do that.  Here;s a tentative list of what I’m going to need:

1. a riding lawnmower/tractor
2. a chipper/shredder
3. an edger
4. a gas chainsaw
5. a mortar mixer

Number 5 might seem a little strange next to the others, but I have a number of sidewalks to repair/replace and want to build at least 2 retaining walls and a couple of buildings, so I’m going to need to mix some concrete at some point.  I think I need the chipper before I get anything else and I think I will get a self-propelled push mower second hand at first because I will be beating the tar out of it in the back yard and there is no sense putting a brand new mower through that sort of punishment.  I can borrow my Father-in-law’s chainsaw for now.

No, work hasn’t stopped completely on the house.  My blogging about it has due to delays and the fact that I have managed to misplace my camera (!).

The kitchen is finished, with new appliances, countertops and cabinet harware in place.  It looks great, I wish you could see it.  I’ve got to find that camera.  It will probably show up at some point in the move.

The master bathroom is coming along slowly but surely.  I have had to enlist a bit of help with the heavy stuff so as not to hurt my back more, but Robert Lee has helped me move most of the heavy stuff around.  Right now I’m leveling the floor and preparing to put down Hardibacker so that I can tile it.

The tub is in, the felt paper and Durock are up in the tub surround, and I’ve installed the valve assembly for the new tub faucet.  I need to paint on the waterproofing layer and then it will be ready for tiling.

The sheetrock is done on the walls, but they have yet to be primed.

I haven’t done any electrical work, which leaves me with one sconce and two overhead vanity lights to install.  Since it is a double sinked vanity with two seperate mirrors, we decided to go wth two vanity lights to keep the symmetry going.  The wall sconce is near the toilet and I’m toying with the idea of putting a very low wattage bulb in it and a photoeye to turn it on in the dark, thus making it a kind of night light.  For right now, though, it is staying on a switch.

So that is where we are at.  I am about to go check the mortar bed for level now and if it is, the backer board goes down, if not I will level it out and wait for it to dry.

The countertops came in from Lowe’s today. They look really good. I haven’t attached them yet, they are just sitting in place. I didn’t really feel like tackling much today and I would rather just leave it be until I’m ready to do it right.

There is an area of the floor tile that is starting to pop loose.  It is unfortunately in a very heavy traffic area very near the back door and dining room door in the kitchen.  I’m not entirely sure what the problem is, but my initial guess is that the mortar was either spread too thin or was too wet/dry at that point.  It is near the area that I stopped for the day at one point, so I’m leaning towards the dry mortar explanation.

What I will do to resolve the problem is pick a square area that encompasses all of the popped tile (I think there are five of them) and remove all of the tile in that area and scrape away the dried mortar and grout.  I will then relay that entire area and regrout it.  That should take care of it.

It is entirely possible (but not likely) that there is a problem with the floor at that point that allows the tile to flex too much, but I never noticed much deflection when walking across it previously, so I doubt it.  Once the tile is up and everything is scraped away, I will examine it closely to make sure.

I’ve only got a few days left of this seven day break, let us take a look at how I’m doing, goalwise:

• Thursday-finish tiling through the kitchen (originally supposed to be completed by last Saturday), install Hall lighting fixtures.
• Friday-finish tiling the den (orig. to be completed last Sunday), install MBR light fixture, perhaps start grouting tile (probably not)
• Saturday-demolish the MBath (with my buddy Todd’s help), grout tile in Laundry, Kitchen and Den, eat Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom (I know that one will get done), install light fixture in kid’s BR.
• Sunday-finish anything on the list prior to here that is not completed, alter cabinet to accomodate new wall oven, install light fixture in guest BR.
• Monday-have appliances delivered, install wall oven, dishwasher and set refrigerator in place, go to Lowe’s to order countertops, set bathtub (or at least frame for it).
• Tuesday- (everything for remainder of week refers to Mbath) set bathtub for real, put up drywall and tub surround waterproofing.
• Wednesday-sand drywall, tile tub surround.
• Thursday-tile floor, have furniture moved in.

The appliances won’t be delivered until tomorrow, so I expected to be behind on that.  So I’m only about a day behind on the Mbath and I’m short a few light fixtures.  Turns out we haven’t bought at least one of those fixtures, so I’m inclined to feel pretty good about myself.  Today will be all about waterproofing the tub surround and hanging the drywall in the Mbath.

I had fully intended to do the tub surround and drywall yesterday.  My help, Robert, had said he felt like working last night and wanted to go on and knock the bathroom out.  I don’t get offers like that very often, so we headed over to the house about 7:30 pm to work.  After several trips back to get the tools we needed and some trickiness in leveling and securing the tub, I was too tired to really think straight.  That and I had forgotten the roofing nails that we would use to secure the felt paper (part of the waterproofing system) to the studs.  I wasn’t prepared to make yet another trip back to the in-laws to get supplies.  So about 10:30 pm we knocked off for the night.  This sort of thing always goes best on a clear mind.

In about an hour, I’m going to go and replace the shower plumbing and measure to make sure the vanity plumbing is set in the right places.  Then it is on to the felt paper and Durock. 

Other than some minor odds and ends, the tiling of the Laundry Room, Kitchen and Den is finished.  The tile has raised the floor height somewhat, so the doors have to be shaved down a little to clear the new height and I need to put down quarter round to finish off the edges of the floor at the baseboards.  That’s it though.

We’ve gotten most of the way done with the tile in the den, thanks to the awesome work of my wife, Marilyn and Mother-in-law (henceforth referred to as Momma).  It’s looking great and the tiling will be done today and then we will grout the Laundry Room and Kitchen.  That would put us only about a day behind because yesterday we did get the MBath demolished (thanks Todd!)  and another Thanksgiving dinner eaten, thanks to my Mother (henceforth referred to as Mom).

I had originally guessed that the bathtub would weigh in at about 300 lbs and had hoped to save the bathroom vanity and reuse it in another spot.  Heh. I wish that bathtub weighed 300 lbs. It is probably more in the 400 plus range and was a bearcat to pull out.  Both the bathtub and the vanity were embedded in an inch plus of mortar (I will measure it and let you know).  It took much sledgehammering and I actually pickaxed the mortar in the floor in front of it the tub so as to free it up.  Todd and I wiggled and pulled and pried it for a good bit before we figured out that it was embedded in the floor as well as the wall (we figured the wall stuff out pretty fast).  We finally got the darn tub loose only to realize that it weighed way more than expected.  So we wrestled its heavy behind into the bedroom.  Once we had it there, things eased up quite a bit and we used the handtruck to get it out of the house and into the carport.

Our attention was now free for the vanity and it didn’t take me long to realize that it was not gonna be saved and that it needed to be removed in pieces.  A few whacks of the sledgehammer and a bit of cussing later, we had destroyed the vanity and Todd had toted the pieces out.

I would just like to take a second now to record the fact that we owe Todd a mailbox setting.  Marilyn offered to take him out to dinner to pay for the extra (much extra) labor involved in tub and vanity removal and he refused.  He said that instead, he wanted his mailbox set straight up and down.  It seems that leveling the mailbox has been a bit of a challenge for him and that if we could get it straightened out (literally) for him, we are even.  Deal, sir, deal.

If you noticed, my goals involved finishing the tile in the kitchen today and installing the Hall light fixtures. In reality, we got halfway through tiling the kitchen. Period. Nothing more, nothing less.

Shocked? Me neither. It does look great so far though.

I love to set goals for my projects that I probably won’t (and never do) accomplish.  It’s a sickness I know I have, but I rarely if ever try to do anything about it.  Most of the time my first reaction at not meeting my goals is to set more unattainable goals.  In that spirit, here are my goals for this 8 day break starting Thursday (not all of these are me specifically, some will be completed by others):

• Thursday-finish tiling through the kitchen (originally supposed to be completed by last Saturday), install Hall lighting fixtures.
• Friday-finish tiling the den (orig. to be completed last Sunday), install MBR light fixture, perhaps start grouting tile (probably not)
• Saturday-demolish the MBath (with my buddy Todd’s help), grout tile in Laundry, Kitchen and Den, eat Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom (I know that one will get done), install light fixture in kid’s BR.
• Sunday-finish anything on the list prior to here that is not completed, alter cabinet to accomodate new wall oven, install light fixture in guest BR.
• Monday-have appliances delivered, install wall oven, dishwasher and set refrigerator in place, go to Lowe’s to order countertops, set bathtub (or at least frame for it).
• Tuesday- (everything for remainder of week refers to Mbath) set bathtub for real, put up drywall and tub surround waterproofing.
• Wednesday-sand drywall, tile tub surround.
• Thursday-tile floor, have furniture moved in.

That’s my impossible goals.  I’m not sure what fraction of them I will actually achieve, it depends partly on how much help I have and what distractions (and there will be many) come up.