I Did That

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.

I’m not sure I like the smaller picture setup.  I reduced the size of the pictures because in Safari (the browser I use on my Mac) the pictures bleed over the sidebar and look terrible.  Even with that issue resolved, I’m not sure I like the smaller pictures any better than the bleeding big ones.  I like being able to see more detail.  Of course, if you want so see the pictures in really big sizes, you can visit my Flickr account.

Sahara Beige Tile

Originally uploaded by jaslusher

After much procrastinating and wasting of time I’ve gotten about 2/3 of the way through tiling the laundry room. My original goal was to have been done with the laundry room, kitchen and den at this point.

Didn’t happen.

Thursday (Thanksgiving day, yes) I am going to hit it hard again and try to get through the kitchen at least. That is, if I don’t find some minor piece of nothing to occupy my time.

Leveling The Floor

Originally uploaded by jaslusher

The floors in parts of this old house have a bit of droop to them. 40 years of settling have put almost 1/2 an inch of drop from the front of the fireplace to the corner of the shelves/window. There is currently linoleum on the floor, but since I don’t know whether there is any asbestos in that vinyl, I decided to encase it in leveling compound and/or plywood depending on the area. Asbestos is only a problem in things that are disturbed, so by going over the top of it, I kill two birds with one stone, I level the floors and seal off any potential asbestos.

When I’m done, the floor in the laundry room, kitchen and den will all be ceramic tile layed on a diagonal.

Painted Walls and Cabinets, originally uploaded by jaslusher.

Here’s the paint colors for the walls and cabinets. You can see the builtins in the den getting the same priming treatment that the kitchen got.

Priming, originally uploaded by jaslusher.

Lots of work was involved in prepping the paneling and cabinets for paint. I removed the cabinet doors and hardware (numbering the doors for easy reinstallation later) and I lightly sanded the walls and the cabinets. My mother-in-law and my aunt-in-law primed everything. They had quite the time getting inside some of those cabinets.

Since this is a new blog (in a relative sense), don’t be surprised if your comments get held for moderation the first time.  Once I have approved the first comment you make, you should be good to go.  Hopefully I will have some time over the next few months to add some bells and whistles to this shinding to make it less barebones, but for now we are just going to do what works.

I didn’t get any of my goals accomplished today.  So my goals for Thursday are now exactly like the goals from Wednesday.

I spent the whole day buying things and debating with my lovely wife.  We were weighing the pros and cons of getting Corian countertops and decided eventually to not get them.  The main reason being that although we love the look and feel of them, we were still going to be installing them on 40 year old cabinets.  Though the cabinets are solid and look reasonably good now (especially after being painted), we will probably want to replace them within about 10 years and will end up destroying the countertops then.  Since Corian costs over 4 times what laminate countertops do, we feel like it’s not really worth it if we are just going to be ripping them back up in the next decade sometime.  So we chose laminate.  In fact, we chose this laminate.  We will end up saving roughly $1700 on that decision.  Which will pay for other toys, I’m sure.